Rabbi Hanan Balk

Thank you YU, for accepting a young man from JTS into your Rabbinical School.

Thank you YU, for allowing me to study with Rav Yehuda Parnes, the greatest teacher I have ever had, from my college years at Columbia until this very day.

Thank you YU, for giving me access to Rav Herschel Schachter and other talmidim of Rav Yosef Dov Soloveitchik, so that the Rav’s approach to learning, piskei halacha, and philosophical thought could guide both my personal and rabbinic life, in the time that God has granted me to walk on this earth.

Thank you YU, for creating an atmosphere of scholarship which has provided me with sefarim, journals, and great scholars-in-residence.

Thank you YU, for giving me the format of a Beit Yitzhak, wherein I could write my first Torah article.

Thank you YU, for the magnificent website of yutorah.org, which gives me the ability to hear the precious words of so many Torah scholars, Roshei Yeshiva and colleagues, alike.

Thank you YU, for permitting me to post hundreds of my shiurim on the yutorah.org website—thus making a smaller-town rav in Cincinnati into a maggid shiur who counts as his talmidim, thousands throughout the world.

Thank you YU, for the many wonderful young men and women, who were your students, that made Simchat Torah in our city come alive, through the Torah Tours program.

Thank You YU, for recommending me for my rabbinic positions in Stamford and Cincinnati.

Thank you YU, for educating my 5 daughters and one son-in-law at your holy institutions.

Thank YU!