Ḥayim Soloveitchik

Born in Volozhin in the Lithuanian reaches of the Russian Empire (today in Belarus), Ḥayim ha-Levi Soloveitchik was recognized as a talmudic genius in his childhood. Educated in Slutsk, he returned to Volozhin in 1880 to lead the yeshiva with his uncle, the Netsiv (Naphtali Tsvi Yehuda Berlin, 1816–1893). When the government closed the institution in 1892 because the yeshiva would not comply with state demands to teach the Russian language, Soloveitchik settled in Brisk (today Brest, Belarus). There, he established a new, innovative approach to studying the Talmud and halakhah, known as the “Brisker method,” which emphasized conceptual rather than textual analysis using unique terminology that he devised; his method became popular throughout much of the yeshiva world. Soloveitchik’s best-known work is his collection of insights into Maimonides’ Mishneh Torah, Ḥiddushei rabeinu Ḥayim ha-Levi. In addition, his students recorded his talmudic teachings in Ḥiddushei ha-graḥ ‘al Shas. Soloveitchik generally avoided politics, but was vocal and explicit in his objection to Zionism, whose goal he understood as the secularization of the Jewish people.