Judaics
Jewish Studies are an important part of a MetroWest Jewish Day School education. As a pluralistic community day school, we aim to support and reinforce each family’s Jewish practice and connection to Judaism while providing all students with a broad basis in Jewish text, tradition, history, and practice. Our foremost goals in the Jewish studies department are that your children come away from MWJDS with:
- Love of Torah
- Love of being Jewish
- Positive Jewish identity and the ability to see him/herself as a member of a community of learning
- Basic knowledge and familiarity with Tefillah (prayer), Torah (bible), Jewish holidays and Jewish practice
Students in all grades have classes in Tanakh (bible) and Jewish Living and Learning, as well as daily tefillah (prayer) experiences and study. Students learn Jewish songs and how to chant Torah as a part of music class and often have opportunities to explore Jewish themes in art and general studies classes as well.
We have several school-wide initiatives to engage all students in exploring their Jewish identity and Jewish values.
Holidays: This year each class has a holiday on which they will focus a little more intensely and will be responsible for some aspect of the school celebration.
Milestones: Each class also has a “milestone event”. These moments highlight the students growing readiness to engage with Jewish study and practice. Families are invited to join us for their children’s milestones. These are wonderful opportunities to come together as a school community and celebrate our children’s growth and development.
Midah of the Month: Finally, each month we have a school-wide focus on a Jewish Value, the Midah of the Month, that we are trying as a community to develop and refine. Students are encouraged to work on this character trait in themselves and recognized for their effort and achievement.
Jewish Living and Learning
Jewish Living and Learning encompasses seven overarching curricular focus areas. Some areas are addressed every year, while others are a focus in particular grades. Some are largely taught formally, while others are integrated into the fabric of our school community. We aim to help our students grow in these ways.
Holidays: Students should understand the themes, stories, and practices of the Jewish holidays
Mitzvot: Students will know the categories of bein adam lamakom (obligations to God), bein adam l’chavero (obligations to others), and bein adam l’atzmo (obligations to self), and relate to mitzvot as responsibilities to work on over a lifetime
Israel: Students strive to develop a connection to Israel as the Jewish homeland
Peoplehood: Students should see themselves as part of a diverse yet unified Jewish community
History: Students will relate to Judaism’s unique history as it informs who we are, the significant roles Jewish people have played in world history, and the unique ways that world history has impacted the Jewish people.
Midot: Students will utilize the lens of Jewish values in developing themselves into better citizens of the world
Pluralism: Students must understand that there are many ways of being a committed/observant Jew and that we need to respect each other with our varied beliefs and practices
Tanakh (Bible)
Torah is the foundational text of the Jewish people and a core of the MWJDS Jewish Studies curriculum. We aim to familiarize all students with the core stories and mitzvot from Torah that shape Jewish life, to help them develop the skills they need to access the text in the original and in translation, to understand the important role of Torah and its interpretation in Jewish tradition and to see themselves as links in that chain of tradition as they engage with the text and apply its message to their own lives.
Tefillah
Students at MWJDS have the opportunity to participate in and/or study Tefillah daily. Beginning in PreK and Kindergarten, students learn to participate in the tefillot (prayers), of the weekday morning service, and to explore their themes. In first grade there is a focus on proficiency in and understanding of the purposes of the core tefillot, grouping them into prayers of shevach (praise), hoda’ah (thanks), and bakasha (request). At the end of first grade, students receive their own copy of the siddur (prayerbook). Students continue to develop proficiency and understanding throughout the grades and learn the brachot (blessings) before and after meals, parts of Hallel, Shabbat evening, and morning services, and havdalah, the ritual end of Shabbat. In Middle School, students have the opportunity to explore different modalities of tefillah through weekly tefillah electives, and to study the meanings of tefillot at a more sophisticated level through weekly iyyun tefillah classes.
One morning a week we gather in a larger group, sometimes the whole school, sometimes divided into upper and lower school, for community tefillah. Students from all grades have the opportunity to lead each other in prayer and to demonstrate their newly emerging skills.
Cantillation / Torah Chanting
In music class, students learn the tunes and symbols of the Torah trope (cantillation signs), which tell us how each word of the Torah is chanted when it is read during tefillah. Starting as early as Kindergarten, students begin learning the names and tunes of the trope using kinesthetic motions to represent the written symbols (Trope Maga). By the end of fourth grade, students acquire the skill of applying the trope to the words of Torah and, thereby, learning to chant short portions of the Torah at morning Tefillah. Students in the upper school have regular opportunities to practice this skill and to learn the roles and procedure of the Torah service at Upper School Tefillah and at All School Tefillah for Rosh Chodesh.