This past Monday, the talmidim of the 9th and 10th grade who are part of the Yeshiva Fellowship enjoyed a couple of hours together celebrating their accomplishments at the annual end of the year barbecue. 

The students left school at 10:45 to enjoy a fun game of softball in Teaneck, after which they went to the Burg residence in nearby Bergenfield to enjoy a delicious barbecue were they reminisced on the events of the past year. Rabbi Danto gave a short talk about what it really means to be part of the Fellowship, the goal of which is to fashion talmidim who have an unconditional love of learning and who strive to be among the pillars of the Beis Medrash.' 

Rabbi Pearl then gave a powerful derasha about why we should always respect a person who has spent time in a Beis Medrash, no matter how much of their learning they might have later forgotten. Rabbi Pearl gave the mashal of the two sets of Tablets containing the Ten Commandments - the broken set and the second set - both of which  were placed in the Aron HaKodesh.  Even though the sanctified words emblazoned into the first set were lost, they nonetheless still deserved to be placed alongside the in-tact set in the Aron. Similarly, a person who has spent time learning Torah, even if he might have forgotten much of his learning and might have ceased to spend time in the Beis Medrash, is still worthy of our great respect. This is because the very experience of learning Torah has a permanent effect on one's personality. The experience of Torah learning implants a certain attitude in a person that is to be revered and admired. 

The barbecue was very enjoyable for all involved, and was a great way to cap a fruitful year of learning. All the participants had a great deal of fun and are very excited for next year, when the Yeshiva Fellowship grows even bigger.

On Wednesday, May 20th, former NBA first round pick and college star John Wallace visited MTA for a Q&A and autograph session. Wallace's visit was a reward from the "Amar'e Saves" campaign of United Hatzalah of Israel to the MTA students, recognizing them for their achievement in having the most members participating of any yeshiva high school. The "Amar'e Saves" campaign raised close to $500,000! 

Wallace, who led the 1996 Syracuse Orange team to the NCAA National Championship game against the Kentucky Wildcats and who played seven seasons of NBA basketball including two stints with the Knicks, entertained the audience with stories from his college and pro career. He spoke of Michael Jordan's trash-talking ways, named the toughest opponents he's ever defended (Jordan, Hakeem Olajuwon and Karl Malone) and described what it was like to hear his name called by former NBA Commissioner David Stern at the NBA Draft. Wallace also explained the benefit of hard work and careful decision making.

This past Thursday, Rabbi Kerner's BMK shiur made a siyum on Maseches Megillah. Althoiugh the school-wide siyum on Massechtos Megillah, Kesubos, Tamid, and various other things will, G-D willing, take place in a couple of weeks, Rabbi Kerner's shiur could not wait for their seudas mitzvah. Rabbi Kerner's shiur learns a lot through one-on-one chavrusos as well as through the classic Gemara shiur setting for the Bekius component of their shiur. 

Rabbi Kerner's talmidim even taught their own dapim of the Massechta in order to experience the nachas every Rebbe feels while giving shiur. After the siyum, Rabbi Shulman's shiur played Rabbi Kerner's shiur in a well-fought softball game. Both shiurim proved they had what it takes to be called the best senior shiur softball team (until Rabbi Cohen's BMK shiur plays the winner). 

Rabbi Kerner's talmidim would like to thank Rabbi Kerner for his encouragement, insight, and dedication to teaching the shiur and to helping them finish their fourth Massechta in the past four years as well as all their past Rebbeim, including Rabbi Pearl, who helped many of them finish Massechtos Makkos and Rosh HaShanah, and Rabbi Danto, who helped many finish Masseches Ta'anis.

On Wednesday evening, May 20th, Dr. Bharat Anand, the Henry R. Byers Professor of Business Administration in the Strategy Unit and the faculty chair of the HBX initiative at Harvard University, visited MTA to present a lecture to select MTA and Central students, faculty and leadership, as well as some college students and MTA alumni. This special event, which was sponsored by YUHS Board Chair Mrs. Miriam Goldberg and husband and board member Mr. Alan Goldberg ('72), has become an annual tradition. This marks the third year of the special dinner and lecture from a world renowned business mind. 

After an introduction from Alex Goldberg ('09), Dr. Anand immediately captured the audience's attention when he explained that when the radio was introduced in the 1920's, people were certain that it would transform education, as courses would become available over the airwaves. But as we now know, this did not happen. Similar advances in technology throughout the 20th century similarly did not have major impacts on the structural format of education. Thus, when Dr. Anand was tasked by the Harvard administration to create an online platform for global learning, he and his team spent months evaluating how to design a program that would be truly unique and be worthy of a paid education platform (as opposed to the many free competitors). Ultimately, the platform that was created leverages the power of social learning and, thus far, it has been exceptionally successful with about a 85% completion rate and hundreds of participants. 

Ultimately, what Dr. Ananda taught was that innovation - in all fields - takes a great amount of work and research, and constant evaluation along the way in order to understand what the consumers truly want and need. Special thanks to Mr. and Mrs. Goldberg for coordinating the incredible evening.

Last Thursday, the Junior Varsity College Bowl team, led by Mr. Toporovsky, the faculty adviser, participated in the Yeshiva League finals held at the Jewish Education Project headquarters, and emerge with an impressive second place finish! This was the culmination of a very strong, hard, yet rewarding season, which took the entire year.

The season started with an almost entirely revamped JV team; there was only one veteran player and the other five were completely new to College Bowl. However, the new blood did not disappoint. The team achieved a record of 8-2, with both losses coming against Heschel. This record placed them in second place in the division, behind Heschel; in order to advance to the finals, a team must win its division or be the best of the runner ups in all of the divisions. This meant that MTA, having finished in second place, had to have a better record than all of the other second place teams in order to make the finals as the fourth (and lowest) seed. Due to a tie in another division, the question of whether MTA would be in or out of thechampionship round remained unanswered for a few days. However, things did eventually clear up, and the team found out that they had indeed advanced as the lowest seed, fourth out of 24 schools.

After arriving at the JEP offices, the team had to play the top seed, HAFTR, in the semifinals. Despite the talent discrepancy which the team expected at first, they arrived at the halftime break leading by an impressive margin of 41-8. However, it seemed that they had become somewhat complacent; in the second half they let HAFTR answer question after question, possibly overconfident with their early lead. MTA did manage to win somewhat handily, though, by a final final score of 54-29, allowing the team to advance to the finals against TABC. 

The final round did not go as well for MTA as the semifinals. The lead seesawed between the two teams during the first half, but MTA could not overcome their early mistakes and, after a narrow defeat, had to settle for second place.

 Despite the tpugh loss, however, the team was very satisfied with their finish, as they were the first MTA team to make the finals in three years, and the first to get into the finals in a longer time. This marks the conclusion of an excellent season, and the team looks forward to beginning anew next year.

This past Monday, the active Hatzioni club held their final meeting of the year. Hatzioni started out the year with a mission: to educate its associates, readers, and the public at large about matters concerning the State of Israel, its rich history, and its relevant contemporary issues. At this meeting, the members discussed and debated what they had done right this year and what they had done wrong, as there is always room for improvement.

The students were proud to reflect on all the good they did this year, including holding some 10 seminars and speeches,  organizing a successful student-run MTAPAC lobbying mission, which involved multiple seminars, training sessions, and intense research about Israel; and publishing three beautiful and professional looking magazines, which can be downloaded here.

We would like to thank all the seniors who will be graduating this year and who have participated in Hatzioni in any way: Chanoch Aminsky, Jeremy Borgen, Aryeh Burg, Ilan Dayanov, Asher Finkelstein, Zvi Goldstein, Yitzchak Greenberg, Yehuda Karol, Yoni Kornblau, Zev Markowitz, Steven Stein, Ilan Steinmetz, Shuki Weinstein, and Yosef Wildes. We would also like to give a huge thanks to our MTAPAC presidents and Hatzioni Magazine editor-in-chiefs, Rafi Anapolle and Yisrael Friedenberg. They have put in an enormous amount of effort to ensure that Hatzioni would remain the most successful MTA club.

Lastly, we would like to wish one of Hatzioni's most committed, professional, and amazing members and writers, 10th grader Binyamin Kermaier, all the best in Israel next year and beyond - as his family is set to make aliyah this coming summer. Binyamin played a crucial role in Hatzioni's success, and thus will be sorely missed, but we are thrilled that he will ahve the opportunity to live and complete high school in Israel.