Rabbi Sholom Schwadron recounted[2] that in his youth, the Netziv struggled with his studies, and his father considered sending him to learn a trade.

The Netziv's son, Rabbi Meir Bar-Ilan, recalls that at first, his father’s exceptional greatness was not widely known due to his humility.

When R' Eliezer Yitzchak died young in 1853, the Netziv was appointed head of the yeshiva, with R' Joseph Dov Ber Soloveitchik as his deputy.

The Netziv emphasized mastery and simplicity in study, while R' Joseph Dov preferred dialectical analysis and sharpness in reasoning.

In his later years, the Netziv strongly desired to move to Eretz Yisrael, and he sought to appoint his son, R' Chaim Berlin, the rabbi of Moscow, as his successor.

This unrest eventually led to an informant reporting the "poor functioning" of the yeshiva to the authorities, which brought about the involvement of the Russian Minister of Education.

However, he had agreed to allow the teaching of Russian outside the yeshiva, as he wrote: "If, by royal decree, secular studies must be taught, they should be overseen by a God-fearing teacher.

The closure, after the Netziv had invested his life into the yeshiva for 38 years, took a toll on his health, as did the concern over the 9,000 ruble debt left behind.

Later that year, they issued a circular letter to all community rabbis about establishing charity boxes to collect funds for the settlement of Eretz Yisrael.

All of the Netziv's activities with the Chovevei Zion took place outside the walls of the yeshiva, which he considered a sacred institution devoted solely to Torah study.

The Netziv emphasized the importance of unity and opposed rabbis who called for the establishment of separate communities, as had been done in Hungary and Germany.

When Orthodox leaders sought to promote this idea in Galicia, he wrote that their counsel was "as harmful as swords to the body of the nation and its existence."

His methodology closely aligned with the school of the Vilna Gaon (whose influence led to the founding of the Volozhin Yeshiva), making extensive use of textual emendations.

His study of the early Rishonim led him to engage in textual criticism and to search for accurate manuscripts, where he demonstrated an impressive scientific rigor.

Additionally, he wrote a Responsa titled "Meishiv Davar," and a collection of novellae on the Talmud called "Meromei Sadeh" (based on the verse "And Naphtali is on the heights of the field," Judges 5:18), which were published posthumously.

After her death, he married Batya-Miriam (who died in Jerusalem in 1933), the daughter of his sister and his brother-in-law, Rabbi Yechiel Michel Epstein (author of the "Aruch HaShulchan").

[12] The couple had two children: Streets in numerous cities in Israel are named after him, as is the Ein HaNetziv kibbutz in the Beit She'an Valley.