Community Magazine October 2003

66 COMMUNITY MAGAZINE B Y : V I C T O R I A M ATA L O N F rom the Rambam to the Ben Ish Chai... to Hacham Matloub Abadi and Hacham Ezra Attia... the Sephardic community has a proud heritage of Torah giants. We often read stories about our Gedolim of past gen- erations. These stories include details about their youth and the astonishing levels of knowledge they had attained at ages four, five, six. It might seem unbelievable that a pint-sized boy could know all the Parashiot in the Torah by heart and in-depth with complete understanding... or that he could be fluent in complete sections of Shas before his bar-mitzvah age. It’s well known that each generation declines as we move farther in time from Har Sinai. Is there a way to reverse that trend? Can we teach our children using the same methods that our ancestors used to achieve levels that are unheard of today? Is there a chance that members of our com- munity can again be counted among the leaders of the Jewish nation? A few months ago, Community Magazine ran a feature article about the education revolution that is taking place at Yeshivat Keter Torah in Lakewood, NJ. A visitor to any of the classrooms would attest to the jaw-dropping scene. Once inside those rooms, no one needs to read stories about the astonishing level of knowledge that boys of the past generation attained. Inside those rooms they could witness it. Yeshivat Keter Torah held its first annu- al dinner on August 27th. Besides for hon- oring those involved in the establishment and growth of the Yeshiva, community members received a glimpse of the accom- plishments of Rabbi Mordechai Dabbah and his staff of Rabbanim and teachers. Parents attest that Rabbi Dabbah’s efforts to instill our Sephardic heritage strongly in our children are an apparent and enduring success. Keter Torah isn’t a typical com- munity school, and it doesn’t only serve those families who send their children there. The children who attend Yeshivat Keter Torah are being completely equipped with the tools that will inevitably make them the future leaders and teachers of our community. Rabbi Shlomo Mandel, the Rosh Yeshiva of The Yeshiva of Brooklyn, had glowing words to say of his student, Rabbi Mordechai Dabbah, “My father was a dis- ciple of Rav Shlomo Heiman, foremost student of Rebbe Chaim Brisker. Rebbe Chaim said of Rav Shlomo, “It was worth all of my mother’s labor pains that she bore me, just so I can have this student.” In the thousands of students that passed through the Yeshivah, all the difficulties that were involved were worth it, just to produce Rav Mordechai Dabbah. You have such a great Rabbi, squeeze him out like a lemon. This man could spell the Reclaiming the Glory of Sephardic Tradition Yeshivat Keter Torah, Lakewood, NJ