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.
Family Chronicle
At that time, this story [parashah] was written: a great event happened to the Jews, which caused downfall such as never had been in the world before and never would occur again. They came before the…
Historia de’ riti Ebraici (History of the Jewish Rites): On the Sabbath
- Jews hold the Sabbath, above all other feasts, with the greatest veneration on account of it being named so often in the Scripture and being ordered…
Sermon: On the Holy Land
The three problems that I first asked are explained in regard to all of that which I have said. The first: Why is it called the “Holy Land” and the “Holy Temple”? This is according to the fact that it…
Yiddish Translation of the Bible
Should we not cry and weep that until now our scholars have not concerned themselves to provide us with a 24 [i.e., Bible] in Yiddish, arranged according to the simple meaning of the text, word for…
Dissertaciones sobre el Mesías (Dissertations on the Messiah)
One must not close one’s ears to the heretic, as the orthodox can easily open his eyes. For this reason, pressure and punishment should never be used against any religion. Debates are useful. But…
Nomologia o discursos legales (Nomology, or Legal Discourses)
If, in order to understand the human laws, we utilize the explanations and glosses made by the…
The Prisoner of Desire
Caged in a city of refuge, unredeemed, though the High Priest is already dead; kept alive by the hope of being ransomed; at all times manacled in the chains and bonds of love; struck on the cheek…
As on this month’s last day
As on this month’s last day,
the moon is waning,
make my sins wane, O Lord,
my merits flourish.
I know my heart is hard—
a wicked web whose threads are sin—
and I deserve the fire
for weaving wrong…
In Lighthearted Praise of the Holy Law in the Foundation of the Synagogue
The Law has such a great house—oh, look what suitors she does have!Who can doubt they are illustrious,Since on such a grand house they call?Even the judges of the peoplehave engaged in wooing her,show…
On the Shore, Tel Aviv, Winter 1974
A crocodile cloud swallowed a cloud-cloud.
All is clogged
and where did the war go?
The pier is painted red and yellow
with the inscription: Tel Aviv.
The drums of the depths are indifferent.
In the…
Gaudeamus
[…] In my confusion
I didn’t know how to answer my detractors, those
who brand me
a poseur because I pronounce the c in the Castilian manner or I say fellow instead of guy (I love)
miscegenations
(pe…