[Avodah] Sinas Chinam - Netziv's understanding

[Daniel Eidensohn]

R' Marty Bluke wrote:
> R' Nosson Kamenetsky in Making of a Gadol writes that the Chafetz
> Chaim very much disagreed with this Netziv and this is one of the
> reasons why he didn't send his son to Volohzin.
>
>   
Thanks for the reference - this is the actual text pages 408-409 in the 
original edition.

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"This is evinced by the fact that the Chafetz-Chaim sent his oldest son, 
Aryeh-Laib, to study under R' Yosheh-Ber when he was the newly appointed 
Rav of Brisk, rather than to the long-established Volozhin Yeshiva under 
the Netziv....The Chafetz-Chaim did send his second son, Avrohm,  to 
study in Volozhin - but that was in 5646 (1886), when R' Yosheh-Ber's 
son R' Hayyim Soloveichik was already on the Volozhin Yeshiva staff, and 
R' Yosheh-Ber himself would probably have ordered the Chafetz-Chaim to 
send his Avrohm to study under his son (and perhaps he did!). .... 
Furthermore, R' Shlomo Lorincz repeated in the name of R' Simhah 
Wasserman (son of one of the Chafetz-Chaim's major disciples, R' 
Elchonon Wasserman) that the Chafetz-Chaim was somewhat critical of the 
Netziv. He disapproved of what the Netziv wrote in his commentary on 
Humash, HaEmek Davar, in the introduction to Sefer Bereishisz , viz., 
that the Second Temple was destroyed because "the tzaddiqim and hasidim 
and those who toiled in Torah study . were not straight
in their general conduct. Therefore, due to the baseless hatred  in 
their hearts, they suspected whomever they saw acting not according to 
their view in Fear of G-d to be a Sadducee and an epikoros.  It was 
understood that the Netziv intended with his words about the Second 
Temple to find fault with the bnei Torah of his own generation for 
delegitimizing the religious maskilim and the Lovers of Zion faithful 
whose outlook on the needs of the Jewish nation did not conform to their 
own. Despite his criticism, the Chafetz Chaim asked the Netziv for his 
haskamah on his sepher Ahavas Chesed which was published eight years 
later than HaEmek Davar. But the Chafetz-Chaim may have preferred not to 
put his son under the Netziv's direct influence by sending him to study 
in the latter's yeshiva before it became invested with the 
counterinfluence of R' Yosheh-Ber Soloveichik's son. "
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It seems that the relationship about which yeshiva the Chofetz Chaim 
chose and the Netziv's views is pure conjecture on the part of R' Nosson 
Kaminetsky. Furthermore it seems that the Chofetz Chaim did not object 
to the Netziv's concept of sinas chinom for the destruction of the 
Second Temple but simply objected to the claim that such a problem was 
also a contemporary problem.

Daniel Eidensohn