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.
De la divina providencia, ó sea naturaleza universal (On Divine Providence, or Universal Nature)
Reuben:You are right, for there is no way out of such dilemmas and they allow no subterfuge. However, returning to our topic, before I show you the true definition of this noun Nature, I must explain…
Ḥovot Yehudah (The Duties of Judah)
It was explained earlier in part 2 that faith is [like a] possession that is, it is a possession that belongs to man’s soul, the way knowledge belongs to the soul…
Short Treatise on God, Man, and His Well-Being
Love:I see, Brother, that my being and perfection depend entirely on your perfection; and since the perfection of the object you have conceived…
Sefer ha-ḥayim (The Book of Life)
In which it is explained that the essence of the Torah is the performance of the commandments, not intellectual knowledge; and also the reason why it is called the Talmud…
Dialoghi d’amore (Dialogues of Love)
[ . . . ] Philo: I have already told you that the cognition of the generating nature is meant to direct them towards their natural perfection, without any other…
Astronomical Illustration
This diagram of the cosmos is from a treatise on astronomy, Sefer mareh ha-ofanim (The Appearance of the Heavenly Beings), by Solomon ben Abraham Avigdor. The treatise was mostly a translation of…
Letter to the Friends of Lessing (On the Spinoza Conversations between Lessing and Jacobi)
Our friend’s devotion to Spinozism is not to be seen as a mere hypothesis (as the Patriarch in Nathan puts it), postulated simply in order to discuss its pros and cons. Herr Jacobi, a man of…
The Kabbalah, or The Religious Philosophy of the Hebrews
At a time when the worship of the dead letter degenerated into idolatry; at a time when men passed their lives in counting the verses, the words and the letters of the Law, at a time when the official…
In the Valley of Death
Human wisdom has limits—stupidity has none.
God created a world with gifts and blessings for all: earth and water, sun and air in plenty, rye and wheat in abundance, a potato for everyone, a roof…
Moses Mendelssohn, the German and Jewish Philosopher
Moses Mendelssohn’s German Philosophy did not survive him and his generation of the German Aufklärer. As the leading German philosopher, apart from some psychological and aesthetical theories, he…
Philosophy and Law: Contributions to the Understanding of Maimonides and His Predecessors
In a phrase of Hermann Cohen, Maimonides is the “classic of rationalism” in Judaism. This phrase appears to us to be correct in a stricter sense than Cohen may have intended: Maimonides’…
Demons
The Three Ketovim
There are three Ketovim: in the early morning
One wanders off, who in the fresh bread
Has concealed his shameless anger.
Do not eat it, as it will lead to a painful death,
Over the…