Rabbi Moshe Feinstein הרב משה פיינשטיין
leading halakhic authority of American Jewry
Rav Moshe Feinstein was born near Minsk in 5655, served for sixteen years as rabbi of Luban under Soviet rule, and managed to leave for America in 5697. He took charge of a small yeshiva, Tiferes Yerushalayim, on New York's Lower East Side and stayed there for the rest of his life, refusing more prestigious posts.
People wrote to him from everywhere, because he answered. His responsa, published under the name "Igros Moshe", map the collision of Torah with the twentieth century: resuscitation and the definition of death, autopsy, organ donation, artificial insemination; microphones in synagogue; lifts on the Sabbath; milk produced under state supervision; work in American conditions; the standing of a non-observant Jew. The volumes appeared in his lifetime and went on appearing after it, and different editions count them differently—eight or nine; we do not choose for the sources.
His method was to return to the sources and reason afresh rather than hide behind precedent. He was severe where he saw destruction and gentle with people; his efforts on behalf of agunot, women whose husbands refused them a divorce, were well known.
He headed the Council of Torah Sages in America and the rescue committee. People called him simply "Reb Moshe".
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Sources
Acharonim and later rabbinic literature
- Igrot Moshe — eight volumes of responsa on the questions of the modern age
- Dibrot Moshe — his novellae on the Talmud
- Darosh Darash Yosef — the discourses on the weekly portions
Basis: documents and evidence.