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.
Mif‘alot Elohim (The Works of God)
A baby that has fallen from a high place and become mute, his mother should take his hand and place it in her womb and afterwards thrust that hand into the mouth of the baby. After that, the woman…
To Kill a Foe
To kill a foe: write these twelve names on deerskin or calfskin parchment on Monday evening at the third or fourth hour, or at those times at night. And this is what you shall write:He who gives forth…
Dedication (to Gracia Nasi): Ferrara Bible
It would not seem proper, most magnificent Lady, that now we are about to print the Bible in our Spanish tongue, translated from the Hebrew word for word—so rare a work never before known until our…
Regulations: On Purchasing Copies of the Talmud
502. Since our eyes have seen the great neglect of Torah among schoolchildren, caused by [not] printing of folios of the Gemara [with Rashi’s commentary], because the…
Spanish Translation of the Bible
In his De officiis, most discreet reader, Tullius Cicero writes that nothing can move us so powerfully as to see some form or kind of benefit, which must be esteemed all the more, the less it is of an…
Novelot ḥokhmah (Fallen Fruit of Wisdom)
[ . . . ] Now you know and are witness that I have composed several works on various topics. However, I did not write them in order to publish them; rather, I prepared them for my own use, to…
On Life’s Deception and Disillusion
Sad is the man who forgets God
without waking from the dream of his error,
and of the evil that awaits him is never aware
until his sin of his death is the cause.
In his obstinate and…
Tsaḥut bediḥuta de-kiddushin (A Comedy of Betrothal)
Amon and Deborah His WifeAmon:Proclaim to the citizens of our city that in joy and gladness we propose to marry our daughter Beruriah to the handsome Jedidiah, Sholom’s son. Our most…
Journey to the End of the Millennium
From the corner of his eye, Rabbi Elbaz now observed the anxiety in Ben Attar’s face receding somewhat, and a short row of white teeth gleaming in the smile of a merchant who finally sees the hope of…
Zakhor: Jewish History and Memory
The Hebrew Zakhor—“Remember”—announces my elusive theme. Memory is always problematic, usually deceptive, sometimes treacherous. Proust knew this, and the English reader is deprived of the full force…
The Four Children
בָּרוּךְ הַמָּקוֹם בָּרוּךְ הוּא. בָּרוּךְ שֶׁנָּתָן תּוֹרָה לְעַמּוֹ יִשְׂרָאֵל. בָּרוּךְ.הוּא: כְּנֶגֶד אַרְבָּעָה בָנִים דִּבְּרָה תוֹרָה. אֶחָד חָכָם. וְאֶחָד רָשָׁעוְאֶחָד תָּם. וְאֶחָד שֶׁאֵינוֹ יוֹדֵֽעַ לִשְׁאוֹל…
Portrait of Anna Akhmatova
Natan Altman’s portrait of Anna Akhmatova (1889–1966) is his best-known work. He painted the famous poet in St. Petersburg in a cubist style, against a background of blue quartzlike and green…