Raphael ben Avraham

A home for the Torah writing, the recordings, and a link out to Daily Torah. Posts are plain files. Pushing status: published is what puts a piece on the site.

Add a post

Create content/posts/<slug>.mdx:

---
title: "A Family With a Job"
subtitle: "Why closeness to God has to point outward"
slug: a-family-with-a-job
date: 2026-10-26
track: wrestling
series: Chosenness
part: 2
tldr: "Two or three sentences."
audio: /audio/a-family-with-a-job.mp3
ideaMap: /maps/a-family-with-a-job.svg
status: draft
---

track is wrestling or connecting. series, part, audio, and ideaMap are optional. The slug must match the filename.

status: draft never appears on the site. Set published and push to put it up. Set it back to draft and push to take it down.

In the body, a bold line on its own is a section break. These components are available:

• <PullQuote>…</PullQuote>
• <He>עִבְרִית</He> for Hebrew, set right to left
• <Wrestling> … </Wrestling> for the open questions. Leave a blank line inside so the list renders.
• <YourTurn>…</YourTurn> for the reader prompt. The page adds “Send me your thoughts,” with the title filled in on the contact form.
• <Sources> with a markdown table and a blank line inside: Source, Link, Certainty.

Audio scripts live in content/audio-scripts/<slug>.md and are never shown. Put the recording in public/audio/<slug>.mp3 and the map in public/maps/<slug>.svg.

lib/site.ts holds the Spotify show URL. Leave it empty until the show exists.

Contact form

The form does not send until both of these are set (locally in .env.local, or in the Vercel project):

• RESEND_API_KEY
• CONTACT_TO_EMAIL

Without them, submitting returns a clear error. A hidden field and a three-second delay drop the obvious spam. See .env.example.

Editing a piece

Posts can be edited in the browser. Edit is next to the date on each piece, on the writing list, and in the footer. The first time, it asks for EDIT_PASSWORD.

On this machine, Save writes content/posts. A production server (next start) will not show the change until you rebuild. npm run dev rereads the file.

On Vercel, Save commits the file through GitHub. Set GITHUB_TOKEN and GITHUB_REPO (owner/name). Without them the live site refuses to save and says so. On the site makes a piece public. Leave Email subscribers off while you tinker. A draft stays off the site for everyone who is not signed in.

Above the body, the buttons add a section, a quote, Hebrew, a wrestling question, sources, a link, or an image. Pasting an image into a box adds it too. The file still stores the marks the site needs.

Email when a post is ready

The footer has a signup. It does nothing until both of these are set:

• RESEND_API_KEY
• RESEND_SEGMENT_ID

Create a segment in Resend (the old “audience” lists are gone) and paste its id. Signups are added as contacts on that segment. Without the keys, the form returns a clear error.

Putting a piece on the site does not email anyone. A push to main sends one email only when subscribers: yes is newly set on a published post. Later edits do not send again. Uncheck it, push, then check it again, and another note goes out. Titles that start with Sample: are skipped. The GitHub Action needs RESEND_API_KEY, RESEND_SEGMENT_ID, CONTACT_FROM_EMAIL, and SITE_URL as repository secrets. If those secrets are missing, the action logs that and does not fail the push.

Books

/books is the shelf. It is empty until a file exists. When a pamphlet is ready, add content/books/<slug>.mdx:

---
title: "The pamphlet title"
subtitle: "One line"
summary: "The sentence on the shelf."
status: forthcoming
read: https://example.com/read
ebook: https://example.com/book.epub
print: https://example.com/order
---

What the book is, before anyone downloads it or orders a copy.

status is forthcoming or available. read, ebook, and print are optional links. Leave a field out until that way of getting the book exists.

Locally

npm install
npm run dev

The sample post is Sample: How a Post Is Built. Draft: This Must Not Appear must stay off every page, including as the next part of the sample series.