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.
Jewish Divorce Proceedings
Johann Christoph Georg Bodenschatz's Kirchliche Verfassung der heutigen Juden, sonderlich derer in Deutschland (Religious Constitution of Today’s Jews, Especially Those in Germany), published in…
Tashlich
Traditionally performed on the afternoon of the first day of Rosh Hashanah, Tashlich is a rite in which Jews symbolically cast away their sins by throwing breadcrumbs into a body of moving water…
Café of the Inner Mind: Men’s Room
Simmons is best known for artworks in which she stages dolls, plastic figurines, and other inanimate objects in tableaus and then photographs them. In 1987, she began to use wooden ventriloquists’…
Amulet to Be Hung over the Crib of a Newborn
The Hebrew word Shaddai—another name for God—is etched in the center of this ornate silver amulet from Italy.
Bayit ne’eman (Faithful House)
In Midrash ḥazit [Midrash Rabbah Song of Songs] it is stated:
And besides that Koheleth was wise, he also taught the people knowledge; ye…
Lev avot (Heart of the Fathers)
Simeon ben Shetaḥ would say: You should cross-examine the witnesses extensively, and take care with your words, lest they learn how to lie from them [m. Avot 1:9].
Solomon ha-Levi explained: The…
Regimiento de la vida (Regimen of Living)
The rule of the aforementioned fifth and sixth items, which concern going to bed and rising. It is stated and summarized from what has been said in the past, that sleep being so harmful…
‘Eser she’elot (Ten Questions)
Are we who are in this exile the people of Israel, that is, the worshipers of the God of Israel . . . essentially . . . or in . . . name only? . . . For it seems to me that we are not the people of…
Phoenician Ship
Phoenician ship in Assyrian relief from palace of Sennacherib (reigned 705–681 BCE), Nineveh. Transport galleys flee Tyre in the face of Sennacherib’s attack in 701 BCE. Soldiers and passengers stand…
From Beirut to Jerusalem
On the morning of June 1, 1984, I drove from Beirut to Jerusalem. The taxi came early and Mohammed and I said our goodbyes in my sandy parking lot overlooking the Mediterranean, while Eddy the…
When Bad Things Happen to Good People
There is only one question which really matters: why do bad things happen to good people? All other theological conversation is intellectually diverting; somewhat like…
It Is Up to Us
It is up to us
To hallow Creation,
To respond to Life
With the fullness of our lives.
It is up to us
To meet the World,
To embrace the Whole
Even as we wrestle
With its parts.
It is up to us
To…