Volozhin וולוז'ין
A small town in Belarus where in 1803 the yeshiva opened on whose model the whole Lithuanian yeshiva world is built.
Before Volozhin a yeshiva was a town's own affair: young men studied in the local kloiz with the local rav, and the community fed them. Rabbi Chaim, disciple of the Vilna Gaon, gathered students here from many places in 1803, set a daily order and funded the yeshiva from across the Pale.
The Netziv led it for nearly forty years; Rabbi Chaim Soloveitchik of Brisk taught alongside him, and the Brisker method was born here. In 1892 the authorities demanded secular subjects and limits on study hours; the Netziv refused and the yeshiva was closed. By then Mir, Slabodka, Telz and Radin already stood on its model.
On the timeline
Related
Sources
Acharonim and later rabbinic literature
- Nefesh ha-Chaim — the founder's book: study as what upholds the world
- Ha'amek Davar — the Netziv's commentary, written in the years he led the yeshiva
Documents of the period
- Order closing the Volozhin yeshiva, 1892 — the demand for secular subjects and limited study hours
Basis: documents and evidence.