Deep Rich Jewish Content: Developing Self-Efficacy in Learners
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ShareSelf-efficacy refers to an individual's belief in their capacity to act in the ways necessary to reach specific goals. Nurturing this as connected to Jewish learning fosters confidence and agency. This is part of The Jewish Education Project's "Deep Rich Jewish Content" Toolkit.
This material is part of the Deep Rich Jewish Content (DRJC) e-course. Learn more about the DRJC Toolkit.
Jewish education is not merely about transmitting tradition—it is about empowering learners to become active, thoughtful, and spiritually attuned participants in their own growth. The texts that follow invite an exploration of how we can imagine learners filled with innate potential, capable of shaping their own path with purpose and integrity.
As you engage with these three sources, consider how they might inform your own practice. What shifts could help your learners see themselves not just as students of Torah in its broadest sense, but as its co-creators?
Learner Experience and Empowerment
Rabbi Mordecai Kaplan founded the Reconstructionist movement, and established the idea of Judaism as a civilization, not just a religion. He was a Lithuanian-born American rabbi, writer, Jewish educator, professor, theologian, philosopher, and activist. This excerpt is from his seminal work, Judaism as a Civilization, in the chapter titled “The Meaning of Jewish Education in America” where he discusses the most pressing needs of Jewish education in his day.
Questions for reflection:
- According to Kaplan, where must Jewish education begin?
- What is the goal of helping a child reorganize and reinterpret their experiences?
- What can you do in your classroom to give students more control over their learning toward thoughtful, freely chosen goals?
Inner Spark and Intrinsic Motivation
Chovat HaTalmidim (lit. A Students' Obligation) is an ethical work and self-development guide for young students, authored by Kalonymus Kalman Shapira, the Grand Rabbi of Piaseczno, Poland. It is aimed at teenagers, to help them see themselves as active builders of their souls and of the Jewish future. This section discusses how every single one of our student’s has their own spark and opportunity to find their own desire to serve the Divine. The role of the educator is to help the individual student find this spark and not to teach the child that Judaism is just a habit.
Questions for reflection:
- What is the text’s core claim about education? How does it center the child’s religious development?
- Why is helping children want Torah on their own terms preferred to simply allowing it to be something they do as a habit?
- What concrete practices could educators, parents, or communities adopt to “delve inside” a child and help reveal and nurture that inner holiness—so that the learner’s connection to Torah and mitzvot endures into adulthood?
- What can we do in class to notice, name, and nurture each child’s inner spark?
Honor Children's Learning
This final text comes from the Babylonian Talmud and is found in Tractate Shabbat that deals with the laws of how we observe the Sabbath day. This particular section can be found in a conversation about what caused the destruction of the second Temple in Jerusalem, a profoundly important event for the Rabbis, which caused the Jewish people’s entire ritual world to shift. In that conversation there is a discussion about how significant the learning of children is, and how the world exists because of them.
אָמַר רֵישׁ לָקִישׁ מִשּׁוּם רַבִּי יְהוּדָה נְשִׂיאָה: אֵין הָעוֹלָם מִתְקַיֵּים אֶלָּא בִּשְׁבִיל הֶבֶל תִּינוֹקוֹת שֶׁל בֵּית רַבָּן. אֲמַר לֵיהּ רַב פָּפָּאלְאַבָּיֵי: דִּידִי וְדִידָךְ מַאי? אֲמַר לֵיהּ: אֵינוֹ דּוֹמֶה הֶבֶל שֶׁיֵּשׁ בּוֹ חֵטְא לְהֶבֶל שֶׁאֵין בּוֹ חֵטְא. וְאָמַר רֵישׁ לָקִישׁ מִשּׁוּם רַבִּי יְהוּדָה נְשִׂיאָה: אֵין מְבַטְּלִין תִּינוֹקוֹת שֶׁל בֵּית רַבָּן אֲפִילּוּ לְבִנְיַן בֵּית הַמִּקְדָּשׁ.
Reish Lakish said in the name of Rabbi Yehuda Nesia: The world only exists because of the breath, i.e., reciting Torah, of schoolchildren.
Rav Pappa said to Abaye: My Torah study and yours, what is its status? (This implies that the Torah study of adults is worth less.) He said to him: The breath of adults, which is tainted by sin, is not similar to the breath of children, which is not tainted by sin. And Reish Lakish said in the name of Rabbi Yehuda Nesia: One may not interrupt schoolchildren from studying Torah, even in order to build the Temple.
Pay careful attention to the last line of the text excerpt, especially since the context of this text is a discussion about the destruction of the Temple.
Questions for reflection:
- According to the Talmud, what makes children’s Torah learning so special? What do you think it means that they are free of sin? (Consider expanding the idea of “free of sin” to "innocence.")
- What does this text teach us about how we prioritize the child we are teaching?
- What specific policies or practices could you adopt in your classroom to prioritize learners' personal religious and/or spiritual drives?
