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.
Hymn to the Creator
Great and Holy are you, Yhwh,
the Most Holy from generation to generation.
In front of him walks glory…
Qumran Covenant Ceremony Blessings and Curses
And the priests shall bless all the men of the lot of God who walk perfectly in all his ways, saying: “May he bless you with all good, and preserve you from all evil! May he lighten your heart with…
Preexistent Wisdom as Torah
Wisdom praises herself,
and tells of her glory in the midst of her people.
In the assembly of the Most High she opens her…
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…
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…
Ritual Bath
1:1. There are six types of bodies of water [that may be used for immersion], one superior to another, and another one superior to that one. Water in cisterns: If an impure person drank [from it] and…
Seeing God and Becoming Stars
“Now this is the order of those who have kept the ways of the Most High, when they shall be separated from their mortal body. During the time that they lived in it, they laboriously served the…
Diet and Regimen Involved in a Cure
[Aramaic] Said R. Judah: The [sting of a] hornet, if a thorn or an abscess is pricking him, if one’s eye pains him, or someone is overcome by fever—for all those, [the heat in] the bathhouse…
The Course of Pregnancy
Hebrew
The rabbis taught: During the first three months, the embryo occupies the lowest dwelling chamber; during the middle [three months], it occupies the middle dwelling…