The incredible zechus of having Rav Shimon serve as the Kohein at a pidyon haben
The venerable Rav Shimon Shkop arrived in the United States at the end of November 1928 to raise funds for the Shaar HaTorah yeshivah in Grodno. He spent the next few months traveling North America, with stops in Philadelphia, Baltimore, Detroit, and Montreal. He later spent the spring and early summer as a rosh yeshivah at RIETS.
In December he spent a Shabbos at the home of Rabbi Mordechai Stern, rav of the Richmond Hill Jewish Center in Queens, New York. Rabbi Stern had been born into a Boyan chassidic home, studied in Hungarian yeshivos, and received his semichah at RIETS. When he and his wife Leah welcomed their firstborn son, Ariel, into the world during the spring of 1929, they were able to seize a unique opportunity: the incredible zechus of having Rav Shimon serve as the Kohein at Ariel’s pidyon haben in Richmond Hill.
In an ironic historic twist, nearly a half century later, Yeshivas Shaar HaTorah–Grodno was reestablished in that very same neighborhood by Rav Shimon’s great grandson Rav Kalman Epstein, along with Rav Shalom Spitz. The yeshivah has continued to thrive in that Queens location ever since.
Among the many kibbudim tendered to Rav Shimon during his American sojourn was that of serving as sandek at the bris of one Mordechai Weinberg on the Lower East Side. Mordechai would grow up to become Rav Mottel Weinberg (1929-1992), the great rosh yeshivah of Yeshiva Gedola Merkaz Hatorah in Montreal. A gifted and beloved educator, he was previously rosh yeshivah at the Yeshiva of Eastern Parkway in Brooklyn.
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