MHA-FYOS Dean's Blog

I am writing this article from Yerushalayim, ir hakodesh , my home base to visit prospective Yeshivot and Seminaries for our students and to visit our alumni who are studying in Eretz Yisrael for the year. It is such a privilege and honor to represent our school in this way. I am so proud of our students – each one of our students have shared with me how successful they are in their studies and I have heard so many wonderful reports from the heads of the programs that our students are attending regarding the positive contributions that our students are making. Israel is an unbelievable country and Yerushalayim is a very special city. The land itself is beautiful. So far, my visits have taken me from the northern part of the country – Haifa – where I visited Technion University, to the southern coastline of the country – Givat Washington and Kibbutz Yavneh – where I visited Machon Ma’ayan Seminary and Yeshivat Kerem B’Yavneh. In this two-hour drive, I saw the landscape change from verda...

This week’s parasha, Lech Lecha, introduces us to our patriarchs, Avraham and Sarah, and shares with us their early encounters in eretz Canaan . After successfully retrieving his nephew Lot from capture, Avram encounters Malki-Tzedek, king of Shalem and priest of Hashem. In this encounter, Avram takes a tenth of his possessions and gives them as a gift to Malki-Tzedek – presumably to assist him in his work as a priest of Hashem. The Midrash tells us that Malki-Tzedek is none other than Noach’s righteous son, Shem. Furthermore, our mefarshim (Ramban and others) teach us that Shalem is none other than Yerushalayim. What lesson is the Torah teaching us by using pseudonyms for Shem and Yerushalayim? Why doesn’t the Torah simply refer to Malki-Tzedek as Shem and Shalem as Yerushalayim? The Torah seems to be teaching us a fundamental idea about the purpose of Yerushalayim from its very origins as a city. Malki-Tzedek means “king of justice”. Shalem is a variant of Shalom - “peace”. ...