Judaic Studies

The Upper School Judaic Studies program is characterized by a strong emphasis on critical thinking, text skills, and values based reading of texts. The curriculum challenges students to reflect on the lessons of Tanakh (Bible), the students’ connection to the Jewish people, and their interactions with the texts. Students expand beyond the Torah text to study:

  • Mishnah;
  • N’vi’im and K’tuvim (the books of the prophets and the Writings);
  • Rabbinic commentary including Rashi;
  • Post-biblical texts including Midrash (ethical stories on the text);
  • The Talmud;
  • Legal and philosophical texts up to present day.

The fifth grade curriculum focuses on the book of Sh’mot (Exodus) and develops the skills to understand the textual basis for a variety of commentaries including Rashi’s, Midrash, and modern understandings. Students continue to use the basic unit structure and outline of age appropriate benchmarks under the Jewish Theological Seminary’s Standards and Benchmarks program. Key components of fifth grade are:

  • Units of study: Moshe’s early life and slavery, the burning bush, the plagues, the crossing of the Red (Reed) Sea, and the Ten Commandments.
  • Key values explored: Heroism, the nature of miracles and belief, overcoming challenges, and personal identity and responsibility.
  • Text skills: Understanding how a variety of interpretations are possible from a single text, reading Rashi script, and second person feminine prefixes and suffixes.

B’nai mitzvah becomes a critical focus of the sixth grade year. Through an intensive, integrated unit, each student creates a beautiful and functional talit. Students move from a study their personalized bar/bat mitzvah portions through an artistic process that ends with the tying of tzitzit (fringes) Students continue to work on units based on material from the books of Bamidbar (Numbers) and D’varim (Deuteronomy). Holidays are looked at through the lens of the Mishnah.

“In 7th and 8th grade we have the privilege of choosing t’filah [prayer] options. I like Women’s Minyan because we learn about women in Judaism, and we are free to express ourselves and ask questions in a comfortable setting. It helps us bond with our friends.” – HMJDS Student

  • Units of study: Blessings and Curses, the spies, Miriam’s slander, the Torah as a system of laws and ethics (mishpat and tzedek), Moshe’s death, and the succession of Joshua.
  • Key values explored: Appreciation, using our words appropriately, being a responsible member of the Jewish community, and leadership.
  • Text skills: Basic Mishnaic Hebrew, understanding longer passages of text, and biblical language as metaphor.

The seventh grade year looks at the remaining corpus of the Tanakh, the books of the prophets and the writings. The selections chosen expose students to the breadth of scriptural material while also giving depth and richness to the selections. Students focus on ethical and family issues raised by the stories in the Tanakh, the use of the Bible as a personal resource, and as an historical narrative. Weekly parasha study focuses on the haftarot, the selections from the prophets read after Shabbat morning Torah readings.

  • Units of study: Joshua, Judges, and the conquest of the land; emerging national institutions; Saul, David, and Batsheva and the conflict between personal roles and leadership responsibilities; Ruth, Esther, and the role of women; the call for social justice; and the wisdom literature.
  • Key values explored: The ethics of conquest, a nation of tribes or a tribal nation, power and family responsibility, women in the Bible, creating a just society and the Messiah, and the finding parallels for our emotions in the text of the Tanakh.
  • Text skills: Asking deeper questions and use of havruta (pairs of students) as a study technique.

The eighth grade year looks to deepen students’ Jewish identity by offering a variety of perspectives on how Judaism informs our lives. Students examine the meaning of being Jewish and Judaism’s historical encounters with other cultures. The year uses the trimester system to explore Judaism in the post-biblical period through the time of the Talmud, the spread of Judaism from the Middle East during the medieval period, and Judaism in the modern period. The development of rabbinic literature is explored and sources from the Mishnah and the Talmud, the Midrash, responsa, the codes, treatises on Jewish thought, and modern Jewish literature and philosophy are used.

  • Units of study: The rationale for mitzvot; authority and tradition in the age of the rabbis; Jews, Greeks, and Romans; the Gaonic world; Judaism, Christianity, and Islam; the emergence of “modernity” and Jewish reactions to it; modern American Judaism.
  • Key values explored: Creativity and tradition, individual autonomy and communal authority, conflicting cultural norms-living in two worlds, and the boundaries of Judaism and the Jewish community.
  • Text skills: Analyzing a variety of Hebrew texts and translations.