Rav Simcha Bunim, born on the first day of Chanuka 5603, was the third son of Rav Avrohom Shmuel Binyomin (Kesav Sofer) and Chava Lea Sofer.
Possessed of a sharp, refined mind and crowned with good middos and yiras shomayim, his countenance testified to his lofty yichus and origins.
In his youth, he proved himself a masmid, and his diligence paid off as he rose in the ranks of the talmidim. His grasp of the material was quick, and his success brought him to the point where he no longer needed a melamed to advance further.
He entered his father’s Yeshiva and attended the shiurim alongside older, more accomplished bochurim. His chavrusa was Rav Akiva Yosef Shlesinger, future mechaber of Lev HaIvri. He quickly joined the ranks of the elite and made a good name for himself as a rising star in the Yeshiva.
Rav Shmuel Rosenberg of Unsdorf, who also studied in the Yeshiva at that time, testified that Rav Simcha Bunim could accomplish the feat of learning six pages of the Tumim or Shita Mekubetzes in just an hour and that he had memorized them. (Chut HaMeshulosh p. 374
Rav Simcha Bunim Sofer of Pressburg was the mechaber of Shaarei Simcha and Shevet Sofer. Born in Pressburg, Hungary (now Bratislava, Slovakia), he was the son of the Kesav Sofer, the grandson of the Chasam Sofer, and a great-grandson of Rav Akiva Eiger. He succeeded his father as Rav and Rosh Yeshiva in Pressburg in 1872, at the age of twenty- nine, the Yeshiva housing over four hundred talmidim at the time. He himself was succeeded by his son, Rav Akiva Sofer, the Da’as Sofer. Three continuous generations – the Chasam Sofer, the Kesav Sofer, and the Shevet Sofer – all served as Rav of Pressburg for thirty-three years. When Rav Akiva Sofer neared his thirty-third year as Rav, he asked his uncle, the Erlauer Rav, what to do. Upon his uncle’s advice, the Daas Sofer moved to Eretz Yisrael in 1940, thus saving himself from the horrors of World War II.
