Values Education Through Aggadic Stories: The Didactic Rewriter as Interpreter

ABSTRACT

Didactic rewrites of aggadic stories are an important resource in values education. This study, geared primarily toward teachers involved in choosing curricular materials, investigates how the didactic rewriter actually becomes an interpreter, rather than a mere transmitter, of the original text. The personal values of the rewriters can influence the retold story, as can their desire to adapt it to their target audience. In order to increase teacher awareness of the rewriters’ interpretive process and its ramifications, two different rewrites of the same original aggadic story are compared as a paradigm. The different values and role models which emerge as well as the potential impact of each rewrite on the child’s moral development are examined.

Notes

1 “Ubishevil shekibdu verivtzu lefanav haya” appears in the printed Babylonian Talmud Tractate Nedarim 40 as well as in the Munich and Vatican manuscripts, the Sheiltot deRav Achai Gaon Acharei Mot 93, the Rosh ad loc., and the Meiri ad loc. (explanation 2).

² See, for example, Mishnah Sanhedrin 7:6 regarding the status of one who sweeps and sprinkles (hamechabed vehamerabetz) before an idol, or Babylonian Talmud Megilah 28b which uses the same two verbs to mandate sweeping and sprinking of synagogues.

³ The interpretive role adopted by the teacher choosing how to tell the rewritten story is actually relevant to the writing of this article. For the excerpts of the stories which were presented above were translated and chosen by this author. The process of translating and choosing what to include and what to leave out of each excerpt has now transformed this author into part of the interpretive process as well.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Sara Weinstein

Dr. Sara Weinstein teaches Rabbinic Literature and Bible at Efrata Teachers College in Jerusalem. E-mail: [email protected]