Yechiel Michel Epstein, often called "the Aruch ha-Shulchan", was a Rabbi and posek in Lithuania.
Background
His surname is often preceded by ha-Levi, as he descended from a family of Levites. Yechiel Michel Epstein was born into a family of wealthy army contractors for the Czarist Russian army in Babruysk, Russian Empire (presently in Belarus). (Berlin was later to marry a daughter of Epstein, after being widowed of his first wife).
Education
Epstein studied Torah locally, and was encouraged to do so by the town"s rabbi and his parents (the concept of an out-of-town yeshiva was only slowly gaining ascendancy).
Career
Nine years after accepting his position in Novozybkov, in 1863, Epstein was appointed as the rabbi of Navahrudak, where he would serve for 34 years, until his death. Here, he was recognised as a posek (decisor of Jewish law), and he was to compose most of his writings in Navahrudak. Epstein was involved in many charitable endeavors.
He was particularly close to Rabbi Shmuel Salant, Chief Rabbi of Jerusalem, and wrote extensively on the obligation of all Jews to support the Rabbi Meir Baal Haneis Salant charity that Rabbi Salant founded in Israel in 1860.
Epstein died on 22 Adar II 5668 (1908), and is buried in Navahrudak.