The Netziv of Volozhin הנצי"ב מוולוז'ין
Rabbi Naftali Zvi Yehuda Berlin, forty years at the head of the Volozhin yeshiva
The Netziv married a granddaughter of Rabbi Chaim of Volozhin and from 5614 headed the yeshiva Chaim had founded — the very institution from which the whole Lithuanian model of study began. Under him several hundred men studied in Volozhin at once, among them future rabbis and also men who later went into literature and into Zionism.
His Torah commentary Ha'amek Davar and his work on the Sheiltot, Ha'amek She'elah, are still studied. In 5652 the authorities demanded that compulsory secular subjects and Russian be introduced in the yeshiva; the Netziv refused the terms, and the yeshiva was closed. He died a little over a year later in Warsaw.
§Sources
Acharonim and later rabbinic literature
- “Aamek davar”
- “Aamek sheela”
Documents of the period
- documents on the closing of the Volozhin yeshivah
Basis: documents and evidence.