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.
Iranians Visiting the Synagogue at Dura-Europos
The Sasanians conquered and destroyed the Roman garrison town of Dura-Europos in 256 CE. Dura-Europos was a multicultural city and the home of a sizable Jewish community that worshiped in a stunning…
Sadducee Rejection of the Law of Eruv
1. One who lives in a courtyard with a non-Jew or with one who does not acknowledge the [principle of] eruv, that [person] restricts him [from making use of the eruv]—the words of R. Meir. R. Eliezer…
Rescuing Sacred Writings
All sacred writings may be saved from a fire, whether we read from them or not [on the Sabbath]. And even if they are written in any language, they must be stored…
Treating the Synagogue as Part of the Temple
It happened in the days of R. Ḥalafta and R. Ḥananiah ben Teradyon that a man passed before the ark [as shaliaḥ tsibur] and completed the entire benediction, and they did not respond, “Amen.” [The ḥaz…
Mastering the Emotions
It is evident that reason rules even the more violent emotions: lust for power, vainglory, boasting, arrogance, and malice. For the temperate mind repels all these malicious emotions, just as it…
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…