Through the Portal: Innovating with Sefaria's Digital Library
Rachel Buckman - Sr. Education Associate

Important links

What is Sefaria?

  • At Sefaria we are building an extensive library of Jewish texts and the tools to go with it.
  • Sefaria was launched in 2013 and the library has grown to over 250 million words.
  • Usership continues to grow. Sefaria is currently being visited by approximately 500,000 individual users a month!
  • Learn more about Sefaria's history and mission.

Finding texts on Sefaria

  • Sefaria provides you with easy access to a vast virtual library of works which span thousands of years and locations. Texts are linked to one another so that you can easily move between different sources.
  • Set the way that you would like to view the text in the Aא menu. Choices include language, layout, font size, and vocalization, if applicable.

Using the resource panel

Using Sefaria's topic feature

  • With Sefaria’s Topics feature, you can search a topic keyword and Sefaria will show you the most relevant sources, user-created sheets, and related topics — all in one place.
  • Learn more with our Topics tutorial.

Sheets are created by Sefaria users and draw together sources, outside texts, and media.

  • Access sheets by clicking on a passage to bring up the resource panel. From there, click on "Sheets" to access all of the public sheets connected to the text that you are looking at.
  • Learn more on "Making a Source Sheet on the New Editor" and "Collections".
  • Click here to access the new sheet editor.

Sefaria accounts

  • Sefaria accounts are free and easy to create. (Make sure to check the "I am an educator" box).
  • Having a Sefaria account allows you to:
- Create sheets
- View your reading history and track your learning
- Save text and sheets
- Take notes
- Use Chavruta