Course Instructor - Rabbi Yonatan Hambourger
Course Fee - $35.00
No Class on July 29th
A student study companion workbook is provided for each session.
No knowledge of Hebrew or Jewish tradition required.
Eight Stories from the Hebrew Bible Through the Lens of Jewish Tradition
These are stories you have carried for years.
The Garden of Eden. Abraham arguing with G-d. Joseph in Potiphar’s house. Balaam’s talking donkey. Moses at the breaking point in the wilderness.
This course is an invitation to read them again — this time through the interpretive tradition that has preserved and lived inside these texts for thousands of years. What emerges from that encounter will surprise you.
Over eight sessions we will move through narratives and teachings drawn from Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy — and reaching into the Prophets and the Writings — through the lens of Talmudic commentary, rabbinic interpretation, and Chassidic teaching spanning two thousand years. Each week we will open the text carefully, follow the rabbis into its layers, bring in the voices of Jewish mystics and legal authorities, and ask: what does this story say to a person trying to live faithfully right now?
What if the stories you thought you knew were only the surface? What if the tradition that preserved these texts has been reading them very differently all along?
No prior knowledge of Jewish tradition is required. No Hebrew is necessary. What is required is a love of the Hebrew Bible and a willingness to read it carefully. The questions these texts raise are often the questions you have been carrying for years without knowing where to take them.
Each session includes a thoughtfully designed study companion with key sources, story summaries, Hebrew vocabulary with pronunciation, and guided reflection questions — allowing you to continue engaging the material between sessions.
Week 1 · The Garden of Eden · Genesis 2–3
Where does moral knowing come from — and what did the serpent actually take from us?
Week 2 · The Creation of the Human Being · Genesis 1:26–27
What does it mean that every human being was created in the image of G-d — and what follows from that claim about how we are obligated to treat one another?
Week 3 · Joseph and Potiphar’s Wife · Genesis 39
What is Joseph actually protecting when he refuses — and what does the Torah’s understanding of intimacy say to the world we live in now?
Week 4 · Hidden Integrity · Genesis 29–31 · Genesis 31:19–35 · Exodus 16
Who are you when no one is watching — and does the Hebrew Bible believe the hidden moment is ever truly hidden? (Jacob and Laban · Rachel’s Theft of the Idols · The Manna in the Wilderness)
Week 5 · Abraham Argues with G-d for the City of Sodom · Genesis 18 · Exodus 22 · Deuteronomy 24
What gives a human being the right to argue with G-d about justice — and what does Abraham’s audacity demand of us?
Week 6 · The Mother Bird · The Muzzled Ox · The Laws of Animal Compassion ·
Deuteronomy 22:6–7 · Deuteronomy 25:4 · Leviticus 22:28
Why does the Torah legislate how we treat animals — and what does our treatment of the smallest creatures reveal about who we are becoming?
Week 7 · Balaam and Balak · The Spies of Moses and Joshua · Numbers 22–24 · Numbers 13–14 · Joshua 2
What is the difference between speaking truly and speaking with integrity — and what happens when the most powerful voice in the ancient world is permanently for sale?
Week 8 · Moses and the Seventy Elders · Eldad and Medad · Numbers 11
When G-d takes the spirit resting on Moses and places it on seventy others — does Moses lose anything? And what does the answer tell us about what we are supposed to do with whatever we have been given?
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Rabbi Yonatan Hambourger shares the wisdom of Torah with Jewish and non-Jewish audiences of all faiths and backgrounds. His work is especially focused on helping people encounter the Hebrew Bible through the depth of Jewish interpretation — in a way that illuminates rather than challenges whatever they already carry. Over the past four years he has taught at the Young Harris College Institute for Continued Learning, in Georgia prisons, and on military bases.
He is the author of Echoes From Sinai, a collection of Torah-rooted moral reflections available on Amazon, and A Pathway of Moral Clarity for Seekers of All Faiths, available as a free download at TasteofTorah.org/pathway. He writes a weekly Torah reflection and a weekly moral essay, distributed across Substack, email, and several weekly newspapers across Georgia.
