הרב יחיאל מיכל פיינשטיין

Rav Yechiel Michel Feinstein (5667/1907–16 Iyar 5763/2003) was a rosh yeshiva in Tel Aviv and Bnei Brak, son-in-law of the Brisker Rav and a carrier of the Brisker derech in Eretz Yisrael. Born in Uzda, near Minsk, he lost his father, Rav Avraham Yitzchak, at the age of seven; his uncle Rav Moshe Feinstein, then rav of Uzda’s chasidic kehillah, took him under his care, and he grew up in the home of his grandfather Rav Dovid Feinstein, rav of Starobin — whence his lifelong nickname, “Michel Starobiner.” After bar mitzvah he learned in Slutsk under Rav Isser Zalman Meltzer, following the yeshiva to Kletsk, where he also heard the shiurim of Rav Aharon Kotler, and then in Mir under Rav Eliezer Yehuda Finkel and the mashgiach, Rav Yeruchom Levovitz; his chavrutot there included Rav Aryeh Leib Malin and Rav Yonah Karpilov, and on the passing of his mother he took upon himself Seder Taharot l’ilui nishmatah, becoming a master of it. He received semichah from Rav Avraham Tzvi Kamai, the rav of Mir.

On Rav Isser Zalman’s counsel he went to Brisk to learn under Rav Yitzchok Zev Soloveitchik — opening a path that select Mir talmidim would follow after him — and on the road to a doctor’s exemption from the army he stopped in Radin for the brachah of the Chofetz Chaim, staying half a year in Grodno to learn under Rav Shimon Shkop. When the war broke out he fled to Vilna, where he attended Rav Chaim Ozer Grodzinski and served the Brisker Rav, and he escaped with the Mir talmidim on the Trans-Siberian railway to Japan, reaching America in 5701/1941. In Boston he stood in for Rav Yosef Dov Soloveitchik at the head of Yeshivat Heichal Rabbeinu Chaim HaLevi, and then joined his uncle Rav Moshe at the head of Mesivtha Tifereth Jerusalem in New York, laboring also with the Vaad Hatzalah for the refugees of Europe.

In 5706/1946 he came to Eretz Yisrael and married Lifsha, daughter of his rebbi the Brisker Rav; Rav Isser Zalman Meltzer was mesader kiddushin. In 5712/1952 he settled in Tel Aviv and founded Yeshivat Beit Yehuda, where for fifty years he said as many as sixteen shiurim a week, consulting the Chazon Ish in nearby Bnei Brak; after the petirah of a daughter in 5733/1973 he moved to Bnei Brak, and in 5744/1984 he dedicated a new building for the kollel. His chiddushim, printed after his passing as Chiddushei HaGrim, span Kodashim and Taharot as well as Chagigah, Sotah, and Sanhedrin. He was niftar on Motzaei Shabbat, 16 Iyar 5763/2003, and was buried on Har HaMenuchot in Yerushalayim.