Classical Sephardic Judaism is the tradition of great thinkers like Maimonides and Rabbi Yehuda HaLevi, who understood that the values of knowledge, humanism, and full engagement with the world were a necessary component of traditional Torah life. Maimonides famously predicted that in Messianic times this time-honored and sacred legacy, passed down from the Prophets to our Sages and from our Sages to the Geonim after them, would be rediscovered and embraced by all Jewish communities. 

Recent history has found the Sephardic community scattered and ill-equipped to disseminate our precious spiritual legacy. The purpose of this interactive cyberspace is to revive, perpetuate and promote the values of Classical Sephardic Judaism. Yeshivat Deah VeHaskel is an online learning center for anyone and everyone who seeks an understanding of Torah through the prism of our tradition, as well as a source of training and guidance for future leaders and teachers who will be able to serve Sephardic congregations and organizations world over. We pray that this venue will bring the greatest Sephardic minds together to engage, debate, learn, teach, and collaborate to ensure our ancient heritage a bright future. 

Founded as an online Yeshiva that couples the power of emergent technologies with a traditional purpose, Yeshivat Deah Vehaskel aspires to provide support to Jewish institutions and communities around the world. The Yeshiva will continue to offer a wealth of high-quality Torah content to the general public, as well as programming geared towards youth engagement, enrichment and education. Ultimately, we hope to imbue the upcoming generation of Jewish laity and leadership with the intellectual, moral and spiritual values of the Sephardic tradition. Above and beyond the critical service we will provide to Sephardic schools and congregations in particular, the Yeshiva also hopes to contribute a unique perspective to the resolution of the diverse challenges facing the Jewish community at large.

Yeshivat Deah Vehaskel is committed to the revolutionary worldview and value system of Israel, as presented in the Tanakh (the Torah as well as the other nineteen books of the Hebrew Bible) and as elucidated for us by the Prophets and Sages of antiquity. The Oral Tradition – the Talmud, commentaries and legal codes – are of vital and unquestionable importance, but cannot be understood properly without a fully developed foundation of knowledge of the Biblical text upon which they are based. This emphasis on study of Tanakh, a defining feature of classical Sephardic learning, encourages the connection of Torah ideals to concrete reality and produces thinkers with the ability to engage with the modern world in creative and sophisticated ways.

Yeshivat Deah VeHaskel hopes to expand its reach and offer an intense and highly rigorous Rabbinic program to a select group of students who are poised to become the spiritual leaders of tomorrow. In addition to the rabbinic track, the Yeshiva plans to offer teaching fellowships, training and certification to qualified men and women who are committed to promoting Sephardic education, values and culture in classrooms and other critical settings.

By training Rabbis, educators and community leaders who are steeped in the wisdom of our tradition, we hope to provide the Jewish community as a whole, and the Sephardic community in particular, with much needed sources of religious inspiration, guidance and support. Successful dissemination of the timeless vision of classical Sephardic Judaism – a vision that is intellectually rigorous, socially enlightened and universalistic in scope – can only be accomplished by preparing a generation of religious leaders who can spread its teachings and message in a faithful and compelling manner.