Rabbi Yoni Shtiebel

We face a once in a generation opportunity. Judaism must survive in our generation. It is our opportunity. It is our obligation. Every child who does not have a meaningful Bar Mitzvah or Bat Mitzvah is at significant increased risk of leaving the Jewish community due to lack of Jewish liturgical connection. Moses our teacher spoke to God as though face to face. The most humble of men, he was the conduit for the giving of the holy Jewish Torah to the children of Israel. He had the passion and empathy to devote his entire existence to the teaching and leading of the Jewish people through the desert to the promised land. Rabbi Akiva teaches us the principles of how to interpret the Torah to draw legal conclusions. It was said about Rabbi Akiva that he learned from the crowns of the calligraphy of the writing in the Hebrew Bible. Clearly, Rabbi Akiva learned from extra and missing letters, or particles, such as vav or et. He learns from the meaning of Hebrew words based on their appearance in context elsewhere in the Hebrew Bible. He learns about a character mentioned in one place and fills that character identity into another story -- because a myriad of clues draws a close connection between them. He draws parallels between stories based on similar but unusual language and theological content. We seek to follow in the footsteps of Ezra and the Moserites of Tiberius and Rabbi Akiva by dramatically increasing the familiarity of Bar Mitzvah students with reading fluently from the Torah Scroll as set in font by Ezra the Scribe with the precise vowels and understanding how the cantillation of the Masorites of Tiberius imbues meaning to those words. We seek to inspire the Bar Mitzvah children to understand the Hebrew Bible in Hebrew so that they can learn with the rules and techniques of Rabbi Akiva. Birthright has turned around the relationship between the Jewish People and the Land of Israel. We seek to do that for the Jewish People and the Torah of Israel.