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How to Use the Sefaria Library Assistant

Team Sefaria
Team Sefaria
  • Updated

Sefaria's Library Assistant is an experimental AI-powered chatbot designed to help users discover and explore the texts in the Sefaria Library. We will be rolling this tool out to all our users gradually throughout Spring and Summer 2026; if you don’t see it yet, stay tuned! 

You can use the Library Assistant to:

  1. Locate relevant sources in response to your questions
  2. Explore opportunities for further inquiry through relevant commentaries and related texts
  3. Create ad-hoc translations of not-yet-translated texts in the Library

We want your feedback!

Our team is actively evaluating and continuing to develop this experimental tool. By providing feedback on the responses you get in the Library Assistant interface, you’ll be giving us valuable input on what’s working well and where we can improve.

As you chat with the Assistant and see what it can do for you, please provide feedback on its responses through the Assistant interface or by filling out this feedback form. See further instructions on providing feedback below. 

Note: Your prompts will be stored in our system for analysis by our team, but they will be anonymous and contain no identifying information.

How to Opt In to Using the Library Assistant

The Library Assistant is being rolled out to users gradually. A banner at the top of Sefaria.org will invite you to try out the chatbot in one of two ways:

  • If you are logged in to your Sefaria account, click the 'Join the Experiment' button.
  • If you are not logged in when the invitation banner appears, click the button to log in or create a free Sefaria account. 

Once you opt in, the chat interface will be accessible whenever you’re logged in and using the Sefaria Library in a computer web browser. 

Note: The Library Assistant is not available in the Sefaria Library App or on mobile web browsers.

How to Use the Library Assistant

The Library Assistant is accessible on any page of the Sefaria Library while you are logged into your Sefaria Account on a computer web browser. 

  • If the Library Assistant is not immediately visible, you can open it by clicking on the blue-and-white Sefaria icon in the bottom-right corner of the screen. 
  • If you cannot see the Library Assistant or the chat icon, follow these troubleshooting instructions. 

To chat with the Library Assistant: 

  1. Type a question or prompt in the chat interface.
  2. Click the arrow icon to submit, or hit the return key (on a Mac) or Enter key (on a PC). 

Guidance on Submitting Prompts 

> The Library Assistant is built to answer questions that would benefit from a textual response — e.g., something that would help your parashah or Daf Yomi learning, preparation for a shiur, or exploration of new text categories, authors, and works. 

> You can also feel free to test the safety nets of the system with attempts to get “bad” responses from the Library Assistant. 

> Prompts can be any question you have about Jewish texts. If you’re looking for ideas, below are some examples of prompts you can try.

Prompt ideas:

  1. Where does _____ appear in Jewish texts? (e.g., gratitude, envy, generosity)
  2. What does Judaism say about ______? (e.g. science, raising kids, living an ethical life)
  3. Help me understand this week’s parashah.
  4. What’s a good text for me to start learning?
  5. Explain to me in detail what constitutes an unintentional sin and what the consequences are.
  6. List all examples of songs in Tanakh and add a summary for each.
  7. Can you give me 5 obscure sources for Shavuot learning? 
  8. Please translate the following passage of text into English: ______

How to Provide Feedback and Contact Sefaria

User feedback is extremely helpful to our team’s ongoing evaluation and development of the Library Assistant. We especially value feedback about the relevance, accuracy, and sensitivity of the Assistant’s specific responses. So that we can understand what is working or not working well for you, please provide us with detailed feedback in these ways:

  • Feedback about specific responses: Click on the thumbs up or thumbs down icons to indicate your satisfaction.
  • General feedback, questions, or comments for the team: Click on the three-dot menu at the top of the Library Assistant, then select ‘Give Feedback’ to open our contact/feedback form.

Please note: The Library Assistant is experimental product based on the latest large-language model (LLM) technology. As with all conversational AI, it may not behave as expected. Please keep that in mind as you use chat with the Assistant, and use the feedback tools to help us make this a truly useful resource for Jewish learning. 

 

Troubleshooting

If you’re having trouble accessing Library Assistant, please try the following steps: 

  1. Log in to your Sefaria at account at Sefaria.org (not Sefaria.org.il at this time). 
    • To switch from the Hebrew interface (Sefaria.org.il) to the English interface (Sefaria.org) while you are logged in, click on your Profile icon in the top-left corner of the screen, then select English as your Site Language. 
    • To switch from the Hebrew interface (Sefaria.org.il) to the English interface (Sefaria.org) while you are not logged in, click on the globe icon in the top-left corner of the screen, then select English as your Site Language. 
  2. Click on your Profile icon in the top-right corner of the screen, then select Account Settings. 
  3. In your Account Settings, scroll down to Experiments. Make sure the Experiment setting is switched to 'On' (with a dark blue background). If not, click the 'On' button and then click Save at the bottom of the page. 
  4. Refresh your browser. 

Still having issues? Send a message to hello@sefaria.org and a member of our team will get back to you.