The Yeshiva’s objective is to offer a high quality program of study for highly motivated and well-prepared graduates of Torah secondary schools, built around such traditional courses as Talmud, Mussar, Halacha and Chassidus. Our program is designed to appeal to students who possess the intellectual discipline, motivation and interest to pursue a rigorous program of advanced Talmud and related classic sources of Jewish tradition. We seek to train students to be educated leaders and laymen of high ethical character, deeply informed in the laws, philosophy, values and rituals of Judaism, who will carry forward the tradition of deep learning in their lives.
The core of our academic program is built around the Talmud, with an emphasis on the extensive analysis of the Babylonian Talmud. This style of traditional scholarship builds a broad base of content knowledge, while honing tools of analytic reasoning, critical thinking, and creative research. Students build these skills through wide ranging scholarship in a commentary and interpretive literature that spans the entire history of the written Talmud. The study of the Talmud lies at the very center of any systematic study of the principles of Judaism. It undergirds not only the legal system of Judaism, but also its philosophical, ethical and devotional systems.
Our formal mission specifies the following goals:
- Train students in the study and analytical interpretation of the core texts of Jewish civilization.
- Foster reasoning and research skills, proficiency in textual and linguistic analysis, a capacity for legal case study and the application of advanced methods of argumentation.
- Prepare students for service careers as dayanim, mechanchim and maggidei shiur in a wide range of formats.
- Cultivate in the student a strong moral dimension by fostering an ethical sensibility through the study of mussar, Chassidic texts and Talmudic Aggadata.
- Equip the student with the intellectual capital, language skills and bibliographic mastery to support an agenda of life long learning and avodas Hashem.
- Imbue students with a sense of responsibility to play important roles in their communities; to help those in need and devote themselves to empathetic chesed.
- Promote in each student a sensitive regard for others so that they interact with integrity and in a manner that is refined and respectful as befitting a ben Torah.
Yeshiva Divrei Chaim was created with the involvement of a founding Board, community members and faculty with a distinct mission. The Rosh Hayeshiva was entrusted with taking this mission off the drawing boards and shaping it into reality.
Yeshiva Divrei Chaim’s First Talmudic Degree Program is accredited by the Association of Advanced Rabbinical and Talmudic Schools (AARTS)