הרב חיים פנחס שיינברג

Rav Chaim Pinchas Scheinberg (27 Elul 5670/1 October 1910–27 Adar 5772/2012) was rosh yeshiva of Yeshivat Torah Ore, a posek, one of the rabbanim of Kiryat Mattersdorf in Yerushalayim, and a member of the Moetzes Gedolei HaTorah. He was born in Ostrov, Poland, a son of Rav Yaakov Yitzchok Scheinberg. His father had gone to America before he was born, and the family followed him over in 5679/1919, when the boy was nine, settling on the Lower East Side. At fourteen, at the urging of Rav Yaakov Yosef Herman, he went to the Beit Medrash LeRabbonim of Rav Yehuda Levenberg in New Haven, a yeshiva that gave its hours to limudei kodesh alone; by sixteen and a half he had learned the whole Shas. At seventeen he went to the Rabbi Isaac Elchanan Theological Seminary, learning under Rav Shlomo Polachek and Rav Moshe Soloveitchik, and received semichah from Rav Baruch Ber Leibowitz and Rav Dov Revel.

On 15 Adar I 5689/1929 he married Basha, daughter of Rav Yaakov Yosef Herman. At his father-in-law’s urging the couple moved to Mir in Poland so that he could learn in the yeshiva there, where he was one of the few married talmidim and one of the few Americans. Expecting their first child, they went for a berachah from the Chofetz Chaim; when he asked for an added berachah, having come from America to learn, the Chofetz Chaim answered that Moshe Rabbeinu came down all the way from heaven to teach Klal Yisrael Torah — and then blessed them.

In 5695/1935 the family returned to New York. He was appointed mashgiach ruchani of Yeshiva Chofetz Chaim in Queens and held the position for twenty-five years. In 5721/1960, with his brother Rav Shmuel and his son-in-law Rav Chaim Dov Altusky, he opened Yeshivat Torah Ore in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn, which began with six talmidim. In Iyar 5725/1965 he went up to Eretz Yisrael and brought the yeshiva with him. When the Six-Day War broke out he urged his talmidim to stay, and none of the Americans left — he slept together with them in the bomb shelter. In 5731/1971 Torah Ore moved to its building in Kiryat Mattersdorf, and by 2011 it held close to eight hundred talmidim, over five hundred of them in kollel.

He wore tefillin the whole day and more than fifty pairs of tzitzit. He wrote on all the sefarim of Rav Aryeh Leib Heller, among them Tavaat HaChoshen, five volumes on Shulchan Aruch Choshen Mishpat with notes on the Ketzot HaChoshen and the Netivot HaMishpat. He also left Mishmeret Chaim, questions for iyun put to his talmidim at the mishmar. He was niftar in Shaare Zedek at 101; the levayah went from Torah Ore to Har HaZeitim, and by police estimate some hundred thousand people came. During the levayah his only son, Rav Simcha Scheinberg, was appointed in his place as rosh yeshiva of Torah Ore.