The Looking Glass · Chaburot
Five to ten people. One subject. One hour a week.
A chaburah is a fellowship of learners — a fixed circle that meets weekly and stays together long enough to get somewhere. No lecture, no homework, nothing recorded. You read the primary sources in translation and argue about them in good company. Led by Rabbi Adam Jacobs, The Looking Glass.
The Circles
Every text is read in translation. No Hebrew, no preparation, no prior background assumed.
The tradition's account of how reality is actually built — read from the sources themselves rather than about them. Demanding, precise, and unlike anything else you'll read.
Zohar · Shomer Emunim · Ramchal
Maimonides, Halevi, Saadia and their heirs on what can be known, what God is not, and why the world is arranged this way. Argument as a discipline.
Guide for the Perplexed · Kuzari
The Jewish discipline of character, taken seriously: one trait at a time, a text to anchor it, and something to actually practice between sessions.
Mesillat Yesharim · Cheshbon HaNefesh
The week's Torah portion, read closely and without piety — the commentators disagreeing with each other, and with you.
Rashi · Ramban · Sforno
All four above in rotation, or whatever the room decides it wants: prayer, mortality, money, Talmud, the argument you've been having with yourself for years.
The room sets the docket
Bring your own circle — partners, a board, four friends in three time zones — and we build the curriculum around the group. Same hour, same terms.
By arrangement
How It Works
$200 per person, per month.
About $50 a session. The fee holds your seat, whether or not you make it that week. Cancel any time.
From the Circles
As a scientist by training, I came to the course with more questions than faith, and found a teacher with the scholarly command to meet difficult material on its own terms and the confidence to welcome every challenge I brought to it.
Rabbi Jacobs has a rare gift for making ancient wisdom accessible. He's changed how I experience spirituality, and every session leaves me with a greater sense of wisdom and wellbeing.
Apply for a Seat
Circles are assembled by hand. Tell us what you want to study and when you're free, and we'll write back with a specific circle and a specific hour.