272 S. Bryn Mawr Ave.
Bryn Mawr PA 19010
610•922•2300 – Fax: 610•922•2301
Jewish Studies
Barrack teachers are as committed to having students ask questions as they are to having them search for answers. It is a Talmudic approach to learning that promotes critical, creative thinking and deepens understanding on all levels. This approach defines the Jewish Studies program at Barrack, as well as secular learning.
At Barrack, the Department of Jewish Studies includes two major areas of inquiry: Bible (Tanach as it is known in Hebrew) and Jewish Studies which includes the study of great ideas and literature from ancient to modern times.
Jewish Studies
Jewish Studies encompasses Jewish history, Jewish philosophy, and rabbinic literature from ancient times to the present. Each year, students grapple with moral and ethical issues, looking at resolutions to ancient times and considering modern responses. They sharpen their thinking with readings from modern Jewish philosophers that extend the pluralistic mission of school, introducing religious and secular perceptions on great questions of Jewish practice, Jewish identity and Jewish memory. The Hebrew language is essential to Jewish Studies at Barrack.
Bible/Tanach
Jewish Studies includes focused study of the Bible that introduces students to the ancient world and the earliest encounters of the ancient Hebrews with other peoples and with God. By the time students graduate from Barrack, they not only have a breadth of knowledge related to the books of the Bible, but they also have a great depth that comes from years of wrestling with the poetry and prose in the biblical text from a traditional prospective, with classical commentaries, and from a literary prospective as well. They look at well known biblical figures as role models and consider the presence of God as God was understood to have acted in biblical times.
"Asking informed questions is how we learn at Barrack..."
Faculty
Rabbi Judd Levingston Department Chair
