10th Grade Biblical Literature · Torah Foundations
The Why, What and How of Torah
A study guide for the Unit 1 assessment. You should be able to name the Five Books, locate a verse and its commentary in a Chumash, define the key terms, ask a real kushiya, and compare the sources on why we study at all.
What the assessment covers
Straight from the study guide. Everything below exists to get you through this list.
- List the Five Books of Moses in order with their Hebrew and English names, and define them. You do not need to write Hebrew letters.
- Locate a specific verse in the Torah and the corresponding Friedman commentary using sefer, perek, pasuk. No page numbers will be given.
- Define p'shat, d'rash, and kushiya.
- Identify and recall the different types of kushiyot, and understand how they are used in learning Torah.
- Compare and contrast the sources on why we study Torah, then explain which two opinions speak to you personally.
- Navigate a page of your Chumash, including knowing where the original text ends and Friedman's commentary begins.
The Five Books
The Torah, also known as the Five Books of Moses or the Chumash (from the Hebrew word for the number five), is the first of the three sections that make up the Tanakh, the Hebrew Bible.
| # | Hebrew name | Literal translation | English name |
|---|
Cover the table and write it out. If you can produce all four columns in order without checking, this part of the assessment is done.
Citations and the page
Three words do the work:
- Sefer
- Book
- Perek
- Chapter
- Pasuk
- Verse
So Leviticus 19:14 reads as: sefer Leviticus, perek 19, pasuk 14. Leviticus and Vayikra are the same book, so Vayikra 19:2 works the same way.
On the page of your Chumash there is a line. The original Torah text sits above it; Friedman's commentary sits below it. Find the verse first, then read down the page for the commentary on it.
Practice
A citation appears below. Name its parts, then check.
Key terms
The first five are defined in the packet. P'shat and d'rash you define from your class notes. Write them here and they stay on this device.
Asking kushiyot
Questions are the basis for all learning, since if there is no question, no quest or drive to know, then answers will not be found, or they will have little impact. One term Jews often use to refer to probing, challenging questions is kushiyot. The term comes from the Hebrew word kasheh, "difficult." A kushiya is a difficulty or a puzzling problem.
If a question can be answered by simply looking at the p'shat of a text, it's not a kushiya.
Twelve issues that can be discovered in a text and turned into good kushiyot:
Bring your own examples to class. The ones you find in the text you are actually learning will stick better than a list you memorized.
Why study Torah? Four sources
Four sources, each answering the same question differently. The assessment asks you to compare them and then defend the two that speak to you. Answer in your own words. Copying a classmate's summary defeats the exercise. Your writing saves to this device only.
Comparing them
What is Torah? Two takes
These answer a different question, not why we study, but what the thing is.
Check yourself
Answer out loud or on paper first, then reveal. Every answer here comes from the packet.
Am I ready?
Tick one only when you can do it without looking.