Rabbi Chaim of Volozhin רבי חיים מוולוז'ין
student of the Vilna Gaon, founder of the Volozhin yeshiva
Rabbi Chaim was the Vilna Gaon's foremost student, and he understood what his teacher had not attempted: genius cannot be transmitted, but an institution can. In 5563 he opened a yeshiva in the town of Volozhin on a new pattern. Until then young men studied with a local rabbi at their own community's expense. Volozhin accepted students from across Eastern Europe, was funded by collections in hundreds of towns, and ran on a schedule of round-the-clock study in shifts, so that Torah was never absent from the hall.
It became the model. Mir, Slabodka, Telz, Ponevezh — all descend from Volozhin, «the mother of yeshivas».
His book «Nefesh HaChaim» answers Hasidism without polemic. He explains that a person's deeds genuinely affect the structure of the worlds, that Torah study is the highest form of service, and that prayer requires attention rather than ecstasy.
He was a public man: he raised money to ransom captives, negotiated with the authorities, and supported the aliyah of the Gaon's students. He died in 5581.