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.
Laments of Baruch for the Destruction of Jerusalem
[ . . . ] I, Baruch, came back and sat in front of the doors of the Temple, and I raised the following lamentation over Zion and said:
Blessed is he who was not born,or he who was born…
Azariah’s Prayer in the Furnace
They walked around in the midst of the flames, singing hymns to God and blessing the Lord. Then Azariah stood still in the fire and prayed aloud:
“Blessed are you, O Lord, God of our ancestors, and…
Lament of Jephthah’s Daughter
And when the daughter of Jephthah came to Mount Stelac, she began to weep, and this is her lamentation that she lamented and wept over herself before she departed. And she said,
“Hear, you mountains…
Phoenix, Guardian of the World
And taking me, he led me where the sun goes forth. And he showed me a chariot drawn by four horses and fire underneath it. And upon the chariot sat a man wearing a fiery crown. The chariot was drawn…
A King with Two Gardens
And Moses stretched out his hand over the sea (Exodus 14:27). Immediately the sea began to withstand him. Moses ordered it in the name of the Holy One, blessed be He, to divide itself but it would not…
Rebuilding the Temple
When they heard the blast of the trumpets, the Samaritans, who happened to be enemies of the tribes of Judah and Benjamin, came running together, wanting to learn the cause of the uproar. Perceiving…
Mishnah Yevamot
Though these [Beth Hillel] forbid and these [Beth Shammai] permit, and these disqualify and these make eligible, Beth Shammai did not refrain from marrying women from [the families of]…
Tosefta Avodah Zarah
3. One should dwell in the land of Israel, even in a town in which the majority of the inhabitants are gentiles, rather than dwell outside the land [of Israel], even in a town in which all the…
Mekhilta de-Rabbi Ishmael
If a man gives to another an ass or an ox or a sheep [or any animal to guard] (Exodus 22:9). [ . . . ]
An ass or an ox or a sheep teaches me only about an ass, an ox, and a sheep. Where…
Pesikta de-Rav Kahana
1. Who can bring forth a clean thing out of an unclean thing? Is it not the One? (Job 14:4).
Like Abraham out of Teraḥ, Hezekiah out of Ahaz, Mordechai out of Shimei, Israel out of the nations, the…
Hecataeus on Moses and the Origin of the Jewish People
When in ancient times a pestilence arose in Egypt, the common people ascribed their troubles to the workings of a divine agency; for indeed with many strangers of all sorts dwelling in their midst and…
Pompey’s Conquest of Jerusalem
In this way, and without fighting, the Romans came to possess Cilicia and inland Syria and Coele-Syria and Palestine and all the regions of Syria bearing other names between the Euphrates, Egypt, and…