Yitzchok Hutner - Travels and Marriage

Travels and Marriage

After the pogrom in Hebron in 1929, Hutner spent some years as a wandering scholar. First, he returned to Warsaw, from there going to study philosophy at the University of Berlin, but not for degree purposes; he was not interested in degrees or the jobs they could offer, but only in the actual material that the university taught him. During this period, in 1932, he wrote Torat HaNazir, a text dealing with the laws of the Nazarite, which he published containing an approbation from his mentor Kook. He also spent time familiarizing himself with the intellectual milieu of Germany.

He befriended two other future rabbinical leaders then studying philosophy in Berlin: Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik, later to become rosh yeshiva at Yeshiva University in New York City, and Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson who would become rebbe of Chabad-Lubavitch in Brooklyn. The three were to retain close and cordial personal relations throughout their lives, even though each differed from the other radically in Torah weltanschauung (hashkafa). Nevertheless, each developed a unique bridge and synthesis between the Eastern European world-view connecting it with a Westernized way of thinking. This was a key factor enabling them to serve successfully as spiritual leaders in the United States of America.

After marrying his American-born wife, Masha Lipshitz, in Warsaw, Poland, in 1932, the couple spent about a year in Palestine where Hutner completed his research and writing of his Kovetz Ha'aros on Hillel ben Eliakim's commentary on midrash sifra. He visited Europe in 1934 to collate manuscripts of Hillel ben Eliakim's commentary.

By 1935 the couple had emigrated to Brooklyn, New York where Hutner pursued his private studies, initially not actively seeking a formal position. However, he soon joined the faculty of the Rabbi Jacob Joseph School (RJJ) and sometime between 1935–1936 was appointed first as a teacher then as principal of the newly established high school division of the Yeshiva Rabbi Chaim Berlin known as Mesivta Yeshiva Rabbi Chaim Berlin. The yeshiva, founded in 1904, was - and is - the oldest elementary yeshiva in Brooklyn. During 1939 and 1940 he established the yeshiva's post-high school beth midrash division and became Yeshiva Rabbi Chaim Berlin's senior rosh yeshivah. In this effort he also received the help of Rabbi Shraga Feivel Mendlowitz who headed Brooklyn's largest and more established Yeshiva Torah Vodaas. Under Hutner's charismatic leadership, Yeshiva Rabbi Chaim Berlin grew from relative obscurity to prominence, and with it grew his reputation in the world of Torah scholarship.