הרב יצחק הוטנר

Rav Yitzchak Hutner (Adar 5666/1906–20 Kislev 5741/1980), known by his sefarim as the Pachad Yitzchak, was the rosh yeshiva of Yeshiva Rabbi Chaim Berlin in Brooklyn and one of the shaping baalei machshavah of American Torah Jewry. Born in Warsaw to Rav Chaim Yoel Hutner, a Litvish lamdan and merchant, and to Chana, from a family of Gerrer chasidim — both streams flowed together in him all his life — he learned in Slabodka under the Alter, Rav Nosson Tzvi Finkel, where he was called the “Warsaw iluy.” In 5685/1925 he was among those sent to strengthen the new yeshiva in Chevron, and in Eretz Yisrael he came to know Rav Avraham Yitzchak HaKohen Kook, to whom he was distantly related; he wrote in later years to Rav Tzvi Yehuda Kook that only after forty years did he grasp how much he was Rav Kook‘s talmid. Afterward he learned philosophy for a time at the university in Berlin, where he formed lifelong friendships with Rav Yosef Dov Soloveitchik and Rav Menachem Mendel Schneerson, the future Lubavitcher Rebbe.

In 5692/1932 he published Torat HaNazir, chidushim on masechet Nazir, with the haskamot of Rav Chaim Ozer Grodzinski, Rav Avraham Dov Kahana Shapira and Rav Kook. In 5693/1933 he married Masha Lipshitz, spent a further year in Eretz Yisrael completing his Kovetz He’arot on the commentary of Rabbeinu Hillel to the Sifra — printed at first without his name, at his own request — and in 5695/1935 settled in Brooklyn. In 5699/1939 he became rosh yeshiva of Chaim Berlin, the oldest yeshiva in Brooklyn, which grew under his hand into a great beit midrash with hundreds of talmidim; in the 1950s he added Kollel Gur Aryeh, among the first kollelim in America, and he sat on the Moetzes Gedolei HaTorah of Agudath Israel of America.

On Shabbatot and yamim tovim he delivered the ma’amar — Talmudic depth, machshavah in the way of the Maharal of Prague, and the warmth and song of a chasidic tish woven into one. In 5730/1970, flying home from Eretz Yisrael with his wife, his daughter and his son-in-law Rav Yonasan David, his plane was hijacked to the Jordanian desert by Arab terrorists; the hostages were held for a week and he emerged unharmed, but considerably weak. In 5739 he settled in Yerushalayim, where he served as nasi of Machon Yerushalayim and among the editors of Otzar Mefarshei HaTalmud.

His ma’amarim, delivered in Yiddish, were written down by his only daughter, Rebbetzin Bruria David, rendered into the rich Hebrew of the Pachad Yitzchak series, and prepared for print together with her husband Rav Yonasan David. He also composed the piyut Bilvavi Mishkan Evneh, after a song of Rav Elazar Azkari. He was niftar on the night of 20 Kislev 5741/1980 and was buried in the chelkat hanevi’im on Har HaZeitim; Yeshivat Pachad Yitzchak in Har Nof, Yerushalayim, founded on his legacy, stands under his son-in-law and talmid, Rav Yonasan David.