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He was able to construct an intense curriculum and an environment that produced young scholars who were viewed as being in the same league as their compatriots in Eastern Europe. In 1940, he established a post-high school yeshiva, Bet Midrash, with hundreds of students. He viewed secular studies as essential in learning a profession for people to support themselves by eventually going to college and becoming professionals. Together with the Dean of the Yeshiva Torah Vodaath , Shraga Feivel Mendlowitz a Charter to set up a combined Yeshiva and College was obtained from the New York Regents. However, this scheme was abandoned upon the insistence of Rabbi Aaron Kotler the presciently anti-secular leader of the soon to be gargantuan Lakewood Yeshiva who wielded great rabbinical power. Another incident between him and Rabbi Kotler is most instructive. A publication house had printed a version of the Rambam's son Abraham's work on how it is possible for Rabbis in the Talmud to err in matters of science. Rabbi Kotler upon hearing the news immediately called Rabbi Hutner. When the person who answered the phone responded that Rabbi Hutner was not there, Rabbi Kotler demanded that Rabbi Hutner get on the phone immediately. Rabbi Hutner acquiesced, as he deemed Rabbi Kotler to be a greater Talmudic authority.
Hutner however maintained his relatively liberal policy during his tenure at the helm of his own Yeshiva Rabbi Chaim Berlin, allowing and even encouraging students to combine their day's learning in yeshiva together with attending college, such as at Brooklyn College and later at Touro College in late afternoons and evenings. He would take great pride in the secular accomplishments of his students insofar as they fit into his vision of a material world governed by the principles of a spiritual Torah way of life. One of his closest disciples is the renowned economist, Israel Kirzner who edits Hutner's written works.
However, Rabbi Hutner had his limits, which are often conveyed in personal anecdotes. There was an interesting episode where a student made a remark about some religious issue. Rabbi Hutner quickly slapped him and said, "You read that in (Rabbi) Heschel!" The interesting point is that Rabbi Hutner too, had to have read it in Heschel as well to have recognized the source.
Interestingly, his only daughter, Bruria Hutner David, obtained her Ph.D. at Columbia University in the Department of Philosophy, and subsequently founded and became the Dean of a major Seminary for women in Jerusalem. Her dissertation discussed the dual role of Rabbi Zvi Hirsch Chajes as both a traditionalist and Maskil. Many have noted the remarkable parallels between her own father and Rabbi Chajes, the subject of her dissertation.
Rabbi Hutner appointed the Yeshiva University and Slabodka educated Rabbi Avigdor Miller as the Mashgiach (spiritual mentor and supervisor) of the yeshiva.
Rabbi Hutner developed a style of celebrating Shabbat and the Holy Days, Yom Tov, by giving a kind of talk called a maamer . It was a combination of Talmudic discourse, hasidic celebration ( tish ), philosophic lecture, group singing, and when possible, like on Purim, a ten piece band was brought in as accompaniment. Many times there was singing and dancing all night. All of this, together with the respect to his authority that he demanded, induced in his students obedience and something of a "heightened consciousness" that passed into their lives making them into literal hasidim ("devotees") of their Rosh Yeshiva, who encouraged this by personally donning hasidic garb, ( begadim ) and acting outwardly like a cross between a Rosh Yeshiva and a Rebbe and instructed some of his students to do like-wise.
His methodology and style was controversial, although intellectually he placed great emphasis on penetrating Talmudic study and analysis, emotionally he veered towards the hasidic-style, more than his Lithuanian-style colleagues reared as mitnagdim could tolerate. Ironically, Rabbi Hutner became a fierce critic of Lubavitch and the idolization of Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson. Yet both men referred to their discourses as maamarim. 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, whom he had tutored in Warsaw, Rabbi Aaron Soloveitchik (later to head his own yeshiva in Skokie near Chicago) as head of his own Yeshiva Chaim Berlin. Rabbi Aaron Sloveitchik completed a Doctorate in Law at New York University at the same time he lectured in Rabbi Hutner's Yeshiva Chaim Berlin.
In the 1950s, he established a school for post-graduate married scholars to continue their in-depth Talmudical studies. This was a kolel, (a post graduate division), 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 them and was intimately involved in major communal policy decision-making as he worked through his network of students in positions of leadership, and won over to his cause people who came to meet with him.
He published what is considered his magnum opus which he named Pachad Yitzchok , ("Fear of Isaac", meaning the God whom Isaac feared). He called his outlook Hilchot Deot Vechovot Halevavot, ("Laws of 'Ideas' and 'Duties of the Heart'") and wrote in a poetic modern-style Hebrew reminiscent of his original mentor's style, Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook, even though the original lectures were delivered in Yiddish.
The core of his synthesis of different schools of Jewish thought was rooted in his deep studies of the teachings of the Maharal of Prague Rabbi Judah Leow (1525-1609) a scholar and mystic. It is commonly accepted that Rabbi Hutner "opened up" and "popularized" the writings and ideas of the Maharal. Another pillar of Rabbi Hutner's thought system were the works of the Vilna Gaon, Rabbi Elijah, (1720-1797) and of Rabbi Moshe Chaim Luzzato. He would only allude in the most general ways to other great mystics, in Hebrew mekubalim, such as the Baal Shem Tov (founder of Hasidism), the great mystic known as the ARI who lived in the late Middle Ages, and even the founder of Lubavitch Hasidism, the Baal HaTanya Schneur Zalman of Liadi, and many other great Hasidic masters.
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