Religious School Programs + Curriculum
Stephen Wise’s Religious School meets once a week, starting with pre-K through
our sixth and seventh grade programs. Families should plan to attend grade-specific Shabbat programming at least once every six to eight weeks. Each grade’s curriculum is designed to engage the student at their level, while also building on Jewish knowledge from the previous year. There is no cutoff age for joining Stephen Wise’s Religious School, but students who begin their journeys earlier will build stronger connections to our community and to their Jewish identities.
Curricula by Grade Levels
Our pre-K (Taste of Religious School) through second grade programs aim to build a strong Jewish foundation and develop a positive Jewish identity through developmentally appropriate curricula. We build our students’ Hebrew lexicon and Jewish vocabulary through immersion and games, and we also begin teaching key prayers and blessings which are reinforced through prayer experiences specifically framed for our youngest students. Beyond Hebrew learning, our students engage with Jewish holidays and values, Torah stories and Israel.
Students learn about the symbols and traditions of each Jewish holiday and how to celebrate them through hands-on projects. Through art, games and other activities, they delve into Jewish values like tzedakah (the pursuit of justice), chesed (kindness), gratitude, and more. As part of building a relationship with the Torah, students explore the physical scroll and engage with its ideas and morals through our foundational Jewish stories. Children here engage with Israel at an early age, discovering the richness of Israeli culture, the uniqueness of Israel’s geography and Israel’s contributions to our world.
The third through fifth grade curricula build on the previous years’ foundation to develop a Jewish identity steeped in tradition, history and culture, and to explore Judaism’s role in a modern world. Our goal is always to help students discover not only what tradition says, but how they can incorporate it meaningfully into their lives.
We engage with the concept of kadosh (holiness) through examining Jewish ritual objects, holidays and Jewish traditions. Our students debate what it means to be created in God’s image and think about how we should treat one another and ourselves if we are truly created in the image of God. Fourth graders focus on Israel, learning about the history of the Jewish state, the people who live there and the amazing things that Israel has to offer. Each week, students engage with Jewish prayer as a community. As students begin to think about their b’nai mitzvah, we try to contextualize this event
within the greater Jewish lifecycle and teach them the Pardes method (a kabbalistic Jewish approach to textual study), which they’ll apply to a text of their choosing with the goal of creating a presentation for their peers and teachers.
Our students begin their formal Hebrew studies in third grade, focusing on learning the Hebrew letters and vowels and then graduating to words, phrases and texts. Our experienced educators provide extra help to ensure that all of our students grow into confident and fluent readers.
What is our relationship with God? How do we apply the ethical laws in the Torah to make a better world? Sixth and seventh graders ask these fundamental questions and then try to answer them as part of the final preparation for their b’nai mitzvah, the beginning of Jewish adulthood and full membership in our community.
Students confront different conceptions of God, exploring different ways Jews throughout history have connected with the divine and then thinking about the role God plays in our world. We guide them to discover (or create) a theology and personal belief system that will help them grow into their teenage years and develop a positive Jewish identity. And we challenge our graduating students to put their values into practice to create a more just and righteous world through yearlong tzedakah projects.
By the sixth and seventh grades, our students are expected to be able to read Hebrew prayers in the siddur as they prepare for their b’nai mitzvah. Students work at their own pace, practicing and then testing with our faculty — and extra help and tutoring is provided.
Portals: At-Home Learning
We know that one religious school model doesn’t fit every student’s needs. Our Portals program brings an experienced teacher from Stephen Wise’s Religious School to your home for weekly one-on one sessions tailored to your child’s needs and interests. Families are enthusiastically invited to take part in the warm and inclusive community, including children’s services and other family experiences.
To learn more about the Portals program, please contact our Religious School at religiousschool@swfs.org or (212) 877-4050, ext. 230 or visit our portals page.
The Portals program is available only for students in grades 3–7.
B’nai Mitzvah
Your child’s bar or bat mitzvah is not only a lifecycle event for them, but also for your whole family. It’s not the culmination of our students’ Jewish education, but rather the beginning of their adult Jewish lives.
A year before their b’nai mitzvah, students begin working with one of our b’nai mitzvah tutors. Through the training process, our students and their families have individual meetings with our clergy, enriching the traditional Torah and Haftarah study and forming close personal bonds. All our b’nai mitzvah services take place in our sanctuary on Saturday mornings and each one is a joyous celebration of a student’s learning, their family’s Jewish commitment and our community’s pride.
For more information, please visit our B’nai Mitzvah page.
Stephen Wise Free Synagogue is a 501(c)(3) religious organization (Tax ID #13-1628215) and any donations are tax deductible to the full extent allowable by law.
