Chaim Volozhin

Chaim of Volozhin (also known as Chaim ben Yitzchok of Volozhin or Chaim Ickovits; January 21, 1749 – June 14, 1821) was an Orthodox rabbi, Talmudist, and ethicist. Popularly known as "Reb Chaim Volozhiner" or simply as "Reb Chaim", he was born in Volozhin (a.k.a. Vałožyn or Valozhyn) when it was a part of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. He died there while it was under the control of the Russian Empire. It is part of present-day Belarus.

Both he and his elder brother Simcha (d. 1812) studied under Rabbi Aryeh Leib Gunzberg, the author of the Shaagas Aryeh, who was then rabbi of Volozhin, and afterward under Rabbi Raphael ha-Kohen, (the author of the Toras Yekusiel), later of Hamburg.

Aged 25, he was attracted by the fame of the Vilna Gaon, and he became one of the his most prominent disciples. Submitting to his new teacher's method, he began his studies anew, taking up again Torah, Mishnah, Talmud, and even Hebrew grammar. His admiration for the gaon was boundless, and after his death Chaim virtually acknowledged no superior (see Heschel Levin's "Aliyyot Eliyahu", pp. 55–56, Vilna, 1889 OCLC 77975422).

It was with the view of applying the methods of the Vilna Gaon that he founded the Volozhin yeshiva in 1803, a yeshiva that remained in operation for nearly 90 years until it was closed in 1892. The yeshiva became the "mother of all Lithuanian-style yeshivas". He began with ten pupils, young residents of Volozhin, whom Chaim maintained at his own expense. It is related that his wife sold her jewelry to contribute to their maintenance. The fame of the institution spread, and the number of its students increased, necessitating an appeal to which the Jews of Russia generously responded. Rabbi Chaim lived to see his yeshiva housed in its own building, and to preside over a hundred disciples ("Chut ha-Meshullash," responsum No. 5, published by his great-grandson OCLC 13995133).

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