Midrash.live

Torah learning platform

An open house of study, online and around the corner: classes from leading rabbis, minyanim and prayer times, and a live map of in-person classes in your own neighbourhood - with registration built in.

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Role: Product · Brand · UX/UI · Full-stack
Type: Video · Community · Events
Stack: Next.js 15 · Prisma · Tailwind 4
Languages: Hebrew RTL · English LTR

What it is

Torah content today is scattered between YouTube, WhatsApp groups and notices on a synagogue board. Someone looking for a class can't find out what's on this week in their own neighbourhood, and a rabbi who wants to spread a class depends on platforms that were never built for him.

Midrash.live joins the two worlds in one product: a curated video library and a live map of the physical community - classes, synagogues, minyanim and prayer times - with a studio that lets every rabbi run his own page.

The problem

No local map - No way to know which classes and minyanim run near home
Scattered content - Spread across platforms built for someone else
No tools for a rabbi - No page, no schedule, no registrations, no team
Audience fit - A real need to match content to men, women and children

The solution

Hierarchical search - Country › city › neighbourhood, for classes and prayers
Four content types - Classes, lectures, shorts and melodies
A studio for the rabbi - Upload, schedule, registrations and page design
Labelled, not hidden - Every item carries its audience, so nothing is guessed

How it's built

Framework

Next.js 15

App Router · Server Actions
React 19

Data

Prisma

SQLite in development
PostgreSQL for launch

Calendar

Hebcal

Shabbat times, Hebrew dates
and the weekly parasha

Auth

jose + bcrypt

Sessions · channel-level
permissions per capability

4account types - rabbi, assistant, gabbai, learner

14topic categories, from halacha to melodies

3levels of location search

2full languages and two themes

The screens

The schedule - the core idea

What separates this from a video site. An in-person class is an event with a place, a time, an audience and a registration, so it has its own data model rather than being squeezed into a video. The list and the calendar are two views of the same events, filtered by the same location.

Midrash.live - in-person classes near you

From finding to showing up

A class page answers the three questions that decide attendance - where, when, and is it for me - and ends in a registration form, not a share button. Synagogues get the same treatment: minyanim by nusach and time, searchable by the same neighbourhood.

Midrash.live - a class page with registration

Midrash.live - minyanim and prayer times

The rabbi's page

Every rabbi gets a channel with the sections he chooses to show - videos, shorts, melodies, schedule and about. The rabbi controls what appears, so someone who only teaches Daf Yomi doesn't get a page full of empty tabs.

More ways in

Short-form for the commute, a children's area with its own tone, and Midrash+ - an optional membership, “all of the Torah, without interruptions”, that funds the platform.

On the phone

Classes are shared as links in WhatsApp groups, so mobile is the primary layout, not a squeeze of the desktop one: a bottom tab bar for the five things people come for, and the location search right under the thumb.

Midrash.live on mobile - rabbi's channel

Brand and launch

The mark is a Torah scroll with a play button where the text would be - the whole idea in one shape. It holds in both themes, and the pre-launch page carries it alone, with one action: a free year for anyone who signs up early.

Design decisions

01

Location before content - The home page asks “where are you?” before “what do you want to watch?”. That is what turns a video library into a community service.

02

An event is not a video - An in-person class has its own model with place, recurrence and registration. Forcing it into a video entity would have broken search and the calendar.

03

Stable keys, translated display - Cities and categories are stored as fixed keys and translated in the interface, so a search by city returns identical results in Hebrew and English.

04

Permissions per capability - An assistant isn't a “sub-admin”. The rabbi grants upload, edit, schedule, registrations and design one at a time - which is what lets a real rabbi delegate.

05

The calendar is part of the product - Shabbat times and the weekly parasha sit in the chrome, computed rather than typed in, because for this audience the week has a shape.

06

One accent, used with restraint - A single indigo and neutrals, no decorative gradients in the working screens. The restraint is what gives the content the respect it asks for.