Education at MDS is much more than transmission of information.
It’s also about taking children on a spiritual journey along a path
that leads to becoming whole, good, kind, and strong Jewish people. Central
to our idea of a Jewish education is the importance of teaching “soul
values.” How do we achieve this? By recognizing that wisdom is as
important as knowledge. By infusing the mundane with the spiritual. By
teaching our students to be upstanding Americans while identifying equally
as Jews, loyal to the Torah and responsible to local and world Jewish
communities. While the Chumash, Mishnah, and Talmud are at the heart of
our Judaic Studies program, our true core focus is to instill the love
of Jewish learning. In doing so, we pass on the centuries-old values of
our Jewish ancestors. Our school’s authentic approach—using
original Hebrew texts even in the earliest grades—stimulates higher-order
thinking. By requiring that students eschew memorization in favor of engaging
the finer parts of the mind, we actually teach how to learn.
Studying classic Jewish texts trains students in how to search for problems
latent in any text, how to identify and define those problems, how to
respond to them from personal knowledge, and how to research and respond
to existing answers. Of course, along the way we also teach other values
at MDS. We cultivate tolerance and sensitivity by respecting each family’s
level of religious observance. We instill compassion through chesed. We
awaken responsibility through charitable contribution, and we develop
friendship through Jewish community involvement. We impart appreciation
of heritage through the celebration of Jewish holidays and Shabbat, through
weekly Parsha study, and through daily prayer. And we teach loving-kindness
through everything we do. We are a family of teachers, parents, and children
united by rituals, bound by values, and enriched by shared experience.
In short, our program is more than the sum of the words of rabbis and
sages; it’s the best path we know to make learning—and Jewish
learning—passions for a lifetime.
Teaching
Torah Values
At MDS, learning mitzvot is about doing mitzvot and about teaching each
child how to be a responsible Jew. At our annual Yachad Shabbaton for
the developmentally challenged, MDS seventh and eighth graders pray, eat,
and play with their new Yachad friends, forging special bonds that last
a lifetime.
Our schoolwide chesed programs reach out to the entire Jewish community,
from around the corner to needy families in Jerusalem. One example of
many: thirteen-year-old Koby Mandell was brutally murdered in Israel.
After hearing his mother speak at an MDS event, our students were inspired
to raise a significant sum of money for the Koby Mandell Foundation, supporting
programs for victims of terrorism in Israel.
MDS offers many opportunities for children to become learners outside
the classrooms, from lunchtime Mishnah Clubs to after-school Mishmar,
to parent and child one-on-one learning days
