Editing Yechiel Michel HaLevi Epstein (section)

== His Visit with the Tzemach Tzedek ==
Rabbi Yechiel Michel's son, R' Baruch Epstein, a banker and Torah scholar, writes in his book 'Mekor Baruch' that his father stayed in the presence of the Tzemach Tzedek for over a month, and every day he would enter once or twice, and each time would stay in his presence for several hours. The Tzemach Tzedek even urged him to stay another week.

R' Yehoshua Mondshine claimed that this doesn't fit with reality at all - since according to R' Baruch, the visit was after 1860 and onwards, while the Tzemach Tzedek passed away in Nissan 1866, after being ill for more than six consecutive years, since Kislev 1860. In 1861 or 1862, his wife, the Rebbetzin, passed away, "and from then on he was closed off and secluded and did not want people to travel to him... and very few were allowed into his room for yechidus... and even the Chassidus he would say in these years was difficult to hear and understand due to his weakness." Additionally, many details in R' Baruch's description do not match reality.

According to Mondshine, the agenda of 'Mekor Baruch' is clear: his father's halachic rulings were not at all accepted among Chassidim, and by fabricating the story about the tremendous closeness from the Tzemach Tzedek, and that from him he received the methods of ruling which he never deviated from all his days, and also received from him details and principles in studying Kabbalah(!) - 'Mekor Baruch' thought that through this his father's image would change in the public eye.

In a response article by R' Itamar Henkin HY"D, he argued for the authenticity of the meeting story between the author of "Mekor Baruch"'s father and the Rebbe Tzemach Tzedek, and that despite the problems in the author's works, they cannot be categorically invalidated, but rather one must separate the wheat from the chaff. As evidence for his approach regarding the author's reliability, the researcher argues that there is an inconsistency between absolute unreliability, as claimed in Rabbi Mondshine's article, and the fact that it appears our Rebbeim saw the author's other work, the commentary "Torah Temimah", as a book worthy of study. Nevertheless, even Rabbi Henkin admits that some of "Mekor Baruch"'s words praising opposition to Chassidus, which he wrote in the name of the Tzemach Tzedek, are a product of "Mekor Baruch"'s imagination, and these things were never said by the Tzemach Tzedek.