ר׳ שמואל בורנשטיין

ר׳ שמואל בורנשטיין (4 Cheshvan 5616–24 Tevet 5686; 1855–1926), known from his teachings as the שם משמואל, was the second Sochatchover Rebbe and a major interpreter of the Kotsk–Sochatchov tradition. He was born in Kock in the household of his maternal grandfather ר׳ מנחם מנדל מורגנשטרן. His parents were ר׳ אברהם בורנשטיין, later author of אבני נזר and founder of the Sochatchov dynasty, and Sarah Tzina Morgenstern. He accompanied his father through successive rabbinates in Parczew, Krośniewice, Nasielsk, and finally Sochaczew, remaining his closest student. In 1891 his father sent him to Ottoman Palestine to investigate purchasing land for an observant agricultural settlement, but Ottoman restrictions frustrated the project. After his father’s death in 1910, he succeeded him as rebbe and head of the Sochaczew yeshiva. The First World War destroyed Sochaczew as a functioning Hasidic centre; after wartime detention in Germany he re-established his court in Łódź and then, in 1919, in quieter Zgierz. His discourses combine close biblical and rabbinic interpretation, Kabbalistic structures, Kotsk moral intensity, and teachings received from ר׳ אברהם בורנשטיין and ר׳ מנחם מנדל מורגנשטרן. Collected from manuscripts and students’ copies, they were published posthumously as שם משמואל. He died in the resort town of Otwock and was buried beside his father in Sochaczew.