Rabbi Chaim Berlin

Rabbi Chaim Berlin was the son of Naftali Tzvi Yehuda Berlin, the Netziv, and his first wife. He was a great-grandson of the founder of the Volozhin Yeshiva - Rabbi Chaim of Volozhin. Yahrzeit - 13 Tishrei Resting place - Jerusalem, Har HaZeitim   Their lineage traces back to the House of King David, the connection running through Rav Meir Katzenellenbogen, the Maharam of Padua, and is described in detail in the book "An Unbroken Chain." Thanks to his exceptional diligence and remarkable memory, Chaim mastered three of the most complex sections of the Talmud - Moed (Festivals), Nashim (Women), and Nezikin (Damages) - by the age of bar mitzvah. By the age of sixteen he had completed his first full cycle of the entire Talmud. Already at this age he was writing his chiddushim (analytical notes on the Talmud) and responsa, in which he issued rulings on the most complex halachic questions (Gedolei HaDorot). Berlin lived in Volozhin, Belarus, where he served as head of the rabbinical court. In 1891 his father appointed him head of the Volozhin Yeshiva. This appointment sparked controversy, as many students felt that Rav Chaim Soloveitchik was more deserving of leading the yeshiva. In 5608 /1848/ he married the daughter of a rabbi from the city of Shklov, and, settling with his father-in-law, continued his in-depth study of Torah. From 1865 to 1889, Rabbi Chaim Berlin led the Jewish community of Moscow. Berlin left Russia in 1906 and settled in Jerusalem. He became an assistant to the chief rabbi of the Ashkenazi community together with Rabbi Shmuel Salant. He also helped Rabbi Salant manage the charitable organization of Rabbi Meir Baal HaNes, founded by Rabbis Tzundel and Salant in 1860. In Israel he became close with one of the founders of the Mussar movement, Rabbi Yitzchak Blazer (Reb Itzele Peterburger), who also served on the city's rabbinical court. In 1907, Rabbi Chaim and Rabbi Yitzchak made a unique agreement: they decided that whichever of them departed this world first would appear to the other in a dream and tell him what was happening in the higher worlds. That same summer, in the month of Av, Rabbi Yitzchak Blazer passed away. For the following week, Rabbi Chaim tried every morning to remember what he had dreamed the night before, but without success. Finally, Rabbi Yitzchak appeared to him in a dream. He related that "the Heavenly Court examines every detail of a life lived, and judges especially strictly for the sin of lashon hara." "But do not despair, my dear friend," he said. "Those who were humble and modest, forgiving and tolerant, merit special understanding in Heaven" (Veze Sha'ar HaShamayim, p. 437). Rabbi Chaim's closest disciple in those years was Rabbi Aryeh Levin, one of the spiritual leaders of the next generation of Jews in the Holy Land. "Heaven willed that I find favor in his eyes, and he took me under his constant care, as if I were his own son," Rabbi Aryeh Levin recalled. "...I was so close to him that, out of boundless kindness and humility, he found time to study with me late in the evening and even sometimes in the mornings. ...At his instruction I studied one of the sections of the Shulchan Aruch - 'Yoreh De'ah,' which describes, among other things, the laws relating to kashrut. After that, using his unquestioned authority, he ordained me as a rabbi" (S. Raz, A Tzadik in Our Time, p. 46). Rabbi Chaim Berlin passed away at the age of 81 on 13 Tishrei 5663 (September 24, 1912) and was buried in the Jewish cemetery on the Mount of Olives in East Jerusalem. May the merit of the tzadik protect our people! (https://dailyzohar.com/tzadikim/912-Rabbi-Chaim-Berlin)