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'Rabbi Yitzchok (Isaac) Hutner (1906 - 1980)was born in Warsaw, Poland, to a partly hasidic family. He received private tuition in Torah and Talmud his parents recognizing his mental acumen.As a young teenager he was enrolled in the famous mussar Slabodka Yeshiva in Lithuania, headed by Rabbi Nosson Tzvi Finkel (1849 - 1927), known as the alter("elder"),who during his lifetime moulded not only the young Yitzchok Hutner,but also many who were eventually to become the heads (Roshei Yeshiva) of most of the so-called Lithuanian-style Yeshivot that were established in America and Israel during the 20th century, such asRabbis Aaron Kotler,Yakov Kamenetzky,Elazar Shach,Yakov Ruderman,Dovid Leibowitz,and Eliezer Finkel.

Having obtained a solid deep grounding in Talmud, the young Rabbi Hutner was sent to join an extension of the Slabodka yeshiva in Hebron studying there until 1929, narrowly escaping the Hebron Massacre of 1929.It was during his stay in then Palestine that he became a disciple of Rabbi Kook who was appointed the first Chief Rabbi of Palestine. The philosophical and mystical mind-set of both men, made them kindred spirits, and like Rabbi Kook, the young Rabbi Hutner developed warm welcoming posture towards Jews who were much less religious, but were seeking to also re-connect with their heritage.

Rabbi Hutner then spent some years as a wandering scholar. Most notably he spent time in university in Berlin studying philosophy, but not desiring to obtain a degree.He deliberately spent time familiarizing himself with the intellectual milieuof Germany.He befriended two other future rabbinical leaders studying secular philosophy in Berlin : Joseph Ber Slovietchik,who was to head Yeshiva University in New York, and Menachem Mendel Schneerson who would head Lubavitch in Brooklyn. The three of them were to retain close and cordial personal relations throughout their lives, even though each differed from the other radically in Torah weltanschauung (hashkafa), but nevertheless each had developed a unique bridge and synthesis between the Eastern European world- view, and connected it with a Westernized way of thinking and life. This was a key factor enabling them to serve successfuly as spiritual leaders in the United States of America.

A short while after marrying his American wife, Masha,Rabbi Hutner set sail for America. In 1936 he assumed the leadership of the Yeshiva Rabbi Chaim Berlin, the oldest institution of its kind in Brooklyn, having been set up as an elementary schoolin 1906.He set about building a high school, recruiting boys from all sorts of religious backgrounds. His forceful and very charismatic style of leadership soon gained a large following amongst bothe lay leaders and students. He was somehow able to construct a curriculum and an environment that produced young scholars who were in the same league as their compatriots in Eastern Europe.

Rabbi Hutner developed a very special style of celebrating Shabbat and the Holy Days, Yom Tov, by giving special talk kind of talk called a maamer. It was a combination of Talmudic discourse, hasidic celebration (tisch), philosophic lecture,group singing,and when possible a ten piece band was brought in as accompaniment. Many times there was singing and dancing all night. All of this , together with the extreme respect to his authority that he demanded, induced in his students something of a "heightened consciousness" that passed into their lives making them into literal hasidim of their Rosh Yeshiva, who encouraged this by personally donning hasidic garb, (begadim]])and instructed his students to follow him.His methodology and style was controversial, as it veered too much towards the hasidic style than his Lithuanian style colleagues reared as mitnagdim could tolerate. Ironically, Rabbi Hutner became a fierce critic of Lubavitch and the idolization of Rabbi Schneerson. He also forbade his students from attending any lectures given by Rabbi Joseph Soloveitchik at the same time that he appointed Rabbi Soloveitchik's younger brother, Rabbi Aron Soloveitchik as head of his own Yeshiva Chaim Berlin.

In the 1950s he established a school for post-graduate married scholars to continue their in depth Talmudical studies. This was the Kollel Gur Aryeh, one of the first of its kind in America. Many of his students became prominent educational, outreach, and pulpit rabbis. He stayed in touch with tghem and was intimately involved in major communal policy decion making as he worked through his network of students in positions of leadership,and wone over to his cause people who came to meet with him.