TORAH LITERACY IN THE ELEMENTARY SCHOOL CLASSROOM

Abstract

As a lover of language and literature, as a serious yet secular Jew, and as a long-time educator in Jewish schools who strives to implement the best practices possible, the author found herself in an educational trap. Typically, even in liberal Jewish practice, Written Law, i.e. the Torah, and Oral Law, i.e. the rabbinic commentaries, are tightly bound together. In educational practice, this results in introducing commentaries on a primary text far earlier than done in Language Arts studies. According to the author, students are bound by a tradition and methodology that do not serve them well, as it recognizes the text but not the reader or the context. This article grows out of a desire to break out of traditional practices and teach Torah with the contemporary awareness of reading theory, without actually breaking with tradition.