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.
Commerce Breeds Sin
A merchant can hardly keep from wrongdoing,
nor is a tradesman innocent of sin.
Many have committed sin for gain,
and those who seek to get rich will avert their…
Attendance at Festivals
Further, he does not consent to those who wish to perform the rites in their houses, but bids them rise up from the ends of the earth and come to this temple. In this way he also applies the severest…
Prescriptions and Pilgrimage to Jerusalem
Now on the fifteenth day of the same month, when the season changes to winter, he [Moses] enjoins each household to pitch tents, in apprehension of the cold and for protection at that time of year…
Syrians in Palestine Practice Circumcision
[T]he Colchians and Egyptians and Ethiopians are the only nations that have from the first practiced circumcision. The Phoenicians and the Syrians of Palestine acknowledge of themselves that they…
Grounds for Divorce
Beth Shammai says: A man should not divorce his wife unless he has found her guilty of some unseemly conduct, as it says: Because he has found some unseemly thing in her (Deuteronomy 24:1). Beth…
No Life after Death
All this I laid to heart, examining it all, how the righteous and the wise and their deeds are in the hand of God; whether it is love or hate one does not know. Everything that confronts them is…
The Messiah as Son of God
He will be called son of God, and they will call him son of the Most High. Like the sparks that you saw, so will their kingdom be; they will rule several year[s] over the earth and crush…
The Soul Is to the Body as God Is to the World
Why did David’s soul praise the Holy One? He thought: The soul fills the body, and God fills the earth, as it is written: For I fill the heaven and the earth, says the Lord (Jeremiah 23:24). The soul…
Bloodletting and Washing Hands
Aramaic
The demon [ruling over] foodstuffs is called neki’ah [clean]; the demon appointed over poverty is called nevil [folly; or, nevul, filth]. Filth on the spout of a pitcher leads to poverty. He…
The 248 Limbs of the (Male) Body
Hebrew
There are 248 limbs in the body. Thirty in the foot—six in each toe, ten in the ankle, two in the shin, five in the knee, one in the thigh, three in the hip. [There are] eleven ribs, thirty…