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.
Wisdom versus Labor
How can one become wise who handles the plow,
and who glories in the shaft of a goad,
who drives oxen and is occupied with their work,
and whose talk is about bulls?
Translation from the New…
Synagogue Seating according to One’s Craft
R. Judah [b. Ilai] said, “Whoever has never seen the double stoa [i.e., colonnade] of Alexandria has never in his life seen the glory of Israel. It is a kind of large basilica, a stoa within a stoa…
Disputes between Babatha and Her Co-Widow, Miriam
Before the attending witnesses who also affixed their signatures, Babathas (sic), a Maozene woman, daughter of Simon, summoned Miriam, an En-gedian woman, daughter of Beianos, to accompany her in…
Philo’s Explanation of Sukkot
The last of the annual feasts, called Tabernacles, recurs at the autumn equinox. From this we may draw two morals. The first is, that we should honour equality and hate inequality, for the former is…
The Seventeenth of Tammuz and the Ninth of Av
6. There were five events that happened to our ancestors on the seventeenth of Tammuz and five on the ninth of Av. On the seventeenth of Tammuz the tablets were shattered, the tamid offering was…
Condition-Free Divorce
If a man divorces his wife and said to her, “You are free to marry any man but so-and-so,” R. Eliezer permits her [to marry on the strength of this get], but the rabbis forbid her. What should he do…
No Life after Death
All this I laid to heart, examining it all, how the righteous and the wise and their deeds are in the hand of God; whether it is love or hate one does not know. Everything that confronts them is…
The Messiah as Son of God
He will be called son of God, and they will call him son of the Most High. Like the sparks that you saw, so will their kingdom be; they will rule several year[s] over the earth and crush…
The Soul Is to the Body as God Is to the World
Why did David’s soul praise the Holy One? He thought: The soul fills the body, and God fills the earth, as it is written: For I fill the heaven and the earth, says the Lord (Jeremiah 23:24). The soul…
Bloodletting and Washing Hands
Aramaic
The demon [ruling over] foodstuffs is called neki’ah [clean]; the demon appointed over poverty is called nevil [folly; or, nevul, filth]. Filth on the spout of a pitcher leads to poverty. He…
The 248 Limbs of the (Male) Body
Hebrew
There are 248 limbs in the body. Thirty in the foot—six in each toe, ten in the ankle, two in the shin, five in the knee, one in the thigh, three in the hip. [There are] eleven ribs, thirty…