Originally from Warsaw, Hutner was the long-time dean of Yeshiva Rabbi Chaim Berlin in Brooklyn, New York, an older institution that grew under his leadership.

On one of his trips there, Hutner's plane was seized by Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine terrorists in the Dawson's Field hijackings, which he survived.

In 1940, after receiving permission from the rosh yeshiva, Yaakov Moshe Shurkin, he began to give a class to the 4th year of the post high school program.

Hutner took 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.

[citation needed] One of his closest disciples, Israel Kirzner, is an economist who edited Hutner's written works, Pachad Yitzchok.

This includes his daughter and only child, Bruria David, who obtained her PhD at Columbia University's department of philosophy as a student of Salo Baron.

While placing great emphasis on intellectually penetrating Talmudic study and analysis, emotionally he veered towards the Hasidic-style, and more-so than his Lithuanian-style colleagues reared as Misnagdim could tolerate.

[9] The core of Hutner's synthesis of different schools of Jewish thought was rooted in his studies of the teachings of Judah Loew ben Bezalel (1525–1609) a scholar and mystic known as the Maharal of Prague.

He obtained, together with Shraga Feivel Mendlowitz, a charter from the New York State Board of Regents to set up a combined yeshiva and college.

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.

[1] Hutner eventually became a member of the non-Zionist Haredi Moetzes Gedolei HaTorah (Council of Torah Sages) of Agudath Israel of America following his immigration to the United States.

[2] Citing an anonymous source, Hillel Goldberg reports that Hutner became a fierce critic of the Chabad-Lubavitch Hasidic group and the "personality cult built up around" Schneerson.

[15] Hutner purposefully moved up his Hanukkah ma'amar to preempt his students from attending Schneerson's Yud Tes Kislev farbrengen.

[9] Still, Hutner corresponded regularly with Schneerson throughout his lifetime on a variety of halakhic (Jewish law), Hasidic and kabbalistic subjects, and occasionally sought his blessing.

Ahron Soloveichik completed a Doctorate in law at New York University at the same time that he lectured in Hutner's Yeshiva Rabbi Chaim Berlin.

In the early 1940s, Hutner asked a friend from Slabodka, Saul Lieberman, to become a dean-Talmudical lecturer in Yeshiva Rabbi Chaim Berlin.

Though Hutner was, by all accounts, quite steadfast in his opinions, he was not above begging forgiveness from those he had slighted, even when they had initiated attacks on him,[19] and adopting a conciliatory tone.

After the yeshiva relocated to Far Rockaway, New York in the 1960s, Miller resigned from his position due to the difficulties a daily commute from Brooklyn entailed.

[7] Among Hutner's notable students are first and foremost his only daughter Rebbetzin Dr. Bruria David (1938–2023) the founder of the Beth Jacob Jerusalem seminary for young Jewish women in Israel.

Another was the author Shlomo Carlebach, who was appointed as the mashgiach ruchani at the Yeshiva Chaim Berlin, but who split with Hutner on policy matters in the 1970s.