He was born in Valozhyn, the middle son of Chaim Soloveitchik and grandson of the Beis HaLevi.

He also was the dean of a yeshiva in the town that Rabbi Nosson Tzvi Finkel of Slabodka was instrumental in founding.

After World War I, he went to Poland in 1920, and served as the director of Talmud studies at Tachkemoni Rabbinical Seminary in Warsaw.

While Soloveichik was in New York City, his eldest son, Joseph B. Soloveitchik (known as Yosef Dov) was working on his PhD in philosophy at the University of Berlin, which he completed in 1931.

The following year, Yosef Dov moved to Boston and became head of the Orthodox Jewish community there.