One of the little Yerushalayims around the world is the city
which American Jews call "the Jerusalem of the South,"
Memphis, Tennessee. Situated in the middle of the Christian
"Bible Belt," the Jews of Memphis have established a makom
Torah which many a larger Eastern city would envy. With a
mere 8,000 Jews, Memphis has a boys' yeshiva high school and
a girls' yeshiva high school. Memphis boasts three
generations of graduates of the local Hebrew Academy who
continue to make their city a center of Torah.
One of the people they can thank is Louis (Eliezer) Epstein
z"l, whose sheloshim was last week.
A home builder by trade, Louis Epstein helped to build a
community of Torah, and a family of talmidei
chachomim.
A founder and the first president of Memphis' Hebrew Academy
in 1949, Mr. Epstein saw the absolute necessity of Torah true
chinuch for the children of Memphis and let nothing
stand in his way. Opposition to the school came from all
fronts, including a local rabbi who predicted that "hair
would grow on his palms" before there would be a Hebrew
Academy in Memphis. Recruiting parents and students,
attracting bnei Torah as teachers, he did everything
in his power in order to insure that the Yeshiva would be a
success. Fifty years later, we can see that his dream became
a reality.
Not satisfied to limit Jewish education to an elementary
level, he did what was then unthinkable. Sending his children
to high school in Baltimore, he encouraged others to do the
same.
Those who knew Louis Epstein personally knew him to be very
strong in his convictions and very opinionated. But he would
turn on a dime if daas Torah told him otherwise.
Rabbi Nota Greenblatt, a talmid of HaRav Moshe
Feinstein, zt"l, came to Memphis as a young man of 23.
Louis Epstein, an accomplished and successful man who rarely
ran his life according to the dictates of others, accepted
Rabbi Greenblatt as his rav and devotedly followed his every
psak. When controversy arose concerning local
shechita, Mr. Epstein, in the face of harsh criticism
from close friends, adamantly supported daas Torah and
spearheaded efforts to make the necessary changes in local
standards. (See Igros Moshe, Yoreh Deah II, 4&5 on the
issues there.)
Today, it is quite acceptable, and almost fashionable to take
in a ben Torah as a son-in-law and support him for a
few years in kollel. In the early `60s in America, it
was virtually unheard of! Yet, before his oldest daughter
became engaged to a talmid of HaRav Aharon Kotler,
zt"l, Mr. Epstein met with Rav Aharon and solemnly
agreed to the Rosh Yeshiva's admonition never to take him out
of the beis medrash. Today his son-in-law, Rav Chaim
Lauer, serves as a rosh yeshiva in Yerushalayim's
Kaminitzer Yeshiva Ketana.
Not content with having built Torah in the Memphis community
and in his children, Louis Epstein looked inward and saw the
need to further develop himself. In 1963 he packed up his
family and moved to Eretz Yisroel. Maintaining his business
long distance, he basically devoted the last 36 years of his
life to learning. When he met Rav Leizer Yudel Finkel
zt"l, the Mirrer Rosh Yeshiva was so impressed that a
ba'al habayis would settle in Eretz Yisroel to learn,
that he invited Mr. Epstein to come by any time he wanted to
"talk in learning."
In 1980, several years after the petirah of his wife
Rosalyn, Louis Epstein married Mrs. Reva Goldfeder, the
mother-in-law of this writer. We welcomed him to our family
and he welcomed us to his.
He could have had a palace in Memphis full of all the
gashmiyus that olam hazeh provides. Instead he
built a prozdor of Torah, chesed, and
ma'asim tovim. The example he set for his children
(and I humbly claim the kovod of being one of his
children) of dedication to daas Torah and deveikus
bedivrei talmidei chachomim allowed him to build families
of bonim uvnei bonim oskim beTorah uvemitzvos.
My shver was a man whose life was shaped by the
gedolim he knew. And he was a link in the
mesorah who shared their greatness with those of us
who didn't have the zechus that he had. My children
and I had the chance to see, through their zeidy's
eyes, the greatness of Rav Aharon Kotler, zt"l, the
son of the Chofetz Chaim zt"l, Rav Leizer Yudel Finkel
zt"l, Rav Chaim Shmuelevitz zt"l, the Steipler
zt"l, Rav Shlomo Zalman Auerbach zt"l, and
others. His reverence for the gedolei Yisroel was a
lesson in hilchos kibbud talmidei chachomim.
Even his sichas chulin was kodshei kodshim. His
pride and joy was talking about, yibodlu lechaim, his
wonderful grandchildren and all of their accomplishments. His
only interest was in Torah. Everything else in life was just
hechsher mitzvah.
In his many visits to our home, he was rarely seen without a
gemora, a Mishnah Berurah, or an Igros
Moshe. Zeidy's example to my children was that is what
life is all about.
We didn't always see eye to eye. but our arguments were
milchamtah shel Torah. At issue was only kovod
Shomayim. There was no ego, there was no ga'avah.
There was only "let's figure out what the emes is."
We are thankful that Hakodosh Boruch Hu sent us a
precious gift. He treated Mom,tibodel lechaim, like a
queen. We were his children, and our children were his
grandchildren.
I had the zechus to be in Yerushalayim for my
shver's hakomas matzeivo last week. After all the
Tehillim and tefillos were said and my
relatives had placed stones on the matzeivo, I noticed
that it was wet. My brother-in-law said that it was probably
dew. The only problem is that before the tefillos were
said, no one had noticed any water on the stone. Also all the
surrounding stones were dry! Why was my shver's
matzeivo wet? Tears, perhaps, of Yerushalayim's stones
for one of her favorite sons?
May he be a meilitz yosher for Mom and the entire
mishpocha, and all of Klal Yisroel.
