Discovering the Netziv and his Ha'amaik Davar - Rabbi Naftali Zvi Yehudah Berlin

Judaism, Summer, 2002 by Henry A. Sosland

(6.) The Netziv married the daughter of R. Isaac ben Hayyim Volozhiner, the son of R. Hayyim ben Isaac, a leading disciple of R. Elijah ben Solomon Zalman the Gaon of Vilna. The Netziv's father-in-law had founded the yeshivah of Volozhin in 1802.

(7.) Meir Bar-Ilan, mi'Volozhin ad Yerushalayim (Tel Aviv: ha-Ve'adah le-hotsa'at kitve ha-Ray Me'ir Bar-Ilan, 1971), pp. 168 if. Bar-Ilan writes, "It was not only that my father, z"l, was devoted with all his great soul to the idea of 'Hibbat Zion' from the standpoint of Torah and mitzoot His vision of the distant future in terms of the effects of the Zionist idea, from what we can see clearly from his letters and writings.., was to compare the present new Zionist movement to that of the period of Ezra and Nehemiah."

(8.) Rabban, pp. 144-145. V. my note 13.

(9.) mi'Volozhin, pp. 115-116.

(10.) Here one finds the Netziv perhaps articulating the philosophy underlying a phenomenon his yeshiva and its students were famous for, namely, that of the matmid, or perpetual student.

(11.) Rabban, p. 147. mi'Vololzhin, pp. 134-135.

(12.) mi'Volozhin, pp. 138 and 163. This was true even though the Netziv was "totally and unalterably opposed to permitting secular studies as an official part of the yeshiva's curriculum, not because he opposed pursuing such knowledge in general, but because he believed that if such learning were allowed in the middle of the day, it would be detrimental to his students' study of Torah," as Jacob J. Schacter points out in "Haskalah, Secular Studies and the Close of the Yeshiva in Volozhin in 1892," The Torah U-Madda Journal Vol. 2 (1990): 103. V. Rabbi Baruch Ha-Levi Epstein, My Uncle the Netzin (Brooklyn: Mesorah Publications, 1988), translated from Mekor Baruch, pp. 91-93.

(13.) mi'Volozhin, p. 137. My Uncle the Netziv, pp. 185-187.

(14.) My Uncle the Netziv p.2 17. The Netziv was Rabbi Epstein's mother's brother, or his uncle. Then when the Netziv married his niece, who was Epstein's sister, he became in addition the author of the Torah Temimah's brother-in-law.

(15.) My Uncle the Netziv. Epstein describes the Netziv's upset with his father-in-law, Rav Itzile, for what the Netziv thought was his prejudicial attitude to Menachem Lilienthal, pp. 144-148.

(16.) The Netziv's crediting Melchizedek with having used El Elyon before Abraham is equivalent to his suggesting that Melchizedek shared a common monotheistic theological outlook with Abraham.

(17.) A commentary on selected comments of the Ha'amaik Davar, found in the same work.

(18.) mi'Volozhin, pp. 112-113.

(19.) mi'Volozhin, p. 135

(20.) Over a hundred years later Nahum M. Sarna made a somewhat similar comment on the verse: "By observing the otherwise universal complementary pairing of male and female, [Adam] becomes aware of his own exceptional status and of his solitariness," in The JPS Torah Commentary, Genesis, p. 22.

(21.) mi'Volozhia, p. 121.

(22.) The Netziv is focusing on the literal meaning of the words, whereas NJPS translates them as "excelled in ability."