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.
Bet Yehudah (The House of Judah)
The Hakham Rabbi Abraham Monson, may God protect him, was a resident of Tétouan, where he was born and raised among his siblings and relatives. When he reached the appropriate age he married a woman…
Responsum: On Women’s Rights to Divorce
Question: Some of the poor members of the nation in Egypt [do as follows]. When a man fights with his wife and their marriage is not working out, and the wife wants to divorce but the husband does not…
Ohale Ya‘akov (The Tents of Jacob): On a Betrothal
Question: The following incident occurred: The gentlemen, R. Abraham Vidal, may he rest in peace, was married to the modest lady, Estrella, sister of the fine young man, R. David Pinto, may God…
Sefer ḥayim ve-ḥesed (Book of Life and Righteousness): On Purim
Their custom on the night of Purim was for each individual to pray in his own private domain and home, and…
Prayer of Thanksgiving after the Portuguese Attack on Recife
And Isaac offered this prayer and supplication before the Lord:
Master of the worlds and Lord of lords, possessed of infinite wisdom and endless understanding, who emanates through His beings which…
Letter to Samuel Isaac Norzi: On Prayer
A halakhic decision written by Netanel Trabotto about singers [accompanying prayer in the synagogue] who repeated the word crown as well as the Name of God, and they…
Responsum: On Painting Synagogue Walls
In answer to those who ask me whether or not it is permitted to paint the walls of the synagogue with pictures of grass, trees, and calyxes, we researched the question and our answer is as follows:
At…
Ethical Will
The study program of a Torah scholar should follow roughly this order: the Bible, as mentioned above, and the entirety of the Mishnah, as stated above. He should even complete the Orders of the…
Ge’ ḥizayon (Valley of Vision)
In a dream, in a night vision, while [I was] asleep upon [my] bed during my imprisonment, a voice called in my ears. The voice was the voice of Jacob, like the voice of my father, may his memory be…
Shilte ha-giborim (Shields of the Mighty)
The kinnor, called in a foreign tongue arpa (harp), is a wooden instrument made in the likeness of a wide-open entrance without their being doors on it, and its upper threshold is broad and its lower…
Ku-bukh (The Book of Cows)
A Lion on his deathbed lay.
There’s truth in every word I say.
He was gravely ill indeed.
Then came to him a goodly host
Of all the forest-dwelling beasts.
They came most eagerly…
A woman beautiful in every way
A woman beautiful in every way
I give you—pedigreed, with every skill—
And all you want to know is what’s the dowry!
That’s not the way to think; that’s faulty judgment.
If you’d appraise her…