Opposition
His main opponents in the "yeshiva world" were the members and alumni of the Brisk yeshiva of Lithuania headed by the Soloveitchik family, who were adamantly opposed to any changes in what they believed to be the time-tested ways of yeshiva education. To this day, their yeshivos, based mainly in Jerusalem today, do not teach mussar (ethics) as a separate curriculum, but focus on pure Talmud study.
Finkel's opponents argued that the pure focus on the Talmud would automatically create greatness in both scholarship and ethics. But Rabbi Finkel believed that, while this might have been true in previous generations, the modern age was different. In his view, too many new enticing secular ideologies, such as Socialism and Zionism and the very real lure of atheism in universities, were becoming a replacement for traditional Judaism for many young Jews. He was determined to prove that what he had to offer was more appealing than anything the outside world could offer.
Read more about this topic: Nosson Tzvi Finkel (Slabodka)
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“The opposition is indispensable. A good statesman, like any other sensible human being, always learns more from his opponents than from his fervent supporters. For his supporters will push him to disaster unless his opponents show him where the dangers are. So if he is wise he will often pray to be delivered from his friends, because they will ruin him. But though it hurts, he ought also to pray never to be left without opponents; for they keep him on the path of reason and good sense.”
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