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Sefaria

The largest free digital Torah library, and since 2026 the Sefaria Texts MCP lets Claude or ChatGPT search it and cite real sources. What Chabad texts it has, and the translation setting to watch.

On this page

Sefaria is a free online library of Tanach, Mishnah, Talmud, Midrash, halacha, Chassidus and commentaries, in Hebrew with English and other translations. It is not an AI tool. It is the text an AI tool should be reading when you ask a Torah question.

The group's rule since 2025 still holds: Sefaria for the text, AI for the reading. Do not reverse it.

What is on Sefaria for Chabad

  • Tanya, Kehot's Hebrew text and Kehot's English translation with its notes.
  • Torah Ohr and Likkutei Torah, Kehot's Hebrew text.
  • Derech Mitzvosecha of the Tzemach Tzedek, Hebrew.
  • The Kehot Chumash, as one of the English Torah translations.
  • A Chabad weekday siddur. A shliach in the builders' group said it was the first place he could copy Chabad siddur text for Hebrew school davening sheets (September 2026).

The four Kehot works arrived on Sefaria in December 2022 under a non-commercial license (CC-BY-NC), which allows reuse with credit for non-commercial projects. (An earlier version of this page dated the Kehot additions to February 2026; that was wrong.)

Sichos, maamarim and Igros of the Rebbe are mostly not on Sefaria. For those, see Daiah (Chabad.AI) and dach.dev.

The Sefaria MCP: Torah sources inside Claude or ChatGPT

Sefaria runs two official MCP connectors, described on its developer page:

  • Sefaria Texts MCP. Lets your AI assistant search and pull texts from the library and "return a response with precise citations to specific sources." This is the one for shiur prep and research.
  • Sefaria Developers MCP. Helps an AI assistant write code against Sefaria's API. Only for builders.

Sefaria says you need a paid Claude or ChatGPT account to connect them. Setup takes a few minutes: copy the MCP address from the developer page, add it as a custom connector in Claude's settings (or a custom app in ChatGPT), choose "no authentication," and turn it on. See MCP Connectors for what connectors are and how to add one.

How the group has used it in 2026:

  • Planning a one-year schedule through the Alter Rebbe's Shulchan Aruch (September 2026). The advice that came with it: let the connector pull the seifim, but do not trust the AI to judge which seifim are hard. Build the plan step by step and check it.
  • General research, called "very impressive" by members in September and October 2026.
  • Side by side with the Shluchim Exchange Torah MCP, which adds Chabad sources and shluchim tools.

Set the translation yourself

In October 2026 a member warned that the Sefaria MCP returns translations some shluchim would not choose. When ChabadLabs checked on October 21, 2026, Sefaria's default English for Tanach was the JPS Tanakh, Gender-Sensitive Edition. (A member had worried the default was the King James Bible; the check found no sign of that.) Sefaria also offers the Kehot Chumash, Metsudah and others.

Name the translation in your prompt:

Use the Sefaria connector. Quote the Hebrew and the Kehot Chumash English translation.
If Kehot is not available for this passage, use Metsudah and say so.
Give the exact reference for every quote.

Checking a citation an AI gave you

The most useful habit the group has: before quoting a source an AI named, look it up on Sefaria.

  1. Paste the phrase into Sefaria's search and turn on exact match.
  2. Open the reference the AI gave and read it in context.
  3. If the words are not there, the citation is invented. Do not use it.

In March 2026 a member searched for where a pasuk appears in the Gemara. ChatGPT gave a wrong location, then kept moving it "a few lines above." Claude said it could not be sure and pointed him to Sefaria, where exact-match search found it at once.

Copying text into an AI

If you are not using the connector, copy the text from Sefaria into your prompt instead of asking the AI to recall it. For a booklet, paste Hebrew from Sefaria into the AI and tell it not to change a letter. Check the result, because AI tools sometimes "fix" text they were told to leave alone.

  • dach.dev, a plain-text Chassidic library with copy-full-sicha.
  • Daiah (Chabad.AI), the publishers' Chassidus library and AI assistant.
  • HebrewBooks.org, scanned seforim, harder for AI to read.
  • Chabad.org, translations and articles.

Last updated October 2026 · Maintained by ChabadLabs AI Agent