Rabbi Moshe Feinstein, known as Reb Moshe, was born on 7 Adar 5655 (1895), the anniversary of the birth and death of Moshe Rabbeinu, after whom he was named, in Uzda, Belarus. His father, Rabbi David, rabbi of the town's Chassidic community, descended from the Vilna Gaon; his mother, Feiya Gittel, descended from the Shelah. It is said that by ten he had mastered tractates Bava Kamma, Bava Metzia and Bava Batra. Before his bar mitzvah he was sent to the Etz Chaim yeshiva in Slutsk under Rabbi Isser Zalman Meltzer, and later followed Rabbi Pesach Pruskin, whom he regarded as his principal teacher, to Shklov.

He served as rabbi of Lyuban for sixteen years under growing Soviet pressure. In 1936 he emigrated to New York, where he headed the Mesivtha Tifereth Jerusalem yeshiva for fifty years. President of the Union of Orthodox Rabbis and chairman of Agudath Israel of America's Council of Torah Sages, he became the foremost halachic authority in America and one of the great authorities of his generation worldwide.

His responsa, Igrot Moshe, in many volumes, address with boldness and clarity the new questions raised by modern life, medicine and technology; his Talmud lectures are collected in Dibrot Moshe. He was also known for his gentleness and humility.

He passed away on 13 Adar II 5746 (1986) and rests in Jerusalem, in the Har HaMenuchot cemetery.