Rav Moshe Mordechai Epstein was the Rosh Yeshiva of Slabodka and Chevron Yeshivos. Born in the town of Bakst in the Vilna district, he learned at Volozhin while still quite young. After his marriage in 1889, he moved to Kovno. Three years later, one of his sisters married Rav Isser Zalman Meltzer, one of the greatest of Rav Chaim Soloveitchik’s talmidim. The two developed a close relationship. In 1894, Rav Nosson Tzvi Finkel offered both of them positions at Yeshiva Kenesses Yisrael of Slobodka. He authored Levush Mordechai. Both Rav Isser Zalman and Rav Moshe Mordechai married daughters of Rav Shraga Frank, one of the wealthiest men in Kovno, and in whose attic Rav Yisrael Salanter began teaching mussar to Rav Nosson Tzvi Finkel and Rav Yitzchok Blazer.
