LIMUDEI QODESH
Limudei Qodesh learning experiences are designed to provide students with the skills, knowledge, and most important, the disposition to continue to interact with Biblical and Rabbinic texts throughout their lives. Students are encouraged to see their engagement with these texts and the ideas they express as part of their own developing and growing identity as Jews. Stressing the value of critical thinking, classes are designed for students to learn the skills necessary to engage in close, thoughtful, and reflective readings of the text. Students learn both to raise questions based on their textual studies and to develop the skills to locate textual evidence to support their own conjectures and interpretations. Fundamental to Limudei Qodesh classes is the idea that respectful and thoughtful interactions with others serve to sharpen and refine our own positions. Thus, students learn to listen carefully to each other and to respond seriously and thoughtfully to the other learners in their classrooms. All four years of the curriculum cohere around an examination of the brit (covenant) between God and the Jewish People. Students in 9th grade study those moments in Sefer Bereshit (Book of Genesis), when the Divine-human relationship is most sharply defined as an expression of the covenantal relationship. Through selected sugyot (portions) from the Talmud Masekhet Brachot (Tractate of Blessing), students examine tefillah (prayer) as a manifestation of the covenant. Limudei Qodesh in tenth grade explores the concept of covenant at the national level. Students explore the birth of the nation and its early years in the land in their study of Sefer Shemot (Book of Exodus). Through selected Talmudic sections from the eight chapter of Tractate Bava Kamma, tenth grade Talmud explores the interplay between civil and religious law by examining the consequences of one human being damaging another. Through an analysis of The Book of Kings and Latter Prophets, students in the 11th grade explore 400 years of Jewish history culminating in the destruction of the First Temple and the exile of the nation from their promised land. The study of selections from Tractate Sanhedrin provides students the opportunity to explore the challenge of creating a just society in the face of fundamental competing values. Twelfth grade course electives challenge students to build personal bridges between themselves and their learning, as they work to integrate the texts, ideas and values that they have studied with their own developing identity as young Jewish adults.
SHA’AR PROGRAM
Students who are enrolling in a day school for the first time enter the Sha’ar Program, which offers students specialized classes in both Jewish Studies and Hebrew. Meaning gateway in Hebrew, the goal of the Sha’ar Program is to provide students with the skills, content knowledge and comfort to fully integrate into all aspects of life at the High School—academic, co-curricular, religious, and social. The combination of small class size, highly motivated students, and a targeted and focused emphasis on developing proficiency in conversational Hebrew allow students to transition from Sha’ar Hebrew Classes into the regular Hebrew Language and Literature track in twelfth grade. Ninth and Tenth grade Jewish Studies classes for Sha’ar students emphasize acquisition of the linguistic skills necessary to study Tanakh (Hebrew Bible) and Talmud (Rabbinics) in the original language, allowing students to fully integrate into the core Jewish Studies classes by 11th grade. Both inside and outside of the classroom, faculty pays special attention to covering those areas of Jewish life and living that might be new to students enrolling for the first time in a Jewish Day School.