I want to briefly share one piece of our experience doing third grade. I grew up with Jewish family who gave me cultural but not traditional religious experiences, so I knew I would have to dig deep to make an authentic connection to these texts or it would feel forced and fake. It turned out to be a chance to rediscover and reconnect with a deeply meaningful part of my heritage.
In December of our third grade year I had this to say:
In Eugene Schwartz’s lectures for this grade level, he made a suggestion that the stories from the Hebrew Scriptures (Tanakh) could be told a little each day, rather than in blocks. I began this year with only a very basic Jewish education myself, but Simchat Torah was coming up so I decided I would tell the first portions of Genesis along with the Parasha schedule (determines which portion of the Torah is read each week in a year-long cycle), and on Friday nights after Shabbat dinner. I have to be creative to get time alone with my third grade daughter, when my younger son can be occupied, so evenings when my husband was free seemed great. The experience has been wonderful. So far, we have kept to the Parasha of the week, now on the last portion of Genesis. My daughter is just so transported. She thinks about the stories all the time, brings them up and asks questions about them at any time and place throughout our week. On a hike, at the dinner table, getting into bed. We discuss and wonder together about them often. She opens our copy of Tanakh on her lap, just to page through and look at the names, remember the stories. She realized her name, Josefina, comes from Joseph. She wanted to learn some Hebrew so we have been — the day of the week and date of each day, numbers, the alphabet, greetings, words. And each week, she writes a title in Hebrew letters in her main lesson book, the name of Abraham or Rivka or Yaakov. She is just living it all the time! And underlying it all, is our living with stories about the traditions of our ancestors, and both their and our connection to Divine Presence, and I think that is supporting her profoundly so far this year.
My favorite resources for the Hebrew Scriptures in Waldorf third grade:
- Beginning with Eugene Schwartz’s suggestions, I found my way to Emil Bock’s three books on the Hebrew Scriptures, from Creation to Esther, to understand the deep anthroposophical perspective on these ancient texts.
- Next, I learned that the truly Jewish way to read Torah is to read Midrash alongside it — so I followed Louis Ginzberg’s Legends of the Jews as a beautiful and intense summary of practically all of the Midrashic legends and stories, and also From Our People by Jacob Isaacs, both available in full text for free online.
- I prefer using a “Jewish” translation rather than King James to get a feel for the expressiveness of the Hebrew language: Everett Fox’s available for free on Sefaria or Robert Alter’s are very powerful.
- Essays and summaries of the weekly parashot on Chabad.org and My Jewish Learning.org are instructive and inspiring.
- Materials and games for learning the Hebrew alphabet, writing, and decoding skills on JLearnHub.com.
EPILOGUE: After my second time through third grade with my younger child, I was inspired to further my own Jewish education and I became an adult Bat Mitzvah at age 44! A transformative milestone! You can read my drashele (mini-teaching) on the parasha we read from. I learned to chant Torah and continue to leyn regularly at the Kitchen in San Francisco.
Chigüiri-cosas 