“My students insist on translating every pasuk (verse) into English and then using their translation to answer the questions. How can I get them to work from the makor (original text)?”

“When I give in to their learned helplessness and teach them an interpretation, they can’t identify the problem in the pasuk that the interpretation comes to solve, and then they get stuck on the one understanding I presented and won’t consider an alternative. How can I help them think for themselves?”

“I want my students to identify with the avot (patriarchs) and imahot (matriarchs) and learn from their example. But they somehow can’t relate to them as role models. What am I doing wrong?”

Sound familiar? For years these complaints were a constant refrain from my Tanakh-teaching colleagues. They were committed in principle to designing lessons and units that promote active student learning, with challenging, developmentally appropriate learning tasks and open-ended inquiries that are connected to children’s lived experience. However, the curriculum materials available to them—MaToK, Tal-AM, HaChumash Sheli, and so on—offered few opportunities for students to think for themselves, and the original Humash text (in Hebrew, in Hebrew and English, with or without Rashi commentary) was too opaque for young children to engage with independently. The available resources undermined my colleagues’ efforts to engage their students. Eventually, I decided to do something about it.

Designed for 2^nd through 8^th grade, the Tanakh program at Kadima Day School in Los Angeles encompasses 64 perakim (chapters), in whole or in large part—49 perakim of Torah and 15 of Nakh. The first units that were developed have been in use for 20 years, initially at Schechter Manhattan, and the most recent unit was first piloted this year. Kadima’s curriculum contains some distinctive features that may be of interest to Tanakh teachers and curriculum developers in other schools.

From Theory to Practice

Language arts teachers often seek to help students develop a personal connection to the literature they read so that they will care about the particular text, appreciate the value of reading, and be motivated to persevere in the challenging tasks of decoding and sense-making. One of the key strategies teachers employ is known as reader response, which aims to help students interact with texts, enter into a dialogue with them, and thereby construct meaning. Typically, this is accomplished through open-ended questions that invite students to insert themselves in the reading process (for example, “Do you think this story really could have happened? Why?”). By honoring students’ experiences and insights, teachers boost students’ self-esteem, empower them to insert themselves into the texts they read, and thereby hook them on the wonders of reading

We adapted this approach to learning Tanakh, taking into account the elements that distinguish Tanakh from general literature. Our approach provides an induction into the text, empowerment of students in translating and making sense of the text, personalization of the text, exploration of grammatical tools, and inviting students to ask and answer their own questions within the text while expanding their understanding of those via exposure to classic commentary. What follows is a brief description of the main steps we take in the learning process.

1. Building on prior knowledge and experience

Language arts teachers know that one of the keys to helping readers make meaning is to activate their prior knowledge and experience. What do children know that will support them in creating meaning? To each new story, they bring expectations about story structures, language use conventions, and potentially relevant information gleaned from their own experiences. When teachers build bridges between what students already know and the new learning they will engage in, they make it more accessible, they honor and empower their students as co-constructors of their learning, and they motivate them to learn more about something they already know about.

Our Tanakh curriculum uses a prediction exercise to help students connect a new perek (chapter) to their prior knowledge. Presented with five to seven phrases selected from the new text, students are asked to make educated guesses as to what will happen. Sometimes students know something about the perek from Bible stories they have heard or read, or parashat hashavua (weekly Torah portion) lessons they have learned. Even if this particular narrative is unfamiliar, their acquaintance with biblical story structure in general, or the previous perek they studied, or the characters in this perek, often creates productive connections and piques curiosity.

For example, before studying the second half of Exodus 7 (sixth grade), students are given the following “clues”:

לֵךְ…וְנִצַּבְתָּ לִקְרָאתוֹ

שַׁלַּח אֶת עַמִּי וְיַעַבְדֻנִי

וַיַּךְ אֶת הַמַּיִם

וַיַּעֲשׂוּ כֵן חַרְטֻמֵּי מִצְרַיִם

וְלֹא שָׁמַע אֲלֵהֶם

לֹא יָכְלוּ לִשְׁתֹּת

It’s worth noting that, even if a student, or the class as a whole, makes an inaccurate prediction, the value of the prediction task is not negated. They now bring heightened curiosity to the reading task, they know something about the story arc, and they will be able to identify familiar road markers as they proceed through the perek. And, in the end, they will correct their own errors and improve their prediction skills for the future

2. Read aloud and jigsaw

At this point, the teacher previews the full text of the perek in a slow and accurate read-aloud. Students are not expected to understand it fully, but between the prediction exercise described above and the read-aloud, they get enough of the gist to prepare them for starting their own direct engagement with the text. They encounter the text while working with their peers in small groups. The perakim are usually divided into four sections and the class is divided into four study groups, with the intention that each section is studied in depth by one study group and then shared in a jigsaw format. This helps to maximize the opportunity for social learning. Inquiry, hypothesis testing, exploration, and idea generation all benefit from collaboration and social support.

3. Language-based learning

Language is the best vehicle for language development. To learn a language means to encounter it in context, in use, and not part by part or devoid of the rich situations in which it is used. The linguistic complexity of the Tanakh text often leads teachers to either of two strategies: extensive lists of vocabulary to be studied and memorized, or translation. Neither of these approaches, however, produces students who comprehend the original text or read it with facility or fluency. The alternative we use for students to understand each pasuk combines two strategies: a series of comprehension questions, as well as footnotes with the translation of the most difficult terms. The aim, and effect, of these elements is to provide the support needed for students to competently read and understand the pasuk by themselves, and over time convince them that they are able to make sense of the Hebrew text by themselves.

Here is an example of this method, as applied to Genesis 22:1 (third grade):

וַיְהִי אַחַר הַדְּבָרִים הָאֵלֶּה

וְהָאֶ-לֹקִים נִסָּה אֶת אַבְרָהָם

וַיֹּאמֶר אֵלָיו

אַבְרָהָם

וַיֹּאמֶר

הִנֵּנִי

וַיְהִי—ה.י.ה — it happened

אַחַר הַדְּבָרִים הָאֵלֶּה — after these things

נִסָּה—נ.ס.ה — he tested, he put to the test

הִנֵּנִי — here I am

1. Highlight what God says in yellow.
2. Highlight what Avraham says in blue.
3. Who tested whom?
4. How does the Torah say: “I will do everything you ask of me?”
5. After which things did this happen? (What happened at the end of the previous perek?)

Using a combination of context, the scaffolding of their vocabulary footnotes, and collaboration with peers, students are able to produce a fairly accurate understanding of the text while building their confidence in their ability to comprehend the Hebrew text and not feel compelled to produce a precise English translation.

4. Transacting with text

The transactional theory of reading rejects the approach that reading is a receptive process of internalizing the text, positing instead that reading is an interaction between the reader and the text, in which the meaning is not inherent either in the text or within the reader, but rather comes to life through the interaction (“transaction”) between the reader and the text. Reading, in this model, is not primarily knowledge acquisition, but rather meaning-making. To transact with texts, readers engage with them actively, using clues within the text to ask questions of themselves and the text, hypothesize, search for evidence to support or contradict their hypotheses, and build upon their provisional understanding. They adopt the role of professional readers such as actors, storytellers, detectives, news reporters, and more.

How can teachers help their students become active readers? In language arts, by pausing during read-alouds to model questioning, predicting, inferring, considering multiple perspectives, and so on, and then eliciting similar transactional moves from the students as they read. In Tanakh classes, by posing parshanut (commentary) style questions that sensitize students to the types of textual problems and anomalies that midrashim and commentators such as Rashi, Abarbanel, or Nechama Leibowitz attend to. Just as language arts teachers seldom offer their own answers so as not to predispose students to the teacher’s understanding and prematurely foreclose the students’ struggle and exploration, so can Tanakh teachers avoid supplying the commentators’ answers to the questions they posed.

Consider the following verse (Deuteronomy 21:7), which we study in the 8^th grade, regarding a proclamation from the elders in the case of the unsolved murder (eglah arufah):

וְעָנוּ וְאָמְרוּ יָדֵינוּ לֹא שָׁפְכוּ אֶת הַדָּם הַזֶּה וְעֵינֵינוּ לֹא רָאוּ. כַּפֵּר לְעַמְּךָ יִשְׂרָאֵל אֲשֶׁר פָּדִיתָ ה’ וְאַל תִּתֵּן דָּם נָקִי בְּקֶרֶב עַמְּךָ יִשְׂרָאֵל וְנִכַּפֵּר לָהֶם הַדָּם

And they shall make this declaration: Our hands did not shed this blood, nor did our eyes see it done. Absolve Your people Israel whom You redeemed, God, and do not let guilt for the blood of the innocent remain among Your people Israel. And they will be absolved of bloodguilt.

1. Where do the leaders stop speaking? What is the last word they say?
2. Why do the leaders say that they didn’t kill this person? Does someone suspect that they are the murderers?
3. What do you think: What could the leaders have done differently, as leaders of their city, to make this ceremony unnecessary? (What could they have done to prevent the murder? What could they have done to find the murderer and punish him?)
4. What will the outcome of the ceremony be? What will God do?

As students’ attention is repeatedly focused on a close reading of each pasuk—its syntactical structure, ambiguities, omissions, and unusual phrasing—their eyes and ears are sensitized to these features, and they increasingly attend to them without prompting.

5. Identifying with characters

Readers who consider the unspoken thoughts, emotions, or beliefs of literary characters engage in a potentially productive avenue of meaning-making. By suspending their own inner voice and imagining themselves in the shoes of a character or characters, internalizing their viewpoints and perspectives, they build empathy, expand their own emotional repertoires, and deepen their comprehension of the narrative arc as a whole.

Imagining oneself as a participant rather than an observer is a valuable exercise for Tanakh learners no less than for readers, historians, and actors. Take, for example, the beginning of the Golden Calf narrative in Exodus 32 (sixth or seventh grade):

וַיַּרְא הָעָם כִּי בֹשֵׁשׁ מֹשֶׁה לָרֶדֶת מִן הָהָר וַיִּקָּהֵל הָעָם עַל אַהֲרֹן וַיֹּאמְרוּ אֵלָיו קוּם עֲשֵׂה לָנוּ אֱלֹהִים אֲשֶׁר יֵלְכוּ לְפָנֵינוּ כִּי זֶה מֹשֶׁה הָאִישׁ אֲשֶׁר הֶעֱלָנוּ מֵאֶרֶץ מִצְרַיִם לֹא יָדַעְנוּ מֶה הָיָה לוֹ

When the people saw that Moses was so long in coming down from the mountain, the people gathered against Aaron and said to him, “Come, make for us a god who shall go before us, for that fellow Moses—the man who brought us from the land of Egypt—we do not know what has happened to him.”

1. You are one of the people. What do you think happened to Moshe?
2. How do you feel?
3. You are Aharon. What do you think happened to Moshe?
4. In your opinion, who took the people out of Egypt?
5. What do you think of the people’s request?
6. What do you think of the people?
7. What will you say to them? Why?
8. Will you do what the people are requesting? Why?

Some of these questions call for inferential thinking, others for identification, yet others for prediction. All of them deepen affinity, engagement, and empathy.

Other Design Features

6. Hakushiot sheli (My questions)

At the end of each perek, students pose their own questions. Having encountered, and grappled with, dozens of “transacting with text” style questions in their study of the perek, they are asked to pose new text-based, inquiry-style questions, similar in inspiration to the “mentor questions” they have experienced. When each student in the group has generated 2-3 questions, they share them with each other and suggest their own answers, both to their own questions and to their group members’ questions. The teacher then identifies a few questions that the groups posed that also troubled some of the commentaries (classical or modern), summarizes several commentators’ answers, and shares them with the class. Afterward, the students read the commentaries, understand them, and compare, contrast, and evaluate them against their own answers. Students are thrilled when they have independently asked the same question or suggested a similar answer to that of one of the classic commentaries.

7. Text-attack skills

The language of Tanakh is strange and unfamiliar even to native Hebrew speakers, the more so for Hebrew language learners. In an attempt to increase students’ ability to access the meaning of the text while gradually reducing the scaffolding and support they need, each perek concludes with an exercise on biblical grammar, syntax, or structure that they encountered in that perek. Topics include the shoresh (verb root), verb prefixes and suffixes, vav hahipukh (vav-consecutive), sentence structure, and poetic devices, to mention a few.

Reflection

The elements of reader response theory discussed above contribute to an approach to Tanakh teaching that actively involves students in unpacking and internalizing the meaning of the text. Prediction activities create an anticipatory mindset and pique curiosity and interest. Opportunities to engage with the language of Tanakh—both in a particular passage and in the patterns and structures of biblical Hebrew—imbue within students a sense of authenticity, ownership, and mastery. Transacting with text, both in response to open-ended questions and through learners generating their own, extends and deepens not only their knowledge, but also their structure of knowledge, and elevates them into biblical commentators in dialogue with their predecessors across millennia. Personalization exercises actively engage readers’ personal histories and creative powers; they also promote identification and emotional resonance with biblical characters, their dilemmas, and their choices. Collaborative learning creates community, deepens inquiry, and transforms students from learners to teachers who help shape and elaborate each other’s ideas. Reader response is well suited to the study of Tanakh and closely aligned with its goals in the K-12 classroom.

Students who have learned Tanakh in this way report a variety of benefits. They fondly recall both what they studied and how they studied. They remember feeling challenged, empowered, and respected as learners. They claim that their Tanakh studies prepared them well for active learning in other subjects, such as middle school and high school humanities. For many, the Tanakh learning experience felt spiritually meaningful to them, strengthening their connection to Jewish life and motivating them to continue their Jewish learning beyond their school years.

A reader-response approach to Tanakh may not be for every school. If active learning is not prioritized in the general studies curriculum—in the language arts classroom, in math, and so on—it will be a challenge for students to adapt to this way of reading the inherently complex Tanakh text. But for schools that promote meaning-making across the general studies curriculum, this Tanakh program may be a suitable complement.

Conclusion

Tanakh is, first and foremost, God’s revealed message to the Jewish people and humankind, proclaimed by His prophets. It seems paradoxical, at first blush, to invite students to respond to divine revelation by asking them what they think it means, rather than telling them what it means. Yet this is precisely what Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik demands of us as students and teachers of Tanakh:

Besides our understanding of the semantics of the words, their style, and the historical background, there is a great spiritual message… The Torah is not concerned exclusively with past events; it is also concerned with our thoughts, our feelings, and our commitments… If we examine the text closely, we may find a treasure hidden in one word or one letter.

Opening our students’ minds, hearts, and souls, and our own, to receive, discover, and respond to God’s call is the ultimate service of God, and, as we say, vetalmud Torah keneged kulam—studying Torah is the worthiest pursuit.