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.
Travelogue
After having arranged for fresh provisions and all kinds of refreshments, we set sail again, sailing away from land. Due to the wind’s silence, we proceeded into the sea without sailing, drifting for…
Appointment of a Doctor for the Poor
On Sunday 3 Tammuz 5416, the lords, their honors, the wardens, may the Rock preserve them, gathered together and once again accepted master Yontil the balbirer [barber] to be the expert physician for…
Pinkas Lita (Register of Lithuania): On Itinerant Beggars
With regard to beggars who rise up and roam through the countryside (Job 1:7), walking through its length and breadth (Genesis 13:17). They come from a faraway land (Joshua 9:9) and spread out over…
Responsum: On a Torah Curtain of Printed Silk
I received your inquiry in which you asked me to express my opinion . . . concerning a curtain with multicolored images that was designated a Torah curtain, and which has been used for some time for…
Responsum: On a Reluctant Bridegroom
There was a certain man in our country who had become totally impoverished, and who had betrothed his elder daughter to her appropriate mate. During the period of her betrothal—the date fixed for…
Safed Exorcism
I was in the midst of a large group of people who were there, close to a hundred people, among them scholars and heads of communities. And two men, who knew adjurations and many things, approached the…
Bine’ot deshe’ (In Green Pastures): On Visiting the Sick
Whenever you go in to visit any sick person, whoever he may be, coerce him, even against his wishes, into making a will, and do not have any concern on account of his sons and his wife and…
Sefat ha-shulḥan (Rim of the Table)
To cause a blessing to rest within your house, by virtue of your deeds in this world throughout your life; to include [a blessing in] the world to come, as indicated by the length of your days…
Letter to Rome
Behold, from the time of our settlement in the city that the Lord has chosen, which He had desired for His habitation (Psalms 132:13), we heard your voice and obeyed, for you stand in the breach…
Sifte yeshenim (Lips of the Sleepers): On Citing Authors
I am astonished to see that for reading just the names of the holy books, one receives his reward, as if he had read and studied them all. If so, then one will not make much of an effort to study…
Epístola invectiva contra Prado (A Harsh Epistle against Prado)
A furious epistle against [Juan de] Prado, a philosopher-doctor who doubted or did not believe in the truth of the divine scripture and sought to cover up his maliciousness with the feigned…
O my soul’s beloved (Yedid nefesh)
O my soul’s beloved, merciful father, drag your servant to do your will!
Your…