Yahrzeit/Hillula of Rabbi Yitzchak Hutner - Pachad Yitzchak

Rabbi Yitzchak Hutner (1906–1980) was an outstanding rabbi and Rosh Yeshiva. Rabbi Hutner was born in Warsaw, into a family that blended chassidic and Litvish backgrounds. As a child he received private lessons in Torah and Talmud. As a teenager he was enrolled in the Slabodka Yeshiva in Lithuania, headed by Rabbi Nosson Tzvi Finkel, where he became known as the "Warsaw Illui" ("prodigy"). He then traveled to Mandatory Palestine, where he became a student of Rabbi Avraham Yitzchak Kook and miraculously survived the Hebron massacre of 1929. After that, Hutner returned to Europe, where he became friends with Rabbi Joseph Soloveitchik and Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, maintaining friendly relations with both long after each of them had established their own institutions in the United States. Rabbi Yitzchak Hutner served for many years as Rosh Yeshiva of Yeshiva Rabbi Chaim Berlin in Brooklyn, New York, an older institution that grew and flourished under his leadership. Rabbi Hutner's pedagogical style was a unique blend of chassidic and Litvish elements drawn from his own family background. His talks, called maamarim, combined elements of Talmudic discourse, a chassidic tisch, and a philosophical lecture. Although his title was Rosh Yeshiva, Hutner's style of leadership was closer to that of a Rebbe, expecting loyalty from his followers. In his later years, Hutner founded Yeshiva Pachad Yitzchak in Jerusalem, named after his own celebrated work. During one of his trips there, Hutner's plane was hijacked by terrorists from the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine — miraculously, he survived. During his time in Palestine, Hutner became a student of Rav Kook, the first Chief Rabbi of Palestine. Both had philosophical and mystical temperaments, which made them kindred spirits. Like Kook, the young Hutner came in time to feel warmly toward non-religious Jews who sought to become more observant. Their worldview was framed by the anticipation of the end of the Jewish exile, galut, and the imminent arrival of the messianic era. Kook became associated with Mizrachi, part of the Religious Zionist movement. After immigrating to the United States, Hutner eventually became a member of the non-Zionist chareidi organization Moetzes Gedolei HaTorah ("Council of Torah Sages") of the American organization Agudath Israel. He maintained a warm relationship with Kook's son and successor, Rabbi Tzvi Yehuda Kook, and with other prominent students such as Rabbi Moshe Tzvi Neria. Hutner's students relate that on Sukkot he would hang a portrait of Kook in his sukkah. When controversy arose over the conscription of religious girls (giyus banot) into the Israel Defense Forces after the founding of the State of Israel in 1948, Hutner replaced the photograph with one of Rabbi Avraham Yeshaya Karelitz, who ruled that Jewish women were forbidden to serve — that they should perform National Service (sherut leumi) instead of military service. In Hutner's work "Pachad Yitzchak" there is no direct reference to Kook. Some of Hutner's early students recall lengthy comments he made about Kook. Rabbi Eliezer Waldman, head of the Kiryat Arba Yeshiva, said that Hutner told them that "Rav Kook was twenty times greater than those who opposed him." Similarly, Rabbi Moshe Tzvi Neria heard from Rabbi Hutner that "had I not met Rav Kook, I would be lacking 50% of myself." After the Hebron pogrom, Hutner returned to Warsaw. He then moved to Germany to study philosophy at the University of Berlin. In 1932 he wrote "Torat HaNazir," a text on the laws of the nazirite. He published it with the approbation of his mentor, Rav Kook. All three maintained close personal relationships throughout their lives, even though each held a radically different Torah outlook (hashkafa). Nevertheless, each of them built a unique bridge and synthesis between the Eastern European worldview and the Western European way of thinking. This enabled them to serve successfully as spiritual leaders after each immigrated to the United States of America. Hutner married Masha Lipshitz, a woman of American origin, in Warsaw, Poland, in 1932. The couple spent about a year in Palestine, where Hutner completed his research and wrote his "Kovetz He'arot" on Hillel ben Eliakim's commentary to Midrash Sifra.  

Studying "Pachad Yitzchak"

Pachad Yitzchak, Purim, Kuntres HaReshimot, 5. Rabbi Yitzchak

Hutner, speaking about Purim, writes: "Yom Kippurim — hu k'Purim," meaning "[it is] like Purim." In other words, there are similarities between these two holidays worth exploring. As Rabbi Hutner explains, Hanukkah marks one of the watersheds in human history — the emergence of individualism — and its impact on the Jewish people and their understanding of the Torah, which increasingly became a more human document — with the Almighty's sanction. However, according to "Pachad Yitzchak," this process began earlier, with the return of the exiled Jews and the rebuilding of the Temple in Jerusalem under Persian rule, led by Ezra and Nehemiah, and influenced as well by another landmark event that we commemorate on the holiday of Purim.

Rabbi Hutner points to a rabbinic source that offers an interpretation of a puzzling statement in the book of the prophet Nehemiah, 8:17. That verse states that the Jews who returned from exile built sukkahs and dwelt in sukkahs during the festival of Sukkot, and that the Children of Israel had not done so since the days of Joshua. How can this be? — the Talmud asks (Arachin 32b). Did not David, King of Israel and ancestor of the Messiah, or Solomon, builder of the Temple in Jerusalem, observe Sukkot as the Torah commands? The Talmud explains it this way: He [Ezra] prayed for mercy regarding the inclination toward idolatry and overcame it, and his merit shielded them like a sukkah [protects its inhabitants — from a root meaning "to shield"]. Rabbi Hutner, in Pachad Yitzchak, Yom Kippur 7:2, interprets this as follows: These words are difficult to analyze, for we often see that the merit of performing mitzvot and good deeds protects and saves [those who perform and do them] — without any need for comparisons or analogies! Thus, this [protection] is simple [to understand and needs no further explanation or comparison to a sukkah]. <…> But deeper analysis will show us that this deed of Ezra's, overcoming the nation's inclination toward idolatry [which had previously existed and led to the destruction of the Temple], was a unique event from the time of Creation until the End of Days and the redemption of mankind. For among all the events of human history, we will not find anything comparable to this — the uprooting of an inclination so deeply embedded in the human soul. In Pachad Yitzchak, Yom Kippur 10:4, Rabbi Hutner connects this epoch-making deed with another extraordinary event — the ceremony of Simchat Beit HaSho'eva (the Rejoicing of the Water-Drawing) held in the Temple during the festival of Sukkot. The Sages state that it represented the pinnacle of festive joy. Rabbi Hutner holds that this ceremony marked the end of idolatry. Moreover, it was seen as a harbinger of another epoch-making event — the cessation of humanity's inclination toward sin altogether, which is to occur at the End of Days, when our fractured nature will once again become whole in the service of G-d. In Pachad Yitzchak, Yom Kippur 15:4-5, Hutner explains this as follows: 4. What we have said [above] is based on the principle of the Maharal, according to which the sanctity of the First Temple was given by the Creator, while the sanctity of the Second Temple derived from the recipient [i.e., Israel]. This difference in the type of the Temple's sanctity was evident even from the structure itself [since the Second Temple had no Ark], and it was also reflected in the difference between the eras of the two Temples. For in the era of the First Temple, the community of the Children of Israel was led by prophets, while in the era of the Second Temple it was led by the Men of the Great Assembly and their disciples, as stated in the Mishnah at the beginning of tractate Avot: "The Prophets transmitted it [the Torah] to the Men of the Great Assembly." And the Men of the Great Assembly decreed to "make a fence around the Torah," and the vast majority of decrees, ordinances, and "words of the Scribes" appeared during the period of the Second Temple, and we hold that all of them remain in force because of their acceptance by all of Israel. All of this clearly demonstrates (literally: "points a finger") that even the character of the two eras reflected the fact that the First Temple was closer to the Creator, while the Second was closer to the recipient. 5. And we may extend this line of reasoning further: from the differences between the two Temples in their construction to the differences between the two Temples in their destruction. The Maharal teaches us that the destruction of both Temples follows a mysterious rule of parallel correspondence (zeh le'umat zeh) matching their construction. Since the sanctity of the First Temple came from the Creator, the breaches that led to its destruction were sins and transgressions against G-d — namely, the three most severe transgressions [idolatry, adultery, and murder]. As for the Second Temple, whose sanctity came from the recipients, the breaches that led to its destruction were sins between these recipients themselves — namely, baseless hatred and strife within the people of Israel. Further on, in Kuntres HaReshimot, 9, we find the following observation: The sanctity of Purim rests entirely on impressions. Everyone understands that it is impossible to begin at once from a state of non-distinction [between blessing and curse]. This state of non-distinction had to be preceded by knowledge, which has now departed. It is therefore understandable that, since Purim rests entirely on the law of impressions, it effectively strengthens the power of the sanctity of impressions.