Thousands of rare handwritten seforim pages, fragments of ancient letters, and generations of forgotten Torah learning are being brought back to life through a groundbreaking project announced this week by the National Library of Israel. The effort focuses on the famed Cairo Geniza, a millennium-old treasure trove of Torah manuscripts that has long captured the imagination of scholars and laymen alike.

For over a thousand years, the kehillah in Cairo placed worn-out sifrei kodesh, seforim pages, teshuvos, letters, and even everyday writings containing Sheimos in the Geniza room of the Ben Ezra Shul. Preserved by the dry Egyptian climate, the collection eventually grew to roughly 400,000 pieces, many from the days when the overwhelming majority of Klal Yisroel lived under Muslim rule. Though the fragments were photographed in recent decades, most have never been fully read or transcribed.

That may now change.

The new project, called MiDRASH, brings together experts from Israel and around the world to digitally transcribe the manuscripts using sophisticated artificial intelligence trained to read Hebrew script, Aramaic, and Judeo-Arabic.

The researchers hope to eventually make millions of words searchable, comparable, and easily studied, potentially uncovering lost midrashim, forgotten versions of well-known texts, correspondences between gedolim, halachic rulings, and previously unknown pieces of Torah literature.

In 1950, David Ben-Gurion established a program to microfilm Hebrew manuscripts from around the world, recognizing that many treasures could never physically be brought to Yerushalayim. Thousands of collections were copied for posterity, eventually including the Cairo Geniza, which was digitized in 2006.

Now, MiDRASH is the next step. Just as the microfilm preserved, the new system will help decode, identifying if a fragment is a page of Gemara, a halachic ruling, a piyut, a personal letter between merchants, or notes of Torah passed privately from rebbi to talmid.

One of the most exciting goals is to trace how Torah spread and developed across continents, showing how midrashim, hanhagos, and mehalchim in learning shifted as communities encountered different cultures. For the first time, the history of Torah thought may be mapped across centuries.

Naturally, the researchers stress that the software is not perfect; the AI will make mistakes and require corrections. To that end, the National Library has launched a “Transcribe-a-thon” — encouraging trained volunteers to help refine the digital texts so others can benefit from them.

The full collection is expected to go online within the year, accessible to the public.

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