חיים ברלין

Rav Chaim Berlin (5 Shevat 5592/1832–13 Tishrei 5673/1912), eldest son of the Netziv of Volozhin, was rav of Moscow, of Kobrin, of Yelizavetgrad, and in his last years of the Ashkenazi community of Yerushalayim. Born in Volozhin and named for his mother’s grandfather, Rav Chaim of Volozhin, he learned with his father until the age of nine — acquiring bekiut in Tanach and in the sedarim Moed, Nashim, and Nezikin — and then six years in the Volozhin yeshiva under his grandfather, Rav Yitzchak of Volozhin. At fifteen he married Rivka, daughter of the gvir Moshe Zeitlin of Shklov, and for eight years learned at his father-in-law’s table, helping his father prepare the Haamek She’elah on the She’iltot.

When his father-in-law’s wealth failed he accepted the rabbanut of Moscow for his parnassah, taking office in 5625/1865 at thirty-three. He founded there a talmud torah and gemach societies, worked as a shtadlan for Russian Jewry together with the wealthy of the kehillah, and raised the funds that gave the Volozhin yeshiva its great stone building. In 5642/1882, as decrees and expulsions fell on Russian Jewry, his rebbetzin was niftera; he left Moscow for Biala Podlaska, where he declined the offered rabbanut, wrote teshuvot, and grew close to the Aderet, Rav Eliyahu David Rabinowitz-Teomim, with whom he kept up a long correspondence. After his second wife, Tila, daughter of R’ Yitzchak Isaac Schachor of Mir, was niftera in 5649/1889, he went to Volozhin to help his aging father carry the yeshiva and its finances. The Netziv fixed him as his successor, but part of the student body wanted Rav Chaim Soloveitchik, and Rav Chaim Berlin served instead as rav of the town of Volozhin until the government closed the yeshiva in Shevat 5652/1892 — after which he traveled across Europe to pay off its debts.

He was av beit din of Kobrin from 5652/1892, esteemed even among the chassidim of that largely chassidic city, whose great shul filled from wall to wall for his derashot; from 5657/1897 he served about ten years in Yelizavetgrad, laboring to close Jewish businesses on Shabbat and to strengthen hilchot taharah and the takkanot of the slaughterhouse. In 5666/1906, after pogroms swept the Russian cities, he was oleh to Yerushalayim, where his home became a gathering place of chachamim; on Friday nights many of the city would come after the seudah to hear him read and explain his father’s Haamek Davar on the parashah. He stood beside Rav Shmuel Salant, and on Rav Salant’s petirah carried the rabbanut of the Ashkenazi community and the headship of the Rabbi Meir Baal Haneis charity until his last day; he drew Rav Aryeh Levin close like a son and gave him semichah.

Rav Chaim Berlin was niftar on 13 Tishrei 5673/1912, at eighty-one, and was buried on Har HaZeitim beside the Aderet, in the resting place he had chosen and bought in his own lifetime; his library he willed to Yeshivat Etz Chaim. His teshuvot and letters were gathered generations later in the volumes of Nishmat Chaim. Yeshiva Rabbi Chaim Berlin in Brooklyn, founded in 5664/1904, was renamed for him in 5674/1914 at the suggestion of his younger half-brother, Rav Meir Berlin (Bar-Ilan).