Turn IT and Turn IT agaIn

426 Pages·2013·2.34 MB·English

Turn IT and
Turn IT agaIn
Studies in the Teaching and Learning
of Classical Jewish Texts
Jewish Identity in Post-Modern Society
Series Editor: Roberta Rosenberg Farber – Yeshiva University
Editorial Board:
Sara Abosch – University of Memphis
Geoffrey Alderman – University of Buckingham
Yoram Bilu – Hebrew University
Steven M. Cohen – Hebrew Union College – Jewish Institute of Religion
Bryan Daves – Yeshiva University
Sergio Della Pergola – Hebrew University
Simcha Fishbane – Touro College
Deborah Dash Moore – University of Michigan
Uzi Rebhun – Hebrew University
Reeva Simon – Yeshiva University
Chaim I. Waxman – Rutgers University
Turn IT and
Turn IT agaIn
Studies in the Teaching and Learning
of Classical Jewish Texts
Edited by Jon a. LEvISohn
and SuSan P. FEndrICk
Boston
2013
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data:
The bibliographic data for this title is available from the Library of Congress.

Copyright © 2013 Academic Studies Press
All rights reserved
ISBN 978-1-936235-63-6 (cloth)
ISBN 978-1-61811-081-7 (electronic)

Effective July 19, 2016, this book will be subject to a CC-BY-NC license. To view
a copy of this license, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/. Other
than as provided by these licenses, no part of this book may be reproduced,
transmitted, or displayed by any electronic or mechanical means without permission
from the publisher or as permitted by law.

Cover design by Ivan Grave

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For our parents
Steve and Sybil Levisohn
Camille Munz Fendrick and David Fendrick
And for our children
Ariella, Maya, and Jesse
Meira, Shoshana, Adina, Matan, and Elianna
Contents
Ack nowledgements 8
Foreword
Sharon Feiman-Nemser 11
1 Cultivating Curiosity about the Teaching of Classical Jewish Texts
Jon A. Levisohn and Susan P. Fendrick 13
PART 1: Focus on Subject Matter
2 A Map of Orientations to the Teaching of Bible
Barry W. Holtz 26
3 What Are the Orientations to the Teaching of Rabbinic Literature?
Jon A. Levisohn 52
4 Teaching Talmudic Hermeneutics Using a Semiotic Model of Law
Daniel Reifman 81
5 Neusner, Brisk, and the Stam: Significant Methodologies
for Meaningful Talmud Teaching and Study
Michael Chernick 105
PART 2: Focus on Teaching and Teachers
6 The Pedagogy of Slowing Down:
Teaching Talmud in a Summer Kollel
Jane Kanarek 128
7 Serendipity and Pedagogy:
Presenting the Weekly Parashah through Rabbinic Eyes
Carl M. Perkins 158
8 Introducing the Bible:
The Comparative Orientation in Practice
Jon A. Levisohn 186
PART 3: Focus on Learning and Learners
9 Teaching Ancient Jewish History:
An Experiment in Engaged Learning
Michael Satlow 212
10 “A Judaism That Does Not Hide”:
Curricular Warrants for the Teaching of the Documentary
Hypothesis in Community Jewish High Schools
Susan E. Tanchel 236
11 Developing Student Awareness of the Talmud as an Edited
Document: A Pedagogy for the Pluralistic Jewish Day School
Jeffrey Spitzer 264
12 A Theory of Havruta Learning
Orit Kent 286
PART 4: Focus on Context
13 “Torah Talk”: Teaching Parashat Ha-shavua to Young Children
Shira Horowitz 324
14 Using the Contextual Orientation to Facilitate the Study of Bible
with Generation X
Beth Cousens, Susan P. Fendrick, and Jeremy S. Morrison 352
15 Academic Study of the Talmud as a Spiritual Endeavor
in Rabbinic Training: Delights and Dangers
Jonah Chanan Steinberg 377
16 Teaching Rabbinics as an Ethical Endeavor and Teaching Ethics
as a Rabbinic Endeavor
Sarra Lev 388
List of Contributors 415
Ind ex of Biblical and Rabbinic Sources 416
Gen eral Index 418
01 Acknowledgements
This book emerges from the Initiative on Bridging Scholarship
and Pedagogy in Jewish Studies, a research project at the Mandel
Center for Studies in Jewish Education at Brandeis University.
We owe a debt of gratitude, first, to Sharon Feiman-Nemser,
director of the Mandel Center, for her enthusiastic support of
the project from its inception, and her wise and experienced
contributions to making it both exploratory and productive.
We are grateful to the participants in the two Bridging
Initiative research seminars in 2003-04 and 2006-07, who
responded eagerly to our invitation to explore together what
the serious study of the teaching and learning of classical Jew-
ish texts could look like. The enthusiastic engagement of the
participants in the Bridging Initiative conferences in 2005 and
2008 reaffirmed the importance of this work and contributed
depth and texture to our understanding of the teaching and
learning of classical Jewish texts. The work of the project could
not have proceeded without the assistance of the staff of the
Mandel Center over the last several years, as it progressed from
seminars and conferences, to working papers and online vid-
eos, to, now, this book: Nora Abrahamer, Janna Dorfman, Liz
DiNolfo, Sarah Feinberg, Galit Higgins, Kimberly Hirsh, Valorie
Kopp-Aharonov, Deb Laufer, Stacie Martinez, Crystal Massuda,
Gevelyn McCaskill, Marcie Quaroni, Susanne Shavelson, Em-
majoy Shulman-Kumin, Angela Viehland and David Weinstein.
In particular, we want to acknowledge Belina Mizrahi and Beth
Polasky for their assistance with the conferences in 2005 and
2008.
At Brandeis, we appreciate the support and counsel of Marc
Brettler, David Wright and Sylvia Barack Fishman, in their ca-
pacity as chairs of the Department of Near Eastern and Judaic
Studies, and of Sylvia Fuks Fried. At Academic Studies Press,
we appreciate the patience and diligence of Sharona Vedol, Kira
Nemirovsky, and Danielle Padula.
8
Acknowledgements
We would be remiss if we did not particularly mention Lee
Shulman. Throughout the evolution of the project, over and
over again, we called upon both his scholarship and his friend-
ship, and neither one ever failed us.
We also express our gratitude to the Mandel Foundation for
its partnership with Brandeis University in creating and sup-
porting the Mandel Center and its work.
The conference on Teaching Rabbinic Literature in 2008
was graciously and generously supported by a grant from the
Wabash Center for Teaching and Learning in Theology and Re-
ligion, as well as a grant from Combined Jewish Philanthropies
(CJP). Another grant, from an anonymous source, enabled the
videorecording of the conference and the publication of the
video footage on the web. Finally, we are grateful to Targum
Shlishi, a Raquel and Aryeh Rubin Foundation, for supporting
the publication of this book.
A number of the chapters of the book have been revised
and condensed from articles first published elsewhere. Chap-
ter 2 is adapted from the third chapter in Barry Holtz, Textual
Knowledge: Teaching the Bible in Theory and Practice (JTSA Press,
2003) and is reprinted by permission of JTS Press. Chapter 3
is adapted from Jon A. Levisohn, “A Menu of Orientations to
the Teaching of Rabbinic Literature,” Journal of Jewish Educa-
tion 76:1 (2010), and is reprinted by permission of the pub-
lisher (Taylor & Francis Ltd.). Chapter 6 is adapted from Jane
Kanarek, “The Pedagogy of Slowing Down: Teaching Talmud in
a Summer Kollel,” Teaching Theology and Religion 13:1 (2010),
and is reprinted by permission of the publisher (John Wiley
and Sons, Inc.). Chapter 8 is adapted from Jon A. Levisohn,
“Introducing the Contextual Orientation to the Bible: A Com-
parative Study,” Journal of Jewish Education 74:1 (2008), and
is reprinted by permission of the publisher (Taylor & Francis
Ltd.). Chapter 9 is adapted from Michael Satlow, “Narratives or
Sources? Active Learning and the Teaching of Ancient Jewish
History and Texts,” Teaching Theology and Religion 15:1 (2012),
and is reprinted by permission of the publisher (John Wiley
and Sons, Inc.). Chapter 10 is adapted from Susan E. Tanchel,
“‘A Judaism That Does Not Hide’: Teaching the Documentary
9
Acknowledgments
Hypothesis in a Pluralistic Jewish High School,” Journal of Jew-
ish Education 74:1 (2008), and is reprinted by permission of the
publisher (Taylor & Francis Ltd.). Chapter 12 is adapted from
Orit Kent, “A Theory of Havruta Learning,” Journal of Jewish
Education 76:3 (2010), and is reprinted by permission of the
publisher (Taylor & Francis Ltd.). Chapter 14 is adapted from
Beth Cousens et al., “Using the Contextual Orientation to Fa-
cilitate the Study of Bible with Generation X,” Journal of Jewish
Education 74:1 (2008), and is reprinted by permission of the
publisher (Taylor & Francis Ltd.).