MHA-FYOS Dean's Blog

What an exciting Shabbat for the Memphis Jewish Community! We are so happy to welcome the 15 teams from Jewish High Schools around the country who are in Memphis to participate in the ninth annual Cooper Tournament. Thursday’s competition was fierce and Thursday night’s program - dinner, speaker and a movie – was engaging. All of the competition will be held at the Memphis Jewish Community Center – come out and cheer on the Macs! Thursday night’s program featured Raheem Shabazz – a local trainer who works with high school, college and professional athletes. Mr. Shabazz told his story of growing up as a star athlete in Chattanooga who earned his way to compete on The Ohio State University football team. Unfortunately, he suffered an injury during his college career and ended up dropping out of school. Out of school and father of a two-year-old son, Mr. Shabazz was destitute. He was living in his car with his son, could not provide basic needs for himself or for his child and did not hav...

We are all dismayed by the daily reports of random violence against Israeli citizens and military personnel and concerned about the victims and their families. Let us continue to pray for the speedy recovery of these victims and for the end to these heinous acts. This week’s parsha is Noach. The sedra opens with, “these are the generations of Noach. Noach was a perfectly righteous man in his generation. Noach walked with Hashem”. Rashi seems to be bothered an apparent redundancy – the Torah had already introduced us to Noach and his children in last week’s parsha . In fact, last week’s sedra concludes with the pasuk , “and Noach found favor in Hashem’s eyes”. Why does the Torah find it necessary to reintroduce us to Noach’s offspring and say, “These are the generations of Noach”? Our Rabbis teach that the good deeds of righteous people are considered their offspring. Rashi explains that the generations of Noach referred to in this week’s parsha are not his children but rather h...