הרב ברוך הלוי אפשטיין

Rav Baruch HaLevi Epstein (5 Shevat 5620/1860–5702/1942), the author of the Torah Temimah, was born in Bobruisk to Rav Yechiel Michel HaLevi Epstein, the Aruch HaShulchan, and Michlah, sister of the Netziv of Volozhin. At thirteen he entered the Volozhin yeshiva, where he learned five years and was counted among its iluyim, receiving semichah from his uncle the Netziv, from the Beis HaLevi, Rav Yosef Dov Soloveitchik, from Rav Chaim Yehuda of Smorgon, and from Rav Refael Shapiro. He married Sheina, daughter of Rav Elazar Moshe Horowitz, rav of Pinsk, and learned in his father-in-law’s house; after study at the commerce academy in Vienna he returned to Pinsk as chief bookkeeper, and later manager, of a bank, a post he held until the First World War. When his father-in-law was niftar he was asked to take the rabbanut of Pinsk and declined, as he declined the rabbanut of Petersburg and of Moscow.

His Torah Temimah, first printed in Vilna in 5662/1902, sets out on each pasuk of the Torah and the five Megillot the words of Chazal from the Bavli, Yerushalmi, Sifra, Sifrei, Tosefta, and Mechilta, and in his notes explains how each derashah rises out of the language of the pasuk — joining the Torah shebichtav and the Torah shebe’al peh on a single page. Among his other sefarim: Mekor Baruch (5688/1928), four volumes of memoirs of his family and of Volozhin under the Netziv, part of which appeared in English as My Uncle the Netziv; a separate Mekor Baruch on the Yerushalmi; Baruch She’amar on the tefillot, the Haggadah, and Pirkei Avot; and Gishmei Berachah on the five Megillot.

At the time of the Beilis blood libel, his exchange of letters with Professor Pavel Kokovtsov of Petersburg in defense of the honor of Klal Yisrael was printed throughout the Hebrew, Yiddish, and Russian press. From 1923 to 1926 he was in America to print and spread his sefarim, and then returned to Pinsk. He was niftar in Pinsk in the years of the Shoah, in 5701/1941, and his kever stands in the beit hachaim of Karlin. Although he passed from natural causes shortly before the Nazis had invaded his city, tragically, his six sons, his daughter, and most of their children were later murdered in the Holocaust.