Part one deals with the contributions of Rabbi Pinchas Stolper (1931–2022) in interpreting and translating the works of Rav Yitzchok Hutner (1906–1980) into English. Part two deals with the contributions of Rabbi Yitzchok Alster (b. 1935) in interpreting and quoting the works of Rav Hutner into English. Part three deals with the translation of some of Rav Hutner's works by Rabbi Eliakim Willner and of his biography into English by Rabbi Shmuel Kirzner.
The Talmud teaches that "Torah, Eretz Yisrael [Land of Israel] and Olam Haba [World to Come] can be acquired only with suffering" (Berachot 5a) and in the case of the life of the famous Rosh Yeshiva Rav Yitzchok Hutner (1906–1980) this is very true! While his early rise and fame as a young dynamic Torah scholar, author and Rosh Yeshiva was quick and meteoric, the last years of his life were filled with many deeply painful challenges, problems and suffering.
Due to the overwhelming missions and burdens that confronted him as he neared the end of his life, his openly declared desire to see his books, based on his live Yiddish language lectures (Ma'amarim) that were then written down in Hebrew and named Pachad Yitzchok ("fear/awe of Isaac") by the Rav himself, translated into first class English, never came to fruition during his lifetime.
For various complicated reasons, to date, more than forty years after his passing, and in spite of several authors' recent attempts, the entire body of his books have still not been comprehensively translated into English even though Rav Hutner reliably declared it to be one of his serious goals to a number of people while he was still alive.
Maybe, had he lived another ten or fifteen years in good health, then perhaps he could have continued his personal wishes and drive to see his books translated into English since prior to his passing he had already taken small nascent steps to get the ball rolling in that direction. But it was not to be and he passed away at the relatively young age of seventy four in 1980 with no published English translations of his Pachad Yitzchok books.
For a very long time, in fact for many decades, after his passing there was no attempt by his successors at the institutions that he had headed, the Yeshiva Rabbi Chaim Berlin–Kollel Gur Aryeh in Brooklyn and Yeshiva Pachad Yitzchok–Kollel Ohr Eliyahu in Jerusalem, to undertake and promote any serious translation of Rav Hutner's books or books about him into English that would in turn probably popularize his writings and thought systems to the wider English-reading and speaking Torah world.
To date, there still has not been a serious official undertaking of translating Rav Hutner's Pachad Yitzchok books besides the recently published one volume effort by Rabbi Eliakim Willner through the ArtScroll publishing house that is not an official arm of Yeshiva Rabbi Chaim Berlin. However, the Yeshiva Rabbi Chaim Berlin–Kollel Gur Aryeh has issued an official one volume translation into English by Rabbi Shmuel Kirzner of a book of "Memories" originally written by Rav Hutner's daughter Rebbetzin Bruriah David (1938–2023) that is a laudatory biography of Rav Hutner and his life's goals.
This requires some deeper questioning and analysis of possible reasons for holding back from the English speaking world, meaning the Torah and Jewish religious English speaking public, of the works by one of the most brilliant, eloquent, sparkling and exciting Torah personalities who created a vast treasury and cornucopia of Torah literature in modern times — who, years before he passed away, had openly explicitly expressed his own wishes to have his works translated into good English!
In the meantime, the famous English language Torah publishers such as Feldheim and ArtScroll have published many dozens of complete magnificent sets of translations of both classical and contemporary Torah classics. The means of translation and qualified personnel to translate Torah anthologies from classical Hebrew into great English are in place especially in America.
The first thing to realize is that Rav Hutner was fully active until the end of his life when he was felled and stopped in his tracks by a terrible debilitating stroke three weeks before he died in 1980. Until the very end of his life Rav Hutner had a lot on his plate.
The last decade of Rav Hutner's life was very tough, starting with him and his family being on a plane that was hijacked to Jordan by Palestinian Arab terrorists in 1970 and surviving captivity during a subsequent civil war between the Jordanians and the Palestinian Arabs. It is a miracle that Rav Hutner and his family came out alive from that horrific trauma together with other hostages held by the murderous so-called Black September Arab terrorists!
In fact a full manuscript of a soon to be published volume of Rav Hutner's Pachad Yitzchok was confiscated by the terrorists and never returned or recovered. After his return from captivity Rav Hutner had to reassemble and rewrite the work with the help of notes and summaries that his students had written down for themselves over the years.
Then in 1972 Rav Hutner's wife Rebbetzin Masha Hutner passed away so that for the last eight years of his life Rav Hutner lost his most devoted Ezer Kenegdo (help-mate) who did everything for him so that he should be free to concentrate exclusively on his work, profound Torah studies, teachings, writings and publications.
Even though from the 1930s to the 1960s Rav Hutner as the Rosh Yeshiva had built up one of the most successful and famous yeshivas in the world, the Yeshiva Rabbi Chaim Berlin in Brooklyn and founded its Kollel Gur Aryeh for post-graduate Torah scholars that produced many great Talmidei Chachomim (Torah scholars) and Roshei Yeshiva (Heads of yeshivas) that was going strong, nevertheless Rav Hutner worked to set up a new yeshiva in Jerusalem.
The first new yeshiva that Rav Hutner founded was in partnership with the famous Rosh Yeshiva Rav Dov Schwartzman (1921–2011) called Bais HaTalmud. Unfortunately that partnership fell apart culminating in a Din Torah (case in Jewish Court) and Rav Hutner was forced to start building a new yeshiva from scratch which he eventually did and named it Yeshiva Pachad Yitzchok founded in the mid 1970s with himself and his son in law Rav Yonosan David as its heads. Rav Hutner also established the Kollel Ohr Eliyahu division for post graduate Talmudic students in Jerusalem connected to his Yeshiva Pachad Yitzchok.
Few people can either build or head a yeshiva, a Torah pioneering job that only the Torah elite can do and that only the select gifted few geniuses can actually pull off. It requires skills of first and foremost being a top Torah scholar, teacher, administrator, fundraiser and much else. It is an all consuming undertaking and Rav Hutner undertook this mission with the zest of a man much younger than he was, although in truth he was not that old. It surely takes up a lot of human energy and mindspace.
All the time, while this was going on, Rav Hutner was an active and popular leader in the Torah world in America and Israel. He was a vital long standing member of the Moetzes Gedolei HaTorah (Council of Torah Sages) of Agudath Israel of America making him a well-known public figure in the Torah world with lots of demands on his time and energy. In addition, in both America and Israel, he was always sought out by Jews from all walks of life from simple people to Hasidic Rebbes and Lithuanian Roshei Yeshiva for advice in private meetings or by phone. Hundreds of people were always trying to get his Daas Torah (Torah guidance) and view on things all the time.
For approximately the last fifteen years of his life Rav Hutner divided his time between America and Israel, flying back and forth always ensuring that he and his family spent the major Jewish holy days in America maintaining homes in both Brooklyn and Jerusalem. His goal was to eventually permanently move to Jerusalem and leave the running of his yeshiva in America to his great disciple Rav Aaron Schechter (1928–2023). Rav Hutner simultaneously headed his Yeshiva Rabbi Chaim Berlin–Kollel Gur Aryeh in Brooklyn and the Yeshiva Pachad Yitzchok–Kollel Ohr Eliyahu in Jerusalem until his passing.
Rav Hutner's job in Brooklyn as the Rosh Yeshiva of Yeshiva Rabbi Chaim Berlin–Kollel Gur Aryeh was fraught with many serious challenges. By the mid 1960s the neighborhood of Brownsville in Brooklyn was no longer suitable as its location at its famous Stone Avenue home and had to move. The first move was to Far Rockaway in Queens but within two to three years a better location was found in Flatbush, Brooklyn. Therefore Rav Hutner had to deal with a succession of location and relocation issues during the mid 1960s. In addition there was a parting of the ways with the yeshiva's famous Mashgiach Ruchani Rav Avigdor Miller (1908–2001) when the yeshiva moved away from Stone Avenue to Far Rockaway in the mid 1960s.
Rav Hutner had also established Kollel Gur Aryeh a post graduate school of Talmudic studies for advanced married students, who were paid a monthly stipend, founded in the mid 1950s and located in the Crown Heights section of Brooklyn. It eventually joined the main yeshiva when it moved to its Coney Island Avenue premises in Flatbush, Brooklyn, during the mid 1960s.
In addition, during the 1960s, Rav Hutner oversaw the establishment and growth of an elementary and high school division of the yeshiva in Flatbush, Brooklyn, creating an educational complex and campus that would eventually cater to close to two thousand students ranging in age from young boys to mature married men! Rav Hutner also oversaw the founding and growth of Camp Morris, the Yeshiva Rabbi Chaim Berlin's summer campus in the Catskills, that subsequently grew into a huge project in Woodridge, New York about a hundred miles north of New York City. Rav Hutner would join the yeshiva community and students there for many summers.
Rav Hutner had to oversee an operation that required constant attention to staffing, salaries, fundraising, attention to students, lecturing, and he was constantly preparing his original lectures in Yiddish all the time every Yom Tov, sometimes Erev Yom Tov, sometimes on Shabbos like a continuing fount of Torah wisdom. As time went on he started writing down his original Yiddish talks into Hebrew and called his works Pachad Yitzchok ("fear/awed of Isaac"). He never had a break from teaching, counseling, educational administration of his institutions, being a much in demand public figure in the Torah world, originator of new lectures all the time, orator, writer, author...with very little time to work on a project he very much wanted...the translation of his published writings into English that he spoke about towards the end of his life.
As time passed, certainly by the mid 1970s, about five years before he passed away, Rav Hutner started to focus seriously on who would succeed him as Rosh Yeshiva and take over control of the Yeshiva Rabbi Chaim Berlin in Brooklyn, something that would also prove a great stress on his life. When the yeshiva moved to its Coney Island Avenue location in Flatbush, Brooklyn during the mid 1960s, Rav Hutner officially appointed his only son in law Rav Yonosan David as well as probably his greatest disciple Rav Aaron Schechter as his official successors. In the mid 1960s Rav Hutner also appointed Rav Shlomo Carlebach (1925–2022) (not the singer) a trusted disciple, Holocaust survivor and expert in Rav Hutner's thought systems, as the new Mashgiach Ruchani of the Yeshiva Rabbi Chaim Berlin.
About three years before Rav Hutner passed away in 1980, when he was more intensely focused on moving to Israel and making sure that Rav Aaron Schechter would be his top-most sole heir (but when Rav Yonosan David would return to Brooklyn, he would still be the coequal Rosh Yeshiva together with Rav Aaron Schechter). Rav Carlebach refused to accept this arrangement and a more submissive role as part of the yeshiva's Hanhalla (administration) and was let go resulting in Rav Carlebach starting a serious Din Torah (case in Jewish Court) to retain the position he had lost, and that harmed the reputation of the yeshiva.
This dissension between his top disciples caused great pain and anguish to Rav Hutner since he regarded both Rav Schechter and Rav Carlebach as his "sons" and was a further distraction and headache that he did not need in his busy life as he was also faced with declining health as the years marched on. In addition, in Israel, the original property that was acquired by Rav Hutner on which to build his Pachad Yitzchok Yeshiva in Jerusalem was taken over in a land grab by the Belzer Chasidim for the building of their world center resulting in the Pachad Yitzchok Yeshiva having to relocate and eventually being built in the Har Nof section of Jerusalem.
It was during these tumultuous and stormy latter years of Rav Hutner's life, in both America and Israel, that he spoke about his wish and dream to see his works translated into English. With so many challenges and distractions and juggling so many projects and objectives and facing so many personal and professional challenges, it is no wonder that the project of translating his works into English never got started in his own lifetime. But that begs the question why his works were not translated after he passed away in 1980 by his official successors.
After Rav Hutner passed away in 1980, his Yeshiva Rabbi Chaim Berlin–Kollel Gur Aryeh in Brooklyn was handed over to his chosen successor Rav Aaron Schechter (1928–2023) and the running of Yeshiva Pachad Yitzchok–Kollel Ohr Eliyahu in Jerusalem to his son in law Rav Yonosan David. Rav Hutner's daughter Rebbetzin Bruriah David (1938–2023) was the founder and head of the prestigious Beth Jacob of Jerusalem (BJJ) seminary in Israel educating thousands of young religious Jewish women over the decades.
Rav Yonosan and Rebbetzin Bruriah David had no children, something that pained Rav Hutner deeply and greatly, so that he had to look outside of his own family for an eventual line of succession especially in Brooklyn since Rav Yonosan David would be based in Jerusalem, which he skillfully and successfully did. From 1980 to 2023 Rav Aaron Schechter was Rav Hutner's choice as the unopposed Rosh Yeshiva and leader of the yeshiva, he was also appointed to fill Rav Hutner's slot, after Rav Hutner's passing, to be a member of the Moetzes Gedolei HaTorah (Council of Torah Sages) of Agudath Israel of America.
It can be concluded that Rav Yonosan and Rebbetzin Bruriah David as the main custodians of Rav Hutner's Pachad Yitzchok books legacy did not promote a policy of translating Rav Hutner's works into English. Had they wanted to they could have easily pushed for such a project, but for reasons of their own they chose not to have Rav Hutner's works translated into English. Only in 2024 was there a small movement in that direction with the publication of one volume of segments of Pachad Yitzchok published by ArtScroll by Rabbi Eliakim Willner, promoted by Rabbi Avrohom Fruchthandler the President of Yeshiva Rabbi Chaim Berlin and the main financial benefactor and sponsor of Rav Hutner, Rav Schechter, Rav David, in both America and Israel..
From 1980 when Rav Hutner passed away, until the time of his own passing in 2023 Rav Aaron Schechter also did not see fit to support a translation of Rav Hutner's Pachad Yitzchok books into English. This is ironic because it was at around the same time that the ArtScroll publication company started and completed its multi-volume translations of both the full Babylonian and Jerusalem Talmuds into English.
As recounted to me (Yitschak Rudomin) a few years ago by Rabbi Eliakim Willner, the translator of the recent 2024 edition of Rav Hutner's Pachad Yitzchok published by ArtScroll, it was Rav Aaron Schechter who intervened positively and helpfully on the side of the ArtScroll publishers when the famous Torah leader Rav Elazar Shach (1899–2001) in Israel objected to the translation of the Talmud into English and sought to stop ArtScroll with going ahead with that project. Rav Aaron Schechter personally intervened with Rav Shach and persuaded him to drop his opposition to the translation of the Talmud into English by the ArtScroll publishers.
In fact, in its English translations of the Talmud into English, the ArtScroll publishing team thanks Rav Aaron Schechter for coming up with the description "elucidation" rather than the raw word "translation" describing its own Talmud project! In addition Rav Aaron Schechter wrote a lengthy and very laudatory letter of recommendation praising ArtScroll's "elucidation/translation" of the Talmud into English that is reprinted in every volume of the multi volume set. Yet when it came to Rav Hutner's Pachad Yitzchok, Rav Aaron Schechter did not personally promote an official translation/elucidation into English by the Yeshiva Rabbi Chaim Berlin–Kollel Gur Aryeh. Obviously Rav Schechter had his reasons.
One of which must have been that Rav Hutner's Pachad Yitzchok was so lofty in its original Hebrew that it could never really be brought down to Earth in the form of an English translation. Another reason could be that he felt that it was a reserved study for both the initiated or for those who could on their own master and crack open its teachings from the original Hebrew. Maybe it was because Rav Aaron Schechter understood Rav Hutner's sources such as from Kabbalah and Hasidism, the GRA (the Vilna Gaon, 1720–1797) and the Baal Shem Tov (1698–1760), and did not want it to come into the open explicitly.
Rav Hutner based his methodology on the MAHARAL of Prague (1512–1609) that was based on Nistar Belashon Nigleh (hidden/mystery Torah teachings in the language of the revealed and open Torah teachings) and similarly Rav Hutner's teachings were the same as the MAHARAL's so that it was inappropriate, if not pointless, to attempt a translation of the impossible. Or perhaps he felt that even though Rav Hutner had many disciples who loved the Pachad Yitzchok books, for the newer generations who did not know Rav Hutner he wished to teach it to them in his own style and manner as a reliable expositor of Rav Hutner's teachings.
Whatever the real reasons were, we will never really know as a matter of public information why Rav Aaron Schechter, Rav Yonosan and Rebbetzin Bruriah David did not push for an officially sanctioned translation into English of the totality of Rav Hutner's Pachad Yitzchok books. As for the future, only time will tell if that policy and attitude will remain in effect.
Rabbi Yitschak Rudomin was born to Holocaust survivor parents in Israel, grew up in South Africa, and lives in Brooklyn, NY. He is an alumnus of Yeshiva Rabbi Chaim Berlin and of Teachers College–Columbia University. He heads the Jewish Professionals Institute dedicated to Jewish Adult Education and Outreach – Kiruv Rechokim. He was the Director of the Belzer Chasidim's Sinai Heritage Center of Manhattan 1988–1995, a Trustee of AJOP 1994–1997 and founder of American Friends of South African Jewish Education 1995–2015. He is also a docent and tour guide at The Museum of Jewish Heritage – A Living Memorial to the Holocaust in Downtown Manhattan, New York. He is the author of The Second World War and Jewish Education in America: The Fall and Rise of Orthodoxy.