Torah Aura's Vision and Corporate Philosophy
Torah Aura was founded with a basic vision. According to the owners:
We knew what we wanted to do. We had an idea of what constituted “a good Jewish education,” and we knew the role we believed a publisher should play. Over the next several months we will be sharing those conceptions with you, not to so much for the purpose of selling books, but to facilitate a national dialogue on core issues. We want to hear from you. We want you to demand that other purveyors of educational Judaica make their assumptions and design philosophies equally clear. And, as we work week by week, topic by topic, we want you to think about the way you articulate your school curriculum.
When speaking about their curricular vision, owners and employees of the company usually start by explaining that the purpose of their curricular materials is to save the Jewish people.
The statement may sound like a truism or cliche, but Torah Aura takes it very seriously. They say that it means they believe that students need enough Judaica – and the right Judaica – to build a Jewish future. Torah Aura's observation is that many to most Jews are not taught enough Judaism and to survive as Jews.
For a supplemental school to succeed, it needs to offer a real Jewish foundation. Facts are not a foundation. Concepts are. Feelings are important. They are necessary but not sufficient. Being able to name the objects used on Sukkot doesn’t lead to the building of a personal Sukkah. The ability to perform prayers from the Siddur is an enabling skill, but not one that alone will lead students as they grow to use services as moments of personal connection with the divine.
According to Torah Aura, Jewish schools spend a lot of time on Bible stories, but nowhere near enough on developing the skills of extracting meaning from the biblical text. To survive as a Jew, to care to survive as a Jew, one needs a web of understandings and conceptual tools. Torah Aura was created to produce tools that make the “meanings” of Judaism accessible.
According to Torah Aura (especially co-owner Joel Grishaver), the second thing that leads to Jewish survival is connection to community. The simple truth is that Jews who need other Jews are more likely to seek out Jewish connections than those who have just enjoyed some Jewish activities. This is why anyone in the Jewish schooling business pushes camps and youth groups as companion experiences. And, it is why anyone who understands the simplest secret looks to make their classrooms into communities with interdependent learning as a major modality. Equally true, the relationship between teacher and student is critical. It has redemptive possibilities. Because of Torah Aura's belief in community, most of their material (and all of their teacher’s guides) recommend work in hevrutot (learning dyads or small groups) and set up situations where students and teachers share in significant conversations.
Most of all, Torah Aura believes that no matter what kind of instruction its owners and employees envision, its reality will be in the hands of teacher and class as they interact. Real curriculum isn’t planned, it is actualized. No good lesson should ever happen exactly the same way twice. It is an amalgam of teacher, students, and the moment. For that reason, Torah Aura Productions sees themselves as creating educational tools, resources out of which good teaching moments and good teaching sequences can be built. They explain that they "strive to empower the teacher with challenging resources that lead them towards creating good Jewish educational experiences."
Read more about this topic: Torah Aura Productions
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