Rav Yakov Medan studied at the Netiv Meir High School in Jerusalem and in 1968, joined the first class at Yeshivat Har Etzion. He served in the IDF in the Airborne Nachal Infantry unit in the Hesder Program, and afterwards, returned to the Yeshiva as a Ram. He earned his Semicha from Yeshivat Har Etzion, a Bachelor of Education degree from Michlala in Jerusalem and a Master's degree from Touro College. Rav Medan teaches Tanach at Yeshivat Har Etzion and at numerous Yeshivot hesder and colleges throughout the country, and is considered one of the outstanding educators of Tanach today. In 2000, Rav Medan served as a Board member of the school for conversion of the Ne'eman Committee, and thus began is involvement, together with Prof. Ruth Gavison, in composing a renewed pact for relations between religious and secular, for which he was awarded the Avichai Prize. Today, Rav Medan serves as a Ram for fourth-year students at Yeshivat Har Etzion, teaches Tanach and Jewish Thought at the Yeshiva and Herzog College, and taught at the Advanced Torah Institute of Bar Ilan University and at many other institutions. In addition, he is completing his doctoral studies at Bar Ilan University.
"While I believe with all my heart in the need to have the laws of the state conform to the Torah, it appears to me that there are three additional factors that must be taken into account....
Factor one: The heightened alienation in secular society towards any hint of the Torah;
Factor two: The more time that elapses, the greater the gap between the written law, which reflects the status quo of the 1950s, and today’s reality;
Factor three: Most important of all: The rift in Israeli society stems from the continual friction over matters of religion and state, which risks generating a schism from which there can be no return...
A national consensus issuing from goodwill and a maximal readiness for concessions on both sides is likely to emerge only if each party is convinced that the other is also compromising to the best of its ability."
In the News:
Rabbi Medan: Moral Weakness Allows Islam to Take Over the World
On Gilad Shalit and Jonathan Pollard [hebrew]
On Homosexuality [hebrew]
Harav Yaakov Medan - shiurim in English