Your study desk

Meet our people and books, then learn to ask a question from a source.

1. Find your bearings

   • Our story
   • Our books

   Before you move on: Without looking back, place Torah, Mishnah and Gemara in relation to one another. Reopen Our books and correct your explanation.

2. Read a first teaching

   • Meet the Mishnah
   • Your first Mishnah

   Before you move on: Recall the three instructions in Avot 1:6. Which exact words keep its final instruction from referring only to your teacher and companion?

3. Learn with evidence

   • Reading a source
   • Learn with a partner

   Before you move on: Write one observation from the passage, one possible interpretation and one question. Keep those three kinds of statement separate.

Move from the siddur's landmarks to the words and structure of Shema and Amidah.

1. Find the landmarks

   • Find your way in the siddur
   • Open my lips

   Before you move on: Find the Amidah in a siddur. Explain what its opening verse asks Hashem to make possible.

2. Follow the Amidah's shape

   • The shape of the Amidah

   Before you move on: Recall the three broad movements of the Amidah, then check them against the lesson and your siddur.

3. Listen and declare

   • Hear, O Israel

   Before you move on: Explain the difference between the Shema's opening Torah verse and the response that follows it in the siddur.

4. Carry the words into life

   • With all your heart

   Before you move on: Choose two actions named in Deuteronomy 6:5–9. Show how the text connects love, learning and daily life.

Read the sages’ cases and reasons, distinguish source layers, and build an explanation from evidence.

1. Hear each voice

   • When is the evening Shema?

   Before you move on: Name the three positions about the ending time. Which question do they share, and where do they differ?

2. Follow the reasoning

   • Why did the sages say midnight?

   Before you move on: Explain why an earlier safeguard and what still counts after a delay are different questions. Name the source that supports each part.

3. Make the case yourself

   • Shema source workshop

   Before you move on: Close the model answer. Write your own short explanation and cite the sources that support each claim. Compare with the model, then revise.

4. Separate morning boundaries

   • When is the morning Shema?

   Before you move on: Distinguish the starting markers from the ending times. Explain what the Mishnah means by the value of a later reading, without treating it as an on-time recitation.

5. Read a disagreement about a verse

   • When you lie down and rise

   Before you move on: Reconstruct each school’s reading of lying down and rising. Explain how the road incident tests the disagreement, distinguishing the Mishnah from its commentary.

6. Read the blessings around Shema

   • Blessings around the Shema

   Before you move on: Recall the morning and evening counts. Explain long and short under the named structural interpretation, then distinguish that commentary from the Mishnah’s own wording.

7. Explain remembrance across time

   • Remembering the Exodus at night

   Before you move on: Reconstruct Ben Zoma’s reading and the sages’ alternative. Identify what the added word contributes, keep each speaker’s claim distinct, and connect the method to an earlier disagreement in the chapter.

Build a growing word bank, read attached forms, then understand your first Hebrew statements.

1. Begin with letters and vowels

   • Your first Hebrew letters
   • Read ben and bat

   Before you move on: Cover the transliteration. Read the two family words from the Hebrew, then name the vowel mark that helped you.

2. Let the vowel guide you

   • Read em and im
   • Read shem and sham

   Before you move on: Explain how the same letters can make different words. Read each contrast, point to the changing vowel and check the meaning.

3. Join two syllables

   • Read shalom
   • Read Torah

   Before you move on: Read both two-syllable words without the sound cues. Identify what vav does in these words and what final he does in the second one.

4. Read, diagnose and return

   • Read tov
   • Hebrew reading workshop

   Before you move on: Do the workshop before rereading the explanations. Choose one specific mark or sound to revisit, then repeat the reading at your next session.

5. Read sea, day and bread

   • Read yam and yom
   • Read lechem

   Before you move on: Read the three new words without sound cues. Contrast yod and vav, then explain how het and he differ. Check both the sound and meaning.

6. Read a word with “the”

   • The Hebrew definite article

   Before you move on: Build and read three of the definite forms from the lesson. Explain what the attached part adds, and distinguish the inside dot from a vowel.

7. Read fish and gold

   • Read dag
   • Read zahav

   Before you move on: Read both words without sound cues. Contrast dalet with resh, then identify sounded he and final vet in zahav. Add the article and check the stronger syllable.

8. Read a cup and review the set

   • Read kos

   Before you move on: Distinguish kaf with and without its dot. Read the cumulative list, identify the article forms, then recall fish, gold and cup from their meanings.

9. Meet ayin in am

   • Read am

   Before you move on: Read am and em from their marks and give their meanings. Identify ayin’s shape without treating the two words as interchangeable spellings.

10. Read mouth and nose

    • Read pe and af

    Before you move on: Read pe and af, then explain the different p/f readings and the final shape. Distinguish final he’s role in pe from sounded he inside zahav.

11. Read shade and tree

    • Tsel and ets

    Before you move on: Read tsel and ets without sound cues. Identify ordinary and final tsadi, and keep the vowel order and meanings distinct.

12. Recognize a voice

    • Read kol

    Before you move on: Read kol and kos, identify the letter that changes, and give both meanings. Distinguish qof’s shape from the already learned kaf.

13. Read melech carefully

    • Read melech

    Before you move on: Read melech with two syllables and the stronger first beat. Explain the final kaf and silent sheva in this word without claiming that every sheva is silent.

14. Read sin and review the shapes

    • Read sak

    Before you move on: Use the side of the dot to distinguish sin from shin. Read sak and the mixed review, then identify one remaining reading skill to develop beyond knowing the basic shapes.

15. Read without the model

    • Cumulative Hebrew reading workshop

    Before you move on: Cover the reading aids. Decode the mixed words, explain the mark that repairs one mistake, and distinguish a written word from a short phrase. Use the quick reference only after your first attempt.

16. Read an identification

    • A first Hebrew statement: I am Yosef

    Before you move on: Read ani Yosef without the aid. Explain who ani identifies, distinguish yod’s two roles in these words, and show why English supplies am.

17. Read a description

    • A Hebrew description: You are good

    Before you move on: Read tov-ata without the aid. Identify whom the words address and what they say, then explain the joining mark without adding a sound.

18. Follow a pronoun in its scene

    • He is a prophet: Follow the pronoun

    Before you move on: Read navi hu, identify the new vowel spelling and silent final alef, then explain whom he refers to in the Genesis scene. Distinguish the clause from the whole verse.

19. Read a linked description

    • A tree of life: Read the description

    Before you move on: Recover both source clauses without the models. Explain the pronouns’ different references, the two yods in chayyim, and why the linked nouns give tree of life without making maqaf mean of.

20. Find a verb and its subject

    • He spoke: Find the verb

    Before you move on: Read hu amar and bara without the aids. Distinguish a verb’s subject information from the actor supplied by context, then compare the Psalm clause with navi hu.

21. Follow giver and recipient

    • He gave to me: Follow the recipient

    Before you move on: Read the Ruth phrase with its source stress. Distinguish giver, recipient, speaker and addressee, then reconstruct a labeled practice line and explain what li contributes.

Connect the Jewish day, Shabbat and blessings with the sources that give them meaning.

1. Find the day and week

   • The Jewish day and week

   Before you move on: Explain why a calendar date and daylight are different questions. On your own sketch, place evening, morning and Shabbat without guessing local practice times.

2. Remember and keep Shabbat

   • Shabbat: remember and keep

   Before you move on: Name the reason emphasized in each Torah passage. Use the words of the text to explain one connection between remembering, keeping and rest.

3. Understand a blessing

   • What is a berakhah?

   Before you move on: Explain whom a berakhah addresses and one purpose Rambam gives. Give two different occasions without inventing a blessing text.

4. Learn before and after

   • Blessings before and after

   Before you move on: Distinguish the Torah passage from the Mishnah’s food examples. Prepare one precise question you would bring to a teacher before applying an unclear case.

5. Follow a category, exception and disagreement

   • Food blessings and exceptions

   Before you move on: Rebuild the tree-fruit and ground-produce categories with their exceptions. Distinguish the two vegetable wordings, then identify which one the code prescribes without inventing a general rule about every first opinion.

6. Separate first choice from what counts afterward

   • When a different blessing was said

   Before you move on: Name the words actually said in the two reversed cases and explain why their outcomes differ. Show how prescribed Shehakol in the next Mishnah differs from after-the-fact fulfillment, keeping genuine doubt and intention questions separate.

Follow the message, the people’s answer and the covenant actions in Exodus.

1. Hear the calling

   • At the foot of Sinai

   Before you move on: Reconstruct the movement from deliverance to calling to response. Support each part with words from Exodus 19.

2. Read and answer

   • A covenant read and answered

   Before you move on: Explain what the people hear before their answer. Distinguish the narrative sequence from Rabbi Elazar’s teaching about the order of their words.

Study Psalm 92 as a poem, from its opening song to its final declaration.

1. Hear the answering lines

   • A song for Shabbat

   Before you move on: Choose one pair of lines. Explain how the second develops the first, then distinguish the psalm’s heading from its prayer-book placement.

2. Follow the whole movement

   • Planted and flourishing

   Before you move on: Trace the poem from grass that flourishes to trees that bear fruit. Keep the intervening contrast and the final declaration in your explanation.

Read the sages on character and repair, then compare responsibility toward another person across three sources.

1. Reconsider a familiar measure

   • Who is wise?

   Before you move on: Recall Ben Zoma’s four questions and answers. Choose one prooftext and explain how it supports the teaching.

2. Turn learning into repair

   • Returning and repairing

   Before you move on: Explain why regret, a confession and repairing harm are not interchangeable. Use one ordinary example and name the source behind each step.

3. Compare responsibility across sources

   • First be reconciled

   Before you move on: Recall one distinctive action or condition from Matthew, Yoma and Rambam. Support a shared insight with all three, then preserve one difference and name a conclusion the comparison does not establish.

Follow the whole book through nine readings: journey, commitment, harvest, family responsibility and the path to David.

1. Map the road and the loss

   • Ruth: on the road

   Before you move on: Place the people and places on a simple map of the story. Distinguish what the narrator tells us from a motive we might be tempted to supply.

2. Hear the voices and the pledge

   • Where you go

   Before you move on: Explain Ruth’s commitment using its full wording. Distinguish the narrator, Naomi’s speech and our sages’ interpretation without replacing one with another.

3. Arrive at harvest

   • Return at harvest

   Before you move on: Distinguish Naomi’s grief from the narrator’s harvest frame. Explain the different Torah gifts to the poor without turning them into an owner’s optional favor.

4. Read the encounter in the field

   • In Boaz’s field

   Before you move on: Track what Ruth, the overseer and Boaz each know and do. Explain the wings image in Boaz’s blessing without making it a promise of automatic prosperity.

5. Follow food and information home

   • From field to home

   Before you move on: Distinguish the meal remainder from the gleaned grain. Explain what Ruth reports, what Naomi adds and which questions remain open at the end of chapter 2.

6. Compare the plan and the request

   • At the threshing floor

   Before you move on: Distinguish Naomi’s instructions, the narrator’s actions and Ruth’s own request. Explain the garment image with its named commentary rather than adding an unstated event.

7. Follow a promise and its condition

   • A nearer redeemer

   Before you move on: Identify the condition in Boaz’s promise and the information that remains unresolved. Separate his words, the narrator’s report and Ruth’s report to Naomi.

8. Trace the public negotiation

   • Witnesses at the gate

   Before you move on: Explain the order of proposal, response, changed information and public declaration. Distinguish this sandal act from the different Torah procedure rather than equating them by one shared object.

9. Read the ending as a whole

   • From Ruth to David

   Before you move on: Identify who gives birth, who blesses and who speaks about the child. Explain how the genealogy widens the story, then connect the ending to two earlier scenes with verse evidence.

Meet the Prophets through narrative, prayer, return and a question about compassion. Read in translation and follow the evidence.

1. Jonah and the storm

   • Jonah and the storm

   Before you move on: Track who speaks and who acts. Explain one repeated word using its actor and object, then support a change in the sailors' response with a verse.

2. From the depths

   • From the depths

   Before you move on: Distinguish the narrative frame from Jonah's prayer. Recall one paired line and one movement from danger toward hope; check their actual wording.

3. Nineveh turns

   • Nineveh turns

   Before you move on: Separate the people's response, the royal decree and the narrator's outcome. Explain why changed deeds matter alongside the signs of repentance.

4. Should I not care?

   • Should I not care?

   Before you move on: Compare Jonah's concern for the plant with Hashem's question about the city. Keep the final question open, and explain how the mercy language is used in Jonah and Joel.

Understand months and seasons, distinguish month numbering from year boundaries, then read Sukkot through harvest and memory.

1. Months and seasons

   • Months and seasons

   Before you move on: Explain why lunar months and the seasonal year both matter. Distinguish court-declared months from the fixed calendar, using one source for each point.

2. The first month and the new year

   • The first month and the new year

   Before you move on: Explain how Nisan can be the first numbered month while Tishrei begins a year for a different purpose. Match a date to its named source context rather than guessing from the number alone.

3. Sukkot: harvest and memory

   • Sukkot: harvest and memory

   Before you move on: Bring together harvest, remembered Exodus and rejoicing from the two Torah passages. Distinguish the seven days of Sukkot from the following eighth-day assembly.

Read Hannah’s prayer, trace what our sages learn from her words, then prepare one attentive beginning to the Amidah.

1. Hannah’s prayer at Shiloh

   • Hannah’s prayer at Shiloh

   Before you move on: Distinguish what the narrator reports, what Eli assumes and what Hannah explains. Support each with a phrase from the scene.

2. Learning prayer from Hannah

   • Learning prayer from Hannah

   Before you move on: Connect a biblical phrase to Rav Hamnuna's stated lesson. Explain why a narrated action and a named sage's derivation are different source layers.

3. Before whom you stand

   • Before whom you stand

   Before you move on: Explain attention to meaning and awareness of addressing Hashem. Distinguish the ideal from a repetition rule, then name one achievable preparation step.

Compare finds, separate a stated ruling from its explanation, then identify the facts a source does and does not supply.

1. What makes a find recognizable?

   • What makes a find recognizable?

   Before you move on: Reconstruct the two bread cases. Distinguish the Mishnah’s treatment, Bartenura’s reason and Rambam’s owner-awareness qualification.

2. The container is part of the case

   • The container is part of the case

   Before you move on: Compare contents within a container with the empty container. Explain why changing in to beside changes the case rather than merely its wording.

Follow return, renewed Temple worship and public Torah learning through three distinct stages in Ezra and Nehemiah.

1. A way back to Jerusalem

   • A way back to Jerusalem

   Before you move on: Distinguish the narrator, the royal proclamation and the community’s response. Explain how permission and tangible support help return without proving the Temple is already rebuilt.

2. Altar and foundation

   • Altar and foundation

   Before you move on: Separate the altar, Temple foundation and completed House. Use the verses to explain why grief and rejoicing can be heard at the same foundation ceremony.

3. Torah at the Water Gate

   • Torah at the Water Gate

   Before you move on: Trace the movement from hearing Torah to understanding and shared holy-day joy. Distinguish the verse’s wording from the named teaching about translation, then compare Ezra’s seeking, doing and teaching.

Follow the opening questions, test an explanation, then compare two ways of resolving the next inquiry with evidence.

1. What does “from when” assume?

   • What does “from when” assume?

   Before you move on: Reconstruct the two opening questions. Explain how the Torah verse answers them, and use Rashi to identify which question the creation alternative addresses.

2. When an explanation meets a challenge

   • When an explanation meets a challenge

   Before you move on: Explain what the later Mishnah passage challenges, why Tosafot identifies that target, and how the reply accounts for the actual order. Keep the objection separate from the conclusion.

3. Why use the priests’ time marker?

   • Why use the priests’ time marker?

   Before you move on: Explain what the priest wording adds and why the alternative affects that teaching. Reconstruct the kind of evidence used in the reply before reopening the source.

4. One question, another route to an answer

   • One question, another route to an answer

   Before you move on: Recover the western inquiry’s evidence and explain why its marker matters. Distinguish not having heard a teaching from rejecting it.

Distinguish the Torah’s unspecified measure from a rabbinic minimum, then read the fruits-and-principal image and connect learning with doing.

1. A minimum is not the whole measure

   • A minimum is not the whole measure

   Before you move on: Explain how Bartenura connects the two measures. Recall Rambam’s tiny-field case and why the minimum is not always the final amount.

2. Learning that leads to doing

   • Learning that leads to doing

   Before you move on: Distinguish the two sections of Peah 1:1. Explain Rambam’s reason for Torah study’s weight and recall both branches of the study-and-action condition.

Follow Genesis 1:1–2:3 from speech and separation to humanity and the seventh day. Build an evidenced reading with Rashi, Ramban and Rambam.

1. God speaks, separates and names

   • God speaks, separates and names

   Before you move on: Reconstruct the first three days using an action and a verse for each. Distinguish the pattern you observed from Rashi's explanation of the two statements of goodness.

2. Lights, creatures and blessing

   • Lights, creatures and blessing

   Before you move on: Recall the lights' purposes and the content of the creatures' blessing. Explain one connection with the first three days and one limit to that comparison.

3. In God's image, toward the seventh day

   • In God's image, toward the seventh day

   Before you move on: Connect humanity, provision, the whole creation's goodness and the seventh day. Support your explanation with verses from all three readings and keep the commentators' contributions distinct.

Read the Torah’s two Shabbat passages, then study preparation, Kiddush, melakhah, saving life and Havdalah. Prepare a source-grounded plan before Shabbat; use a teacher for practical questions, never to delay emergency help.

1. Remember and keep

   • Shabbat: remember and keep

   Before you move on: Recall each Torah passage’s opening verb and reason for Shabbat. Explain how remembering and keeping belong to the same day, rather than separating thought from conduct.

2. Honor and delight

   • Honor and delight

   Before you move on: Explain how a ready home, personal participation and enjoyment within one’s means express honor and delight. Support two manageable preparations with the sources.

3. Kiddush: sanctifying the day

   • Kiddush: sanctifying the day

   Before you move on: Distinguish Vayekhullu, the blessing over wine and the blessing of the day. Explain what Kiddush sanctifies and how Rambam connects it with the meal.

4. Understanding melakhah

   • Understanding melakhah

   Before you move on: Explain why melakhah is not measured by fatigue. Use Rambam’s examples to distinguish actions within a principal category from a derived activity, without ruling on a new case.

5. Shabbat and saving life

   • Shabbat and saving life

   Before you move on: Explain how the Mishnah and Rambam treat possible danger to life. Recall why life-saving help must not wait for a rabbinic consultation, including when danger is uncertain.

6. Havdalah: marking the distinction

   • Havdalah: marking the distinction

   Before you move on: For an ordinary departure from Shabbat into a weekday, distinguish nightfall, verbal Havdalah and the cup ceremony. Recall the blessing order Rambam describes and its boundaries.

7. Prepare Shabbat with your sources

   • Prepare Shabbat with your sources

   Before you move on: Before Shabbat, prepare a modest plan for entering, keeping and leaving the day. Link choices to sources, share responsibilities and frame one precise question. Explain the Torah, Gemara and code layers behind the meals.

Deepen the short Shema overviews with six connected readings: declaration, wholehearted love, words on the heart, teaching, signs and an independent source workshop.

1. Hear Israel: read the declaration

   • Hear Israel: read the declaration

   Before you move on: Explain who is addressed in Deuteronomy 6:4 and what is declared. Support your reading with the words rather than substituting a description of the whole prayer service.

2. Love with all you have

   • Love with all you have

   Before you move on: Recall the three repeated expressions in Deuteronomy 6:5. Distinguish the Torah's wording from one interpretation in Mishnah Berakhot 9:5 and explain their connection.

3. These words on your heart

   • These words on your heart

   Before you move on: Without looking back, identify what is placed upon the heart and who commands it. Reconstruct the connection between the chapter's opening and verses 4–6.

4. Teach and speak the words

   • Teach and speak the words

   Before you move on: Name the actions and paired settings in Deuteronomy 6:7. Explain what the pronouns refer to, then make a teaching plan supported by the verse.

5. Signs and doorposts

   • Signs and doorposts

   Before you move on: Distinguish the Torah's commands from Rambam's account of tefillin and mezuzah. Explain why their written words matter, not just their external objects.

6. Read the first Shema paragraph

   • Read the first Shema paragraph

   Before you move on: Read Deuteronomy 6:4–9 again without the earlier answers. Trace its movement in your own words, support each step with evidence and correct one claim that goes beyond its source.

Follow teaching from Jerusalem and Yavneh to Galilee and Babylonia. Compare remembered events, collections and later accounts, then explain a fresh source in its historical setting.

1. After the Temple

   • After the Temple

   Before you move on: Explain one change recorded after the Temple’s destruction and one practice of remembrance. Identify the earlier setting, later enactment and source that preserves both.

2. Teachers at Yavneh

   • Teachers at Yavneh

   Before you move on: Describe what the sources show about a teacher’s students and a court at Yavneh. Distinguish the relationships named in Avot from the legal disagreement preserved in Rosh Hashanah.

3. Gathering the Mishnah

   • Gathering the Mishnah

   Before you move on: Distinguish teaching, gathering a collection and explaining its history. Use Rambam’s account and a preserved minority opinion to explain why compilation is not the invention of all its teachings.

4. From Yavneh to Galilee

   • From Yavneh to Galilee

   Before you move on: Reconstruct the broad movement from Yavneh toward Galilean centers. Explain what a rabbinic account and archaeological evidence each contribute, without treating them as the same kind of witness.

5. Two centers, two Talmuds

   • Two centers, two Talmuds

   Before you move on: Locate the land of Israel and Babylonia and explain why the two Talmuds are distinct collections, not two translations. Identify their shared Mishnah and one difference in the studied openings.

6. Read a rabbinic history source

   • Read a rabbinic history source

   Before you move on: Explain a fresh source through its earlier practice, reported incident and later enactment. Write a supported historical account that distinguishes the remembered events from the collection preserving them.

Continue the introductory found-object pair: distinguish placed property, announcement and claimants, then study care, preservation and an independent return-property workshop.

1. When a find was placed

   • When a find was placed

   Before you move on: Explain the difference between an absent owner and abandoned property. Reconstruct the covered and exposed vessel cases and attribute the explanation to its commentator.

2. How a find is announced

   • How a find is announced

   Before you move on: Reconstruct Rabbi Meir and Rabbi Yehudah's different announcement measures. Explain the three, three and one days, and distinguish the Mishnah from the later code's identifying-feature procedure.

3. Recognizing the claimant

   • Recognizing the claimant

   Before you move on: Explain why naming an object differs from identifying it. Distinguish the verse, the Mishnah's interpretation and the two kinds of witness inquiry in Rambam.

4. Caring for a find

   • Caring for a find

   Before you move on: Recall both sages' positions on sale proceeds and liability. Explain why proceeds from a sold find differ from found coins and how care protects the owner's value.

5. Keeping a find safe

   • Keeping a find safe

   Before you move on: Compare two material-specific care cases. Support each action and its purpose from the Mishnah and distinguish preservation from the keeper's private benefit.

6. Returning property: a source workshop

   • Returning property: a source workshop

   Before you move on: Prepare an independent account of a fresh case: facts, stated treatment, named explanation, supporting verse and a remaining question. Explain repeated return alongside the source's work-compensation discussion.