Editing Yitzchak Hutner (section)

== Relationships with other rabbis ==
During his stay in Palestine, Hutner visited [[Abraham Isaac Kook]], the first [[chief rabbi]] of Palestine, to whom he was distantly related.<ref name="Kook"/> Hutner eventually became a member of the non-Zionist [[Haredi Judaism|Haredi]] [[Moetzes Gedolei HaTorah]] (Council of Torah Sages) of [[Agudath Israel of America]] following his immigration to the United States.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Kaplan |first1=Lawrence |date=Fall 1980 |title=Rabbi Isaac Hutner's "Daat Torah Perspective" on The Holocaust: A Critical Analysis|url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/23258776 |journal=Tradition: A Journal of Orthodox Jewish Thought |volume=18 |issue=3 |pages=235–248 (14 pgs)|jstor=23258776 |access-date=October 22, 2020}}</ref>

Hutner's work ''Pachad Yitzchok'' contains no overt reference to Kook. A few of  Hutner's early students recall Hutner's lengthy comments regarding Kook. [[Eliezer Waldman]] said that Hutner told them that "Rav Kook was 20 times as great as those who opposed him".<ref>[R. Waldman as interviewed by Ari Shvat, Mar. 29, 2016, 19 Adar II 5776.]</ref> Similarly, Moshe Zvi Neria heard Hutner say that "if I would not have met Rav Kook, I would be lacking 50% of myself".<ref>[Chayei HaReiya, Tel-Aviv 1983/5743, p. 258]</ref>

While staying in Berlin, Hutner developed a friendship with [[Menachem Mendel Schneerson]]<ref name="Synoptic"/> and [[Joseph B. Soloveitchik]].<ref name="Soloveitchik"/> Hutner referred to Soloveitchik as a ''[[gadol]]'' (foremost Torah scholar of the time)<ref>{{Cite web|date=2007-10-07|title=Looking Before And After – Yudaica|url=http://media.www.yucommentator.com/media/storage/paper652/news/2005/05/16/Yudaica/Looking.Before.And.After-951249.shtml}}</ref> and to Schneerson as ''[[tzadik]] hador'' (righteous one of the generation), while at other times saying some negative things about the latter.<ref name="5TJT"/> Nevertheless, the three maintained close personal relations throughout their lives, though each differed markedly in Torah ''[[hashkafa]]'' ([[weltanschauung]]), developing a unique bridge and synthesis between the [[Eastern Europe]]an world-view and a [[Western culture|Western European]] way of thinking. This enabled them to serve successfully as spiritual leaders after each of them immigrated to the United States of America.<ref name="Soloveitchik"/>

Citing an anonymous source, Hillel Goldberg reports that Hutner became a fierce critic of the Chabad-Lubavitch Hasidic group and the "personality cult built up around" Schneerson.<ref name=Goldberg1989p79>Goldberg, Hillel. ''Between Berlin and Slobodka: Jewish transition figures from Eastern Europe'', Ktav Publishing House, 1989, {{ISBN|978-0-88125-142-5}}, p. 79: "Rabbi Hutner relentlessly sustained a biting critique of the Lubavitcher movement on a number of grounds…", p. 187 footnote 41: "Rabbi Hutner was opposed to the personality cult built up around the Lubavitcher Rebbe, and to the public projection of both the Rebbe and the Lubavitch movement, by the movement, through public media-print and broadcast journalism, books, film, and the like."</ref> Hutner purposefully moved up his [[Hanukkah]] ''ma'amar'' to preempt his students from attending Schneerson's [[19 Kislev|Yud Tes Kislev]] [[farbrengen]].<ref name="5TJT"/> Still, Hutner corresponded regularly with Schneerson throughout his lifetime on a variety of ''[[Halakha|halakhic]]'' (Jewish law), Hasidic and kabbalistic subjects, and occasionally sought his blessing.<ref>Some of this correspondence has been published in Igros Kodesh, Kehot 1986–2008 Volumes 7- pp. 2, 49, 192, 215, 12- pp. 28, 193, 14- pp. 167, 266, 18- pp. 251, 25- pp. 18–20, and 26- p. 485</ref><ref>Mibeis Hagenozim, S.B. Levine, Kehot 2009, pp. 88–98, where copies of Hutners' actual letters are included alongside the relevant section, and his criticism is explained.</ref> Hutner also had several lengthy private meetings with Schneerson.<ref>Mibeis Hagenozim, S.B. Levine, Kehot 2009, p. 88</ref>

Hutner appointed Soloveitchik's younger brother, whom he had tutored in [[Warsaw]], [[Ahron Soloveichik]] (later to head his own yeshiva in [[Skokie, Illinois|Skokie]] near [[Chicago, Illinois]]), as head of his own Yeshiva Rabbi Chaim Berlin. Ahron Soloveichik completed a [[Doctorate]] in [[law]] at [[New York University]] at the same time that he lectured in Hutner's Yeshiva Rabbi Chaim Berlin.

In the early 1940s, Hutner asked a friend from Slabodka, [[Saul Lieberman]], to become a dean-Talmudical lecturer in Yeshiva Rabbi Chaim Berlin. Lieberman instead accepted an offer from the [[Jewish Theological Seminary of America]] (JTSA), the seminary of [[Conservative Judaism]].

Hutner had a number of disagreements with some of the religious scholars who taught in his yeshiva. These disputes were usually not over ideology, but about positions in the school. He eased out many of the older rabbis who were his contemporaries in favor of his disciples. Rabbis Prusskin (a first cousin to his wife), Goldstone, Shurkin, Snow, [[Avrohom Asher Zimmerman]] and others are among them. Though Hutner was, by all accounts, quite steadfast in his opinions, he was not above begging forgiveness from those he had slighted, even when they had initiated attacks on him,<ref>Hutner, Yitzchok. ''Pachad Yitzchok'', Gur Aryeh, 2007, Vol.9, p. 273</ref> and adopting a conciliatory tone.<ref>Hutner, Yitzchok. ''Pachad Yitzchok'', Gur Aryeh, 2007, Vol.9 pp. 283, 291</ref>

Hutner appointed [[Hebron Yeshiva|Slabodka yeshiva]] educated [[Avigdor Miller]] as the ''[[mashgiach ruchani]]'' (spiritual mentor and supervisor) of the yeshiva. After the yeshiva relocated to Far Rockaway, New York in the 1960s, Miller resigned from his position due to the difficulties a daily commute from Brooklyn entailed.{{citation needed|date=October 2020}}