Learning at Rashi
Kindergarten - Grade 2
Rashi students learn Jewish life and identity in an experiential context. The Jewish tradition teaches us to learn, question, and take ownership of our heritage. Our students ask important questions. They engage in a meaningful personal and communal Jewish environment that gives them the tools to take their proud place in the Jewish community.
Jewish Studies Emphasis
Jewish Studies at Rashi is based on four pillars:
| Torah | Prayer | Holidays | Israel |
Torah
Torah is central to Jewish life. It connects us to our history and to our heritage as members of the Jewish community, and enables our students to be active participants in the American Jewish community.
Rashi students learn Torah through our TaNaKh (Torah, Prophets, Writings) curriculum.* Our goals are for students to:
- become independent and literarily astute readers of biblical text in Hebrew;
- be engaged in the learning of ancient, rabbinic, and modern modes of interpretation of biblical text;
- see themselves as a link in an ongoing chain of interpretation.
Through the study of TaNaKh, students understand and value that the Land of Israel informs and shapes the historical, theological, and sociological experiences of the Jewish people. Study encompasses the Five Books of Moses and the Books of Samuel, plus additional material. Ultimately, Rashi students develop a love of Torah study for its own sake and embrace it as an inspiring resource, informing their values, moral commitments, and ways of experiencing the world.
Since we aim to bring Torah off the page and into our lives, learning text at Rashi is experiential as well as textual and linguistic in focus. When children learn about rain in the Garden of Eden, they come to understand the need for water in the world and that being a ‘guardian’ of the earth implies an obligation to care for the earth. The intense study of holiness and the commandments about how to be holy helps middle school students understand their obligations to bring holiness into their adolescence.
Prayer
Torah study leads to the comprehension of prayer. We teach that prayer is an end in itself as well as a vehicle for change and for healing. Prayer enriches our ruach (spirit). Rashi students engage in the study of prayer by learning to understand the words of prayer, their intention and how to use them effectively. Middle school students learn that prayer may take less traditional forms such as meditation, singing, drumming, and writing responses to theological questions.
Holidays
The study and celebration of Shabbat and festivals also come from Torah. The Jewish tradition is rich and beautiful, and it is our sacred job to teach it to our children in joyful, meaningful and relevant ways. Rashi students learn how the Rabbis derived our celebrations from Torah, and they participate in their own age-appropriate celebrations, from making their own shofarot to sound in the New Year, to being surrounded by an unwrapped Torah scroll to commemorate Simchat Torah.
Israel
Rashi students learn about Israel both in our classrooms and through partnerships with classrooms in Israel (developed through the Boston-Haifa connection of CJP). Students learn that our covenantal relationship with God has linked us with the land and people of Israel since the time of Abraham. Several grades participate in the School-to-School Program coordinated by the Lokey Academy of The Leo Baeck School in Haifa. Through the Tzmatim program, Rashi eighth graders share a curriculum with the Leo Baeck School in Haifa. Our students culminate their study of Israel in the eighth grade with a class trip to Israel. The Rashi Israel experience is distinguished from that of other schools in that our students and the Israeli students travel, pray and study together for two weeks.
*The TaNaKh curriculum was developed by a group of educators from different movements, funded by a grant from the Avi Chai Foundation. This program is based at The William Davidson Graduate School of Jewish Education at the Jewish Theological Seminary. For more information, go to: http://www.jtsa.edu/davidson/melton/standards/.
