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.
Appointment of a Doctor for the Poor
On Sunday 3 Tammuz 5416, the lords, their honors, the wardens, may the Rock preserve them, gathered together and once again accepted master Yontil the balbirer [barber] to be the expert physician for…
Letter to the Envoy Keller
His princely Eminence has been pleased in his benevolence, while I am still confined to bed because of my illness to reveal to me sufficient to let me know that the matter has met with difficulties…
Pinkas Lita (Register of Lithuania): On Itinerant Beggars
With regard to beggars who rise up and roam through the countryside (Job 1:7), walking through its length and breadth (Genesis 13:17). They come from a faraway land (Joshua 9:9) and spread out over…
Letter to Netanel Trabotto: On Prayer
A copy of the letter from the perfect sage R. Samuel Norzi, of blessed memory, in which he seeks to permit, as per his opinion, the singers [in the synagogue] to…
Responsum: On a Torah Curtain of Printed Silk
I received your inquiry in which you asked me to express my opinion . . . concerning a curtain with multicolored images that was designated a Torah curtain, and which has been used for some time for…
Responsum: On a Reluctant Bridegroom
There was a certain man in our country who had become totally impoverished, and who had betrothed his elder daughter to her appropriate mate. During the period of her betrothal—the date fixed for…
Responsum: On Postponing a Wedding
Question 4: Reuben, a young Torah scholar from the city of Tiberias, contracted a marital arrangement with Rachel, the daughter of his uncle Jacob, from the city of Sepphoris. This is the text of the…
Shene luḥot ha-berit (Two Tablets of the Covenant): On Rearing Children
A crucial and fundamental principle is the proper rearing of children. The Torah has stated: And you shall teach them [the words of Torah] to your children (Deuteronomy 11:19), for that is the…
Bine’ot deshe’ (In Green Pastures): On Visiting the Sick
Whenever you go in to visit any sick person, whoever he may be, coerce him, even against his wishes, into making a will, and do not have any concern on account of his sons and his wife and…
Confession
I admit my guilt . . . in that I was told of a maiden who was [there] the daughter of Juan Estevan who had ascended to heaven and was approached there by an angel, and how she had told of the many…
Chronicle of Events in Adrianople
[Sabbatai’s] illumination grew steadily more intense up to the thirteenth day of the month of Adar [23 February]. On that day his brother came for a stay, along with four of Vani Effendi’s men.…