Outside the office, I’ve been building something I’ve wanted to exist for a long time. It’s called Torah by Word, and it’s now live at torahbyword.com.
The idea is simple. Most editions of the Torah give you the verse — a block of Hebrew and a block of English. Torah by Word opens up every single word. Tap any word and you get its own entry: the Hebrew, a transliteration so you can pronounce it, its three-letter root, its numeric value (the gematria), and its plain-English meaning. Under each verse sits a complete translation and the classic commentaries — Rashi, Ibn Ezra, and others — all in English.
The very first word of Genesis, בְּרֵאשִׁית, looks like this: be·re·shit — “in beginning” — root ראש, value 913. Then the next word, and the next, through the end of Deuteronomy.
What’s live today
- Torah by Word — all five books, Genesis through Deuteronomy, every word
- Writings by Word — Psalms, Proverbs, and Lamentations
More books of the Prophets and the Writings are in progress.
The lawyer’s part of the story
Readers of this blog will appreciate that a project like this is as much a rights problem as a text problem. Every text on the site is public domain, openly licensed, or translated fresh for this edition. The English translation is built on the 1917 Jewish Publication Society text, now in the public domain. Rashi appears in the Metsudah translation under its Creative Commons license. Several other commentaries were rendered into English specifically for this edition because no freely licensable translation existed.
Tracing exactly what may be used, from which edition, on what terms — and walking away from anything that couldn’t be cleared — was a surprising share of the total work. It’s also why the site can be what it is: completely free to read, with no ads, no account, and no paywall.
Take a look
Open a chapter and start with word one: torahbyword.com.
It’s a work in progress, corrected in the open — if you spot something that doesn’t look right, I want to hear about it.