פנחס שפירא מקוריץ

Rav Pinchas Shapiro of Koretz (5486/1726–10 Elul 5550/1790), Reb Pinchas Koretzer, was among the closest talmidim of the heilige Baal Shem Tov and among the great tzaddikim of the first generations of the chassidut. Born in Shklov to Rav Avraham Abba, a descendant of Rav Nosson Nota Shapiro, the Megaleh Amukot, he was named for his grandfather Rav Pinchas, maggid meisharim of Shklov. Raised in a lomdish Lithuanian home, he toiled in Talmud and poskim from his youth — chiddushim he set down then were later printed as Givat Pinchas — and acquired dikduk and the sifrei machshavah of the early generations. When a libel drove the family from Shklov and they settled in Volhynia, his father, until then set against the new derech, drew close to the Baal Shem Tov and became his talmid; Reb Pinchas followed him, and rose to be counted among the Besht’s foremost talmidim, alongside the Maggid of Mezritch, Rav Yaakov Yosef of Polnoye, and Rav Yechiel Michel of Zlotchov.

He settled in Koretz, whose name he carries to this day, and later in Ostroh. Of his own hand almost nothing remains — a single letter to his talmid-chaver Rav Yeshaya of Dinovitz, with answers on aliyot neshamah and the revealing of sodot — but his talmidim wrote down his torot, gathered in Midrash Pinchas, in Likutei Shoshanim, and in our own generation in Imrei Pinchas HaShalem (Bnei Brak 5763/2003); at the close of the Midrash Pinchas it is written that he asked his children and talmidim to learn from his sefer every day. Great ones of the second and third generations of the chassidut came to his beit midrash. His foremost talmidim were Rav Refael of Bershad and Rav Binyamin Zev of Balta, and among the others Rav Yaakov Shimshon of Shepetovka and Rav Baruch of Mezhibuzh, the Baal Shem Tov’s grandson.

In 5550/1790 he left Ostroh to go up to Eretz Yisrael, but on the way he fell ill in Shepetovka, and there he was niftar on 10 Elul and brought to kevurah. His son Rav Moshe of Slavita founded the Hebrew printing house of Slavita, and his son Rav Yehudah Meir became rav of Shepetovka. The old beit hakevarot was destroyed under the Soviet rule, but in our days, through the efforts of his descendants, the matzeivah was renewed on the true place of his kevurah and an ohel raised over it, and those who travel to Shepetovka pray at his tziyun once more.