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.
The Fox and the Fish
The sages taught: One time, [after the Bar Kokhba rebellion,] the evil empire [of Rome] decreed that Israel may not engage in [the study and practice of] Torah. Pappos ben Judah came and found R…
The Noahide Laws
8:4. Concerning the seven commandments that were prescribed to the children of Noah: Setting up courts of justice, [prohibitions against] idolatry, blasphemy, fornication, bloodshed, robbery, and…
Mishnah Rosh Hashanah
8. It happened that two witnesses came and said, “We saw it [the new moon] in the morning in the east and in the evening in the west.” R. Yoḥanan ben Nuri said: They are lying witnesses. When they…
Tosefta Bava Kamma
16. He who frightens his fellow to death is exempt under human law but liable under heavenly law.
If he shouted in his ear and deafened him, he is exempt.
If he seized him by the ear [or: seized him…
Bavli Sanhedrin
[If] his father wishes [to hold him liable to prosecution under Deuteronomy 21’s law of “a stubborn and rebellious son”—ed.] but his mother does not wish [that, or if] his father does not wish [to…
Lamentations Rabbah
R. Abba bar Kahana began: Who is the wise man who will understand this . . . (Jeremiah 9:11). R. Simeon ben Yoḥai taught: If you have seen towns uprooted from their place…
Civil War over Hasmonean Succession
The unexpected success won by Aristobulus alarmed his enemies, most notably Antipater, for whom he had a long-standing detestation. Antipater was an Idumaean by birth, and ancestry, wealth, and other…
Olympic Games
Because of this, Herod departed even more from the ancestral customs and gradually corrupted the ancient way of life, which should have been inviolable, through the introduction of foreign practices…
Roman Exposure, Tragedy, and Burning of the Law
After the death of Herod the king of Chalcis, Claudius appointed to the kingship his nephew Agrippa (the son of Herod’s brother Agrippa). As procurator of the rest of the province Tiberius Alexander…
Josephus Rescued from the City
Meanwhile Josephus, still insistently going round outside the city to reiterate his appeals, was struck on the head by a stone and dropped senseless on the spot. The Jews made a dash for his body, and…
Ban on Circumcision
At this time also the Jews began war, because they were forbidden to practice circumcision.
Translated by David Magie.
Epiphanius on a Certain Joseph and the Patriarch
One of them was Josephus—not the ancient Josephus, the author and chronicler, but Josephus of Tiberias, [born] during the old age of the Emperor Constantine of blessed memory. This Josephus…