Machon Shlomo

Machon Shlomo is an Orthodox yeshiva for men located in Har Nof, Jerusalem, Israel. Its faculty and student body are mostly American, Classes are taught in English.

Students usually come from the United States, Canada, Australia, Russia, and South Africa. Most students were not raised Orthodox. The Rosh Yeshiva is Rabbi Beryl Gershenfeld.

Machon Shlomo offers religious environment that operates from a Torah and Talmudic based philosophy. Machon Shlomo has historically claimed to "blend" realities of the modern professional environment with Torah values and therefore prepare students for life in the professional working world that most of its graduates would return to. Classes have an emphasis on mussar (self discipline and refinement) based character development as well as development of text-based Torah learning skills.

Name and history

Machon Shlomo is named after Rabbi Shlomo Rosenberg, a former head of the Orthodox Union (OU), in charge of American kosher food supervision.Fact|date=September 2008 The first Rosh Yeshiva was Rabbi Yaakov Rosenberg (1929-1999), Shlomo's son. The yeshiva has been producing students for 25 years. Today, the yeshiva is led by Rabbi Beryl Gershenfeld, Rabbi Yaakov Rosenberg's son-in-law.

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*Rabbi Beryl Gershenfeld seerves as Rosh Yeshiva, Chumash teacher, and as the Dean of Machon Shlomo. He graduated valedictorian of his high school and received a BA in Economics and an MA in History from Trinity College in Hartford, CT (1976), serving as President of his Phi Beta Kappa chapter. He also won a Fulbright Scholarship and studied in Japan before deciding to study in yeshiva. Rabbi Gershenfeld has previously taught at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Columbia University, and The University of Pennsylvania. In his daily Chumash class Rabbi Gershenfeld takes his students through the Torah with primary emphasis on the commentary of Rashi and The Maharal of Prague (The Gur Aryeh), as well as commentaries from Rambam (Maimonides), Ramban (Nachmonides), Ibn Ezra, the Zohar, and other Midrashic sources and also later commenators. Additionally, Rabbi Gershenfeld leads classes for second-year students on topics of personal growth and self-introspection and gives a weekly Pirkei Avos (Ethics of our Fathers) class for all students. More recently, Gershenfeld took on dual duties in becoming the Rosh Yeshiva of Machon Yaakov, a program similar to Machon Shlomo and which shares much of the same staff.

*Rabbi Noach Orlowek lectures on five continents primarily dealing with areas of relationships and character building. He also serves as mashgiach (Spiritual Dean of Students) in Yeshivas Torah Ohr in Jerusalem. He lectures mostly on the areas of parenting, teaching and relationship issues. He is the author of "My Disciple, My Child, practical advice on discipline in the classroom", and "Raising Roses Among the Thorns - Bringing up Spiritually Healthy Children in Today's Society".
*Rabbi Meir Triebetz (PhD) attended the Juilliard School of Music before receiving his Ph.D. in mathematical physics from Princeton University at 22 years of age. He did a post-doctoral fellowship at Stanford University and then taught mathematical physics at Queens College and Stonybrook. He received rabbinical ordination before moving to Jerusalem. He is currently working on a book compiling and commenting on Rav Soloveitchik's teachings on Genesis.
*Rabbi Meir Parker received his BA from Yeshiva University in Social and Intellectual History and Philosophy and later received his Masters Degree in Jewish History. Aside from having an extensive background in psychology, he also studied at the prestigious Ner Yisrael Yeshiva in Baltimore. Rabbi Parker has studied under some of the most widely-respected Kabbalists of this generation. He is an expert in learning Gemara as well as Kabbalah, and his specialty is on the works of the Ramchal, Rabbi Chaim Moshe Luzzato. Rabbi Parker's primary responsibility at Machon Shlomo is to teach first year students how to understand and appreciate the logical flow of Talmudic reasoning. In his "Derech Hashem" class he exposes his first year students to the Ramchal's Kabbalistic ideas presented in the model of philosophical analysis. Occasionally he also gives classes dealing with topics in Jewish history.
*Rabbi Yonasan Sigler holds degrees in engineering from Princeton and MIT and worked as an aerospace engineer for NASA before coming to Jerusalem to study in yeshiva. He studied at several yeshivas including the Mir and Pressburg and received his semicha from the Chief Rabbinate of Israel. He taught Talmud at Yeshivas Midrash Shmuel and in addition to running the summer program he also currently teaches during the regular school year at Machon Shlomo.

tudents

Machon Shlomo requires prospective students to apply to the institution. Students must show exceptional academic and/or professional accomplishment on the undergraduate and graduate levels, as well as in the business world. The average student comes to Machon Shlomo for one (minimum) or two years (maximum) and then returns to the world of academia or the work force. Current students and recent alumni hold degrees or are in the process of earning degrees from such schools as Princeton University, Cambridge University, Oxford University, Harvard University, Yale University, McGill University, and Juilliard School of Music, to name a few. Over 90 percent of the alumni of Machon Shlomo are actively involved in careers in academia, jurisprudence, medicine, government, finance, and the like. Alumni of the program comprise a strong network throughout the world and are committed to the further maintenance and growth of the yeshiva. Most alumni live in the United States and Israel and are leaders and highly regarded lay people within their respected communities.

External links

* [http://www.machonshlomosummer.com/about.asp Machon Shlomo STEP Program]
* [http://www.machonyaakov.org Machon Yaakov, sister program to Machon Shlomo]