Education
Rabbi Blech received a Bachelor of Arts degree from Yeshiva University, a Master of Arts degree in psychology from Columbia University, and rabbinic ordination from the Rabbi Isaac Elchanan Theological Seminary.
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Benjamin Blech
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Rabbi Blech has been a Professor of Talmud at Yeshiva University since 1966, and was the Rabbi of Young Israel of Oceanside for 37 years. Rabbi Blech is the author of twelve highly acclaimed and best selling books, with combined sales of close to half a million copies, including three as part of the highly popular Idiot’s Guide series. Together with an accompanying six hour video, filmed by the producers of 20/20, featuring Rabbi Blech, it is used as the basis for study groups in numerous synagogues and universities around the country.
In the 1980s, Blech was asked by the Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson to travel to the Far East on a speaking tour.
Rabbi Schneerson paid for all Blech"s travel and hotel expenses for the duration of his trip. Rabbi Blech at one point invested $50,000 in the stock market and, over a number of years turned it into $7 million, before losing almost all of lieutenant
The experience was the catalyst for his 2003 book titled Taking Stock: A Spiritual Guide to Rising Above Life’s Financial Ups and Downs. In 2010 he was diagnosed with cardiac amyloidosis and given six months to live.
In what Rabbi Blech considers a gift from God, he survived.
In January 2005, Rabbi Blech, along with Rabbis Barry Dov Schwartz and Jack Bemporad, became the first rabbis in history known to confer a blessing on a Pope, when they were invited by the Vatican to visit and bless Pope John Paul II at Clementine Hall in the Apostolic Palace.
