Every Movement by Shulchan Oruch

His eldest son, Rav Yisroel Yaakov, now the rav of the Ofakim chareidi congregation, described what ran through his father's whole life: "Shivisi Hashem lenegdi tomid," I have set Hashem before me always. All day and all night, Rav Shimshon asked himself what Heaven wanted from him. When the answer was firmness he was firm, when it was kindness he was kind, and when a person had to be shouted at, he shouted. Each of his actions, down to the smallest gesture and the plainest word, followed the Shulchan Oruch.

On Chanukah he went around the courtyards to check that the chanukiyos were set within a tefach of the doorways, and nearly every house gave him something to point out.

In his view gelatin made it impossible to give chewing gum a hechsher. A shop in Tifrach started selling gum, so he walked in and bought everything on the shelf. He did this again and again until the shopkeeper surrendered and stopped stocking it.

He was also well known for warning people about shatnez. His son recalls that he never accepted money for it. He asked people to give half a shekel, so that it would count toward the mitzvoh of paying a laborer on the same day. The reason he took on this work at all, his son knows, was to atone for a settee that had once stood in the house and was found to contain shatnez.

He taught his children that Torah law forbids striking another person, and he would bring out the Rambam and read the halacha aloud. Whenever the children fought, their punishment was to copy the Rambam's words out by hand. They would complain that their blows had not been "in a manner that shames," the condition the Rambam sets.

Rav Yisroel Yaakov concluded, "The very place of his greatness was the place of his self-effacement. For all his stature, he knew how to dress it in simplicity."