MISSION STATEMENT
It is difficult to state a particular mission for a Yeshiva. Yeshivas began during the Second Temple period over two thousand years ago. Before that time every Jewish home was a Yeshiva. In truth, that should not have changed. However, part of our destiny as a people is to be dominated by the nations of the world and in spite of this to maintain our true identity as a Torah nation and not assimilate into the world culture. Our creativity with G-d's help was to adjust throughout our history to these challenges. When the home could not provide a whole spiritual environment, the Yeshiva compensated.
Today we are living in a golden era. Never has there been so much available wealth, knowledge and the easy means to acquire it. We have witnessed over the last twenty five years a proliferation of Torah knowledge that has spread to many even non-traditional uneducated Jews. Baal Teshuva Yeshivas have sprung up all over the world to avail Torah learning to the masses. However one age-group has been neglected: the middle-aged to the retired. Rabbi Gold set out ten years ago to repair this. Rebbi Akiva's life story, the greatest of our teachers, says it all.
Two thousand years ago a forty year old shepherd named Akiva, stood in deep contemplation by a rock carved out by the passage of time and water and came to a realization that was to affect him and the entire Jewish people in ways unimaginable. Rabbi Akiva found it incongruous that the mere gentle flowing of water over a hard dense rock, had over time gouged out of the rock. The water had created a depression. Although what he was surveying was nothing more than a common geological feature, he was exeriencing it with new eyes.
At a cross-road in his life, Akiva was keenly aware of his unfortunate ignorance in Torah knowledge. At the same time, he appreciated that he was forty years old. Consequently, he pondered on the question of whether it was not too late for him to begin Torah study? Was it plausable for him to aspire to achieve a reasonable level of competency in Torah scholarship, when he could barely even read Hebrew? Suddenly, he was gifted with an insight which resolved the dilemma; the answer to resolving his dichotomy, lay before his very eyes.
He reasoned to himself, "If the water – certainly not a hard or abrasive material held the power to sculpt this unyielding rock, then what unfathomable potential must be inherent in the powerful lessons of the Torah, to penetrate deep into my own tender and impressionable heart."
Akiva immediately embarked on his journey to Yeshiva, grew prodigiously in Torah and went on to become the great Tannaic sage and teacher of the Jewish People, Rabbi Akiva. This became the name of the Yeshiva and our motto: the Yeshiva for the "mature and motivated". Both Rabbi Gold and Rabbi Weiss set out together to fulfill this dream. It's never too late! Join us. Help us fulfill our mission by fulfilling yours.