Sample Sources
The sources below are those contained in our three curated collections—covering themes of Passover, Gender Roles, and Holocaust Resistance. They represent a fraction of the thousands of sources that will be available when the full site launches in 2024.
Donna Clara
In the evening through her garden
Wanders the Alcalde’s daughter;
Festal sounds of drum and trumpet
Ring out hither from the castle.
“I am weary of the dances,
Honeyed words of adulation
From the…
Sermon of Ethical Rebuke Preached . . . during the Penitential Period Preceding the New Year’s Day, 5505 [1744], to the Congregation of Metz
The prophet Hosea cried out: Come, let us turn back to the Lord; He attacked, and He can heal us; He wounded, and He can bind us up. In two days He will make us whole again; on the third day He will…
Sermon for the Sabbath Preceding Passover
This is therefore followed by a question: since it is so that we are still slaves, why is this night of Egyptian exile different from all the other nights of exile under other kingdoms? Why all this…
Israel and Humanity
Judaism’s approach to history is shaped by the fact that unlike other religions, it locates perfection not at the beginning but at the end of history. This, surely, is the…
Arbol de vidas, en el qual se contienen los dinim mas necessarios que deve observar todo Ysrael (Tree of Life, in Which Are Included Those Laws Most Necessary for All Israel to Observe)
The will of the creator is that the world should be sustained, expanded, and populated daily by man, whom he shaped for his glory. That is, indeed, why he created this great machine, and…
Exemplar de penitencia dividido em tres discursos para o dia santo de Kipur (The Pattern of Penitence, or Three Discourses for the Sacred Day of Yom Kippur)
This disunity among us, the lack of piousness for one another, the civil war of murmurings in places where conversations and visits occur, evils that have caused the past and extend…
Debate between Wine and Water
“I’m called the offspring of the grape,” said the wine. “People drink me fervently, and I’m very fine. I can make people joke and jibe, I can drive away their terrible pains, I can delight their…
Awake, my heart, from your slumber!
A poem that I, Sa‘adia Longo, wrote to an important and wealthy man from Nicopolis, who came here to Salonika to marry a woman. I was not able to participate in his celebration because I was…
Like a wooer and a husband
Like a wooer and a husbandI devote myself to your faithsince being a husband does not implya courtly surrender.Like a wooer I pursue your lovebecause I wish to meritthe privileges of a husbandthough I…
Are You
Are you Avraham’s, Yitzhak’s, Yaakov’s?
Are you my mother’s god?
What’s mine of all this?
What did I take by force of hand
and why am I alone
in a city meant to be my city
on account of a mother born…
The Poverty Line
As if you could draw a line and say: below this there’s poverty.
Here’s the bread that turned black in the colorations
Of cheap makeup
And the olives in their little plate
Atop the cloth over the…