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.
The Book of the Mysteries
The name of the first firmament is called Shamayim. Within it are encampments filled with wrath. And seven thrones are prepared there and upon them are seated overseers, and around them on all sides…
Laments of Baruch for the Destruction of Jerusalem
[ . . . ] I, Baruch, came back and sat in front of the doors of the Temple, and I raised the following lamentation over Zion and said:
Ble…
Azariah’s Prayer in the Furnace
They walked around in the midst of the flames, singing hymns to God and blessing the Lord. Then Azariah stood still in the fire and prayed aloud:
“Blessed are you, O Lord, God of our ancestors, and…
Phoenix, Guardian of the World
And taking me, he led me where the sun goes forth. And he showed me a chariot drawn by four horses and fire underneath it. And upon the chariot sat a man wearing a fiery crown. The chariot was drawn…
A King with Two Gardens
And Moses stretched out his hand over the sea (Exodus 14:27). Immediately the sea began to withstand him. Moses ordered it in the name of the Holy One, blessed be He, to divide itself but it would not…
Tosefta Avodah Zarah
3. One should dwell in the land of Israel, even in a town in which the majority of the inhabitants are gentiles, rather than dwell outside the land [of Israel], even in a town in which all the…
Mekhilta de-Rabbi Ishmael
If a man gives to another an ass or an ox or a sheep [or any animal to guard] (Exodus 22:9). [ . . . ]
An ass or an ox or a sheep teaches me…
Pesikta de-Rav Kahana
1. Who can bring forth a clean thing out of an unclean thing? Is it not the One? (Job 14:4).
Like Abraham out of Teraḥ, Hezekiah out of Ahaz, Mordechai out of Shimei, Israel out…
Hecataeus on Moses and the Origin of the Jewish People
When in ancient times a pestilence arose in Egypt, the common people ascribed their troubles to the workings of a divine agency; for indeed with many strangers of all sorts dwelling in their midst and…
Pompey’s Conquest of Jerusalem
In this way, and without fighting, the Romans came to possess Cilicia and inland Syria and Coele-Syria and Palestine and all the regions of Syria bearing other names between the Euphrates, Egypt, and…
The Decline and Death of Herod
From that time on Herod’s disease spread to affect every part of his body with a range of symptoms. He had a fever (relatively mild), intolerable itching all…
Incitement to Revolt
So this boil [of the Egyptian false prophet] too was lanced, but, as happens in a sick body, another tumour broke out elsewhere. The charlatans and the terrorists joined forces to incite large numbers…