SEFARIA, THE LIVING JEWISH LIBRARY

About Sefaria
A Living Library of Torah Texts Online.

We are the People of the Book. For thousands of years, our culture, our traditions, and our values have been transmitted through our texts. From an oral tradition to handwritten scrolls to a vast corpus of printed books, each new medium democratized knowledge, and brought more people into the great Jewish conversation. We are the generation charged with shepherding our texts from print to digital in a way that can expand their reach and impact in new and unprecedented ways.

Sefaria is a non-profit organization dedicated to building the future of Jewish learning in an open and participatory way. We are assembling a free living library of Jewish texts and their interconnections, in Hebrew and in translation. With these digital texts, we can create new, interactive interfaces for Web, tablet and mobile, allowing more people to engage with the textual treasures of our tradition.

Browse the Library

Tanakh

Torah, Prophets, and Writings, which together make up the Hebrew Bible, Judaism's foundational text.

Mishnah

First major work of rabbinic literature, compiled around 200 CE, documenting a multiplicity of legal opinions in the oral tradition.

Talmud

Generations of rabbinic debate about law, ethics, and Bible, structured as commentary on the Mishnah with stories interwoven.

Midrash

Interpretations and elaborations upon biblical texts, including stories, parables, and legal deductions.

Halakhah

Legal works providing guidance on all aspects of Jewish life. Rooted in past sources and growing to address changing realities.

Kabbalah

Mystical works addressing topics like God’s attributes and the relationship between God’s eternality and the finite universe (includes Zohar texts).

Liturgy

Prayers, poems, and ritual texts, like Siddur and Haggadah, recited in daily worship or at specific occasions.

Jewish Thought

Jewish philosophy and theology, ranging from medieval to contemporary, analyzing topics like free will and chosenness (includes all of Maimonides' works).

Tosefta

Companion volumes to the Mishnah, containing laws and discussions that were not included in the Mishnah’s redaction.

Chasidut

Spiritual revival movement founded in the 18th century, focusing on communion with God and divinity in the material world.

Musar

Virtue-based instruction for moral and spiritual character development, ranging from medieval to contemporary.

Responsa

Answers and decisions written by rabbinic leaders in response to questions, demonstrating the application of Jewish law to actual cases.

Second Temple

Works compiled around the time period of the Second Temple, which stood for several centuries and was destroyed in 70 CE (includes Apocrypha, Philo, and Josephus).

Reference

Dictionaries, grammar works, and encyclopedias, from medieval to contemporary.

This is a great tool for the Jewish scholar and devout student. The following are my most consulted texts:

• Maimonides' Mishneh Torah, a massive work I love and have written about (in Italian as: La dimensione artistica e cosmologica della Mishneh Torah)
• Maimonides' Guide for the Perplexed, my most consulted (cf. my Italian wikibook: Guida maimonidea)
• Kabbalistic works, such as: Sefer Yetzirah, Sefer HaBahir, Zohar, et al. (cf. also my Italian wikibooks: Introduzione allo Zohar, Isaac Luria e la preghiera, Rivelazione e Cabala)
• Jewish Thought, such as Kuzari, Ohr Hashem, The Wars of the Lord, Maharal, other writings by Maimonides, and Modern Thinkers such as Eliezer Berkovits, Rav Amiel, Rav Kook, etc.

Sefaria is not merely an archive for preserving 3000 years of Jewish texts; it is a platform meant to give these texts new life. Accordingly, all of Sefaria's product development efforts are designed to make the Library  into a better learning and teaching tool. Sefaria is committed to working in partnership with educators to explore and develop the frontiers of Jewish educational technology.

Judaism's core texts grew out of millennia-long conversations and arguments across generations. More than a collection of books on a shelf, the Jewish canon is a giant corpus of interconnected texts that speak to each other. Sefaria is making it easier than ever to explore the conversations of the past, while also creating a space for ancient conversations to continue in new ways, with new participants, new questions, and new layers of dialogue.

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