בֶּן בַּג בַּג אוֹמֵר, הֲפֹךְ בָּהּ וַהֲפֹךְ בָּהּ, דְּכֹלָּא בָהּ. וּבָהּ תֶּחֱזֵי, וְסִיב וּבְלֵה בָהּ, וּמִנַּהּ לֹא תָזוּעַ, שֶׁאֵין לְךָ מִדָּה טוֹבָה הֵימֶנָּה:

Ben Bag Bag said: Turn it and turn it again, for all is in it; look deeply into it and grow old and tired [in its contemplation], but not desist from [its study]—for there is no greater virtue than that.  (Avot 5:24)

Jewish educators dream that students will turn our sacred texts again and again to find meaning and wisdom. But if, as Ben Bag Bag says, “all is in it,” how do we provide opportunities to uncover the riches of these texts without being overwhelmed by the sheer number of possibilities? How can our curriculum and pedagogy be coherent, so student learning is deep and focused? And how can our work with texts reflect our schools’ educational and religious orientations? Standards address these challenges. 

Standards are broad learning goals that embody a school’s values and vision of Jewish learning. By using specific standards, school leaders and teachers make thoughtful selections of texts, scaffold their students’ engagement with texts, and sharpen the focus on different dimensions of these texts. Classroom instruction based on standards requires critical thinking, high levels of engagement, and meaning making. 

Below are two different examples of standards and class activities that might guide the learning activities for day school students based on Megillat Esther. In both cases, the activity is aligned to a standard as well as a more specific learning goal (benchmark) derived from the standard. 

Classroom 1. The standard is “Inspiring Resource: Students will 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.” The benchmark is “Students compare dilemmas in life with dilemmas explored in the biblical narrative.”  Growing out of the standard and benchmark are big ideas and essential questions that frame the learning: 

• There are reasons for not sharing everything about yourself right away.

• Under what circumstances should we reveal/hide our identity?

After interactive reading of specific passages in the Megillah in this 4th-5th grade class about the dilemmas each character faces (e.g., bowing to Haman, appearing before the King without an invitation, reporting the assassination plot, revealing ones’ Jewish identity publicly), students prepare double-sided, paper cut-outs of objects:  a crown, castle, banquet tray, bag of ashes. For each object, students write what the objects say about the person to whom they belong. On one side, students discuss what the object reveals about the character. On the other side, students discuss what it helps hide from others. The class then considers the Big Idea and Essential Question as they pertain to contemporary life. 

Classroom 2. The standard is “Sacred Grappling: Students will develop an appreciation for the sacredness of Tanakh as the primary record of the meeting between God and the people of Israel and as an essential text through which Jews continue to grapple with theological, spiritual, and existential questions. The benchmark is “Students explore views of God in the early prophets and megillot.” Growing out of this standard and benchmark are these big ideas and essential questions: 

• God may be in the story even when God is not in the story.

• How might God “show up” in biblical stories and in our lives? 

In this 8th-9th grade class students look at an overview of the Megillah to identify appearances and relationships (or lack thereof) to God in the text.  They categorize those appearances and relationships and formulate personal opinions about God in their own lives.

Students find and list the coincidences in the story, and rank how likely they would be to have occurred naturally. Next, the class debates: What is the relationship between: A coincidence and the ‘invisible hand of God’? And finally, they create a journal entry about one event in their life that seems unlikely to have happened naturally:  What are their thoughts about God’s–or coincidence’s– role in that event? 

These two experiences using different standards both yield authentic and compelling learning for students. They compel students to “look deeply and not desist” from the study of Torah. 

Learn more about Jewish Day School Standards and Benchmarks here. Happy Purim!

Cindy Reich, Aviva Silverman, and Judith Shapero lead Jewish Day School Standards and Benchmarks, a field program of the William Davidson Graduate School of Jewish Education at the Jewish Theological Seminary.