Chaim Pinchas Scheinberg
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Rabbi Chaim Pinchas Scheinberg (b. circa 1910 in New York) is a leading American-born rabbi and rosh yeshiva, currently living in Israel. He heads the yeshiva Torah Ore in the Jerusalem neighborhood of Kiryat Mattersdorf. He is also a prominent Posek and is often consulted by many people on a range of communal and personal halachic issues.
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[edit] Early years
Rabbi Scheinberg was born circa 1910 in New York, the son of a tailor. Until the age of nine he attended public school, afterwards attending the Rabbi Jacob Joseph yeshiva (RJJ) until the age of fourteen. He then studied in Rabbi Yehuda Levenberg's Bais Medrash LeRabbonim Yeshiva (at the time located in New Haven, Connecticut). At seventeen Rabbi Scheinberg progressed to the Rabbi Isaac Elchanan Theological Seminary, now affiliated with Yeshiva University. There he learned under Rabbis Shlomo Polachek - known as the "Meitcheter Illui", Moshe Soloveichik and Shimon Shkop (who lived in New York for a short period). Rabbi Scheinberg received Semicha from Rabbi Dr Bernard Revel.
After marrying the daughter of Rabbi Yaakov Yosef Herman at the age of 19, the couple embarked for the Mir yeshiva in what was then Poland (and is now Belarus), where he studied for 5 years. The Mir had very few American students, although his brother Shmuel Scheinberg and others such as Rabbi Shachne Zohn and Rabbi Nosson Wachtfogel (future Mashgiach of the Lakewood Yeshiva) also learnt there.
While studying in Mir, Rabbi Scheinberg once visited a leader of Ashkenazi Jewry at the time, the Chofetz Chaim. When informed of a group of students who had travelled all the way from America in order to learn Torah, the Chofetz Chaim was not overly impressed. He quipped, "If G-d came down all the way from heaven to earth in order to give us the Torah, a student can be expected to travel from America to Europe in order to learn His Torah".
Upon returning to the USA, Rabbi Scheinberg became a faculty member of his alma mater, the New Haven Yeshiva, which ultimately closed in 1938. He then became the Mashgiach at the Yeshiva Chofetz Chaim founded by Rabbi Dovid Leibowitz.
[edit] Later life
In the 1960s, Rabbi Scheinberg relocated from the United States to Israel, where he has lived since. Among other things, he is famous for wearing many layers (numbering perhaps near one hundred) of tzitzit at the same time. Although he has never publicly revealed the reason, one conjecture is that he does this to satisfy diverging rabbinical opinions as to exactly how this mitzvah must be fulfilled. Another is that he took on this practice while his daughter was ill so that more mitzvot would be performed in her merit.
He is popular among students at yeshivas geared towards American students due to his fluency in English and his familiarity with the issues faced by American Orthodox teenagers studying in Israel. Rabbi Scheinberg is also a member of the Moetzes Gedolei HaTorah of the Agudath Israel.
[edit] Books
- Scheinberg, Chaim Pinchas, Heart to Heart Talks: Lectures to Women, Artscroll publishers, 2000.
- Scheinberg, Chaim Pinchas, The Torah Way of Life: Harav Chaim Pinchas Scheinberg on Chumash Bereishis, Jerusalem Publications, 2004.
- Scheinberg, Chaim Pinchas, The Torah Way of Life: HaRav Chaim Pinchas Scheinberg on Chumash Shemos, Jerusalem Publications, 2005.
