הרב דוד פיינשטיין

Rav Dovid Feinstein (5689/1929–19 Cheshvan 5781/6 November 2020) was rosh yeshiva of Mesivtha Tifereth Jerusalem in New York, a posek, and a member of the Moetzes Gedolei HaTorah of America; he was the son of Rav Moshe Feinstein, the gadol hador in America. He was born in Lyuban, in what is today Belarus, in the years his father served as rav of the town, and was named for his paternal grandfather, a descendant of the brother of the Vilna Gaon. In 5697/1937 he came with his father and the family to America, settling in Manhattan, where he lived the rest of his life. On his father’s passing on 13 Adar II 5746/1986 he took his place at the head of Mesivtha Tifereth Jerusalem — its elementary school, mesivta and kollel. He also headed Chinuch Atzmai in America and sat on the board of Chinuch Atzmai in Eretz Yisrael. The yeshiva’s branch on Staten Island is headed by his brother, Rav Reuven Feinstein.

He held to the mishnah in Avot 1:15, “say little and do much,” and it was the mark of his conduct. In his father’s lifetime he would not put his own name on the cover of a sefer, and so his works came out under the name Kol Dodi, whose first three letters spell Dovid — the phrase taken from Shir HaShirim. Under that name appeared Kol Dodi on the Torah, on the Haftarot, on Megillat Esther and on Megillat Rut, Kol Dodi on the laws of the Seder and the Haggadah Anah Dodi, along with a work in English on the Jewish calendar, its structure and its laws. The explanation of the masoretic note at the end of every parashah in ArtScroll’s Stone Chumash is his; he was closely bound up with that publishing house and served among its founding trustees until his passing.

Among his psakim: that bread not be included in mishloach manot sent to one who is not observant, since he will not bench afterward; that the people of New York filter their water out of concern for the creatures found in it; that a bottle cap not be opened on Shabbat; and that one may try on garments in which shaatnez is not to be assumed. His talmidim put his Torah into print: Shu”t Vedibarta Bam, give and take in halachah lemaaseh, written by his talmid Baruch Maskowitz with his haskamah (New York, part one 5769, part two 5776); Shu”t Yad Dodi, psakim arranged on the order of the Shulchan Aruch, written by his talmid Rav Yitzchak Dovid Frankel; and Sefer LeDavid Mizmor, his shiurim on the parashah, written by his talmid Rav Yosef Kaplan, whose Bereishit volume appeared in 5784. He was niftar at ninety-one; the levayah was held both in America and in Eretz Yisrael, and he was buried on Har HaMenuchot beside the kever of his father.