Remembering Rav Yerucham Levovitz, זצ״ל

By Rabbi Yair Hoffman

Every so often, individuals emerge in Jewish history who, by dint of their personality and intellect, are able to change the topography of Torah life. One such person was Rav Yerucham Levovitz, zt’l. Sunday night, the 18th of Sivan, marks the 81st yahrzeit of Rav Yerucham HaLevi Levovitz, the famed Mashgiach of the original Mirrer Yeshiva in Poland.

Today, almost all of us in the yeshiva world have been shaped by someone who was shaped by someone that came under his influence. It is somewhat strange, however, that very little has been written in English about this remarkable Mussar giant.

Rav Yerucham was a close talmid of the Alter of Slabodka, Rav Nosson Tzvi Finkel, zt’l, as well as the Alter of Kelm, Rav Simcha Zissel. Indeed, one of the great Mussar giants of this past generation, Rav Shlomo Wolbe, zt’l, once stated that a single mussar shmuess of the Mashgiach had given him the strength and fortitude to withstand the fearful years of the Second World War. Rav Wolbe had helped thousands of refugees in Sweden and was deeply involved in the rescue effort to save the bachurim of the Mirrer Yeshiva.

What follows is a brief overview of the Mashgiach’s life and some of his thoughts, sayings and practices.

Early Years

Rav Yerucham was born in Luban, in White Russia (next to Slutsk), around the year 1873. His father, Reb Avraham, was a cheder rebbe. His first learning was in Fahust near Minsk in the yeshiva of Bobruisk.

Somehow during this time, the young Rav Yerucham was sent on a very important task involving pidyon shvuyim deep in the heart of Russia. The person who was imprisoned was a talmid chacham and Rav Yerucham extended every effort that he could in freeing him. Rav Yoseph Leib Nendik, an early student of Rav Yerucham, once said that his rebbe attained greatness on account of this remarkable act.

Later, Rav Yerucham traveled to study in the great Yeshiva of Slabodka. The Alter of Slabodka recognized his enormous potential as a pedagogue and became close to him.

Rav Yerucham also developed a close relationship with Rav Yitzchak Blaser, one of the greatest students of Rav Yisrael Salanter, the founder of the Mussar movement. Rav Yerucham adopted Rav Blaser’s method of Mussar study.

In 1897, at the urging of the Alter of Slabodka, he left Slabodka to study in Kelm under Rav Simcha Zissel Ziv. He spent the next eight months with the Alter of Kelm, until he passed away. His connection with the Alter of Kelm changed his life. The Alter of Kelm was in failing health but he continued to give to his talmidim. He had a special group of talmidim with which he shared his remarkable insights. They were called Devek Tov, and Rav Yerucham was a part of that. Indeed, later in his own teaching Rav Yerucham would share special ethical insights with his own talmidim in a manner in which the talmid was to realize that this ethical insight was something special. On erev Tishah B’Av, Wednesday July 26, 1898, shortly after Shema, Rav Simcha Zissel was niftar. Rav Yerucham’s sense of loss was profound.

After learning in Kelm, Rav Yerucham married his wife Rivkah, a relative of Rav Simcha Zissel, from Ozovnet.

At that point, Rav Yerucham was offered several positions as a mashgiach ruchani to help students develop. He felt, however, that deep lomdus was a prerequisite to effectively leading others in the path of Mussar. He then returned to Kelm and studied Shas and Shulchan Aruch in great iyun for the next eight years.

At Radin, Kelm, And Mir

Rav Yerucham then joined the Chofetz Chaim’s Kollel Kodshim in Radin. Soon, in 1903, he was appointed mashgiach of the yeshiva in Radin. His first shmuess that he delivered to the bachurim in Radin was on the subject of emunah. Rav Yechezkel Levenstein, zt’l, was present at that shmuess. He later remarked that he never had hesech da’as from that deeply inspiring shmuess. At Radin, he and his good friend Rav Naftoli Trop molded and helped shape great talmidim.

Rav Yerucham then became the mashgiach at the yeshiva in Kelm. He would travel back to his home in Ozovnet for the yamim tovim. In 1908, a son was born to him. He named him Simcha Zissel after the Alter of Kelm. In that year, he received a letter to come to Mir and be the Mashgiach with the new rosh yeshiva, the Alter’s son.

Rav Eliezer Yehudah Finkel, the rosh yeshiva of Mir, appointed him as the mashgiach of the Mirrer Yeshiva. It was a position he was to retain for the rest of his life.

At first, the Mir yeshiva was not specifically a Mussar yeshiva. Under Rav Eliyahu Boruch Kamai, the yeshiva wavered as to whether to introduce Mussar into the yeshiva system or not. But then in 1903, Rav Kammai’s daughter Malka married the Alter of Slabodka’s son, Rav Eliezer Yehudah Finkel, who joined the yeshiva faculty in late 1906. Rav Zalman Dolinski of Radin was appointed as the Mir’s first mashgiach followed by Rav Yerucham in 1908.

In Exile

In 1914, after the outbreak of the First World War, the yeshiva moved from Mir to Poltava, Ukraine, and found itself wandering throughout the Ukraine. Rav Yerucham stayed with the yeshiva throughout its sojourn in the Ukraine and helped grow its talmidim. Rav Lazer Yudel became its rosh yeshiva in 1917, after his father-in-law passed away.

One stop of the yeshiva was in Stavitz, the town where a young Rav Avraham Yeshayahu Karelitz, the future Chazon Ish, resided. Then he was in his thirties, and Rav Yerucham and the Chazon Ish developed a relationship. The Chazon Ish writes fondly (Kovetz Igros Vol. I #154) about the Sabba of the Mir Yeshiva, Rav Yerucham.

Return To Slabodka
And Mir

After the war, Rav Yerucham traveled to Slabodka in order to reestablish that great citadel of Torah until the Alter of Slabodka was able to return from the Ukraine. He also served as the Mashgiach of Ponovezh afterward.

Rav Yerucham returned to the city and the yeshiva of Mir in 1923. That year marked the beginning of the Golden Age of Mir, where the greatest students of Torah began to gather. Bachurim came from all over—from Western Europe, from chassidish families in Poland and Hungary, and from the United States. They grew and were shaped and molded into giants of Torah under the meticulous watch of Rav Yerucham.

Throughout his life, Rav Yerucham maintained a close relationship with the Chofetz Chaim. He would seek him out for deeper questions regarding the running of a yeshiva.

In 1925, the Chofetz Chaim wished to immigrate to Eretz Yisrael. Rav Chaim Ozer realized that the Jews of Europe needed him in Europe. A delegation was sent to speak to the Chofetz Chaim to dissuade him. Rav Chaim Ozer asked Rav Yerucham to join that delegation. The others were Rav Boruch Ber Leibowitz, Rav Pesach Prusskin (Rav Moshe Feinstein’s rebbe), Rav Elchanan Wasserman, and Rav Eliezer Yehudah Finkel.

One of his talmidim, Rav Chaim Shmulevitz, married the Rav Lazer Yudel’s daughter in 1929. Six years later, in 1935, he joined the hanhallah of the yeshiva.

Rise Of The Nazis

Soon the evil that was National Socialism rose. There were those in Poland who, although opposed to the Nazis, wanted to show their anti-Semitic credentials. Among those was a woman named Janina Prystorowa, a political activist and the wife of the Polish Senate’s president. On March 20, 1936, the lower house of the Polish parliament (the Sejm) passed an amendment restricting kosher shechitah. A week later, the Polish Senate adopted that bill. This caused the Mashgiach great anguish.

On the 18th of Sivan, Rav Yerucham passed away from complications of a stroke. The yeshiva world had lost one of the greatest expositors of Mussar that they ever had.

Origins Of Slabodka

The origins of the yeshiva in Slabodka date back to the Kovno Kollel started in 1877, upon the return of Rav Yisrael Salanter to Eastern Europe. Rav Yitzchak Elchanan Spektor had become Rav of Kovno 13 years earlier, in 1864. He passed away in 1896.

The administrators of the Kovno Kollel were Rav Avraham Shenker and Rav Yitzeleh Blaser. Rav Blaser was with the Kollel from 1880 to 1891. Rav Blaser brought in as an unofficial administrator Rav Nosson Tzvi Finkel, not yet known as the Alter of Slabodka. Rav Nosson Tzvi argued that there could be four single bachurim for every married kollel man. Slowly the kollel members were replaced by bachurim, and by 1882, there existed a fully functioning yeshiva.

A year later, in 1883, Rav Yisrael Salanter passed away, deeply affecting both Rav Blaser and Rav Nosson Tzvi Finkel. Rav Nosson Tzvi Finkel had molded the developing yeshiva, by further hiring kollel members to teach the bachurim. In 1889, Rav Yitzel Rabinowitz (Ponovezher) was hired to serve as the rosh yeshiva, and he remained there for five years, until 1894, when he took a rabbanus. In his stead, in 1894, two maggiddei shiur from Volozhin were hired. They were brothers-in-law, Rav Isser Zalman Meltzer and Rav Moshe Mordechai Epstein.

Slabodka technically means “suburb” in Slavic. It was originally called Vilijampolė and was a suburb of Kovno connected by a famous wooden bridge over the Vilaya River. The rickety bridge cracked almost every year on account of the melting ice. The Alter used to say of this bridge, “It was always meant to be a one-way bridge—from the turbulence of Kovno to the spirituality of Slabodka.”

Rav Yerucham, like the other yeshiva boys, relied upon the essen teg system where they ate their meals at the homes of various host families. Some lived in Slabodka itself, while others lived in Kovno.

The trip to Kovno was never difficult during the summer, but during the winter it was often quite hazardous. The bridge would be weighed down by ice and the top layer of the river would freeze as well. Boats that wished to cross would need ice-cutting oars. To eat in Kovno during the winter meant staying there over Shabbos. The boys that did so would sleep on a bench in one of the local shuls.

The essen teg system on Shabbos was not particularly glorious. The bachurim would often wait in shul until the shamash would be able to procure a host family. Those that did not get chosen would go to the Water-Carrier’s Shul in Kovno, where challah and fish were distributed free.

The seder in Slabodka began with Shacharis at 7 a.m. This was followed by breakfast in the stanzia, the dormitory, and seder began at 9 a.m. At 1 p.m. the morning seder was over and they davened Minchah.

Relationship
With Talmidim

Rav Yerucham had a wonderful relationship with all his talmidim. He thought of each talmid as if he were his own child.

The Gemara in Sanhedrin (19b) cites a statement from Rabbi Yochanan: Whoever teaches his friend’s son Torah it is as if he gave birth to him. The traditional understanding of this idea is that it refers to the reward that one gets for teaching another person Torah. The Slonimer Rebbe, however, gives a different understanding of the Gemara. He says that the successful learning that the child experiences can only happen if the teacher displays the love of a parent toward that student. Only then can the child fully experience true learning.

Rav Yerucham once instructed a young man who was fearful of the Russian draft to register for that draft at a particular city. He contacted the doctor who was responsible for the medical exam and ensured that the talmid received an exemption.

He kept in touch with his talmidim by letter. When Rav Shimon Schwab received his first shteler as a Rav and he subsequently became engaged, Rav Yerucham sent him a letter of mazal tov (image of letter courtesy of Rabbi Moshe Schwab of Boro Park). He also traveled to be his mesader kiddushin.

Influences, Sayings,
And Practices

Rav Yerucham was a repository of the great teachings of Rav Yisrael Salanter, Rav Yitzchak Blaser, the Sabba of Kelm, and the Alter of Slabodka. The Alter saw greatness in Rav Yerucham and helped shape and mold him into the eventual Mussar giant that he was.

He would quote the Sabba of Kelm on the pasuk  “חנוך לנער על פי דרכו גם כי יזקין לא יסור ממנה” . Rav Simcha Zissel asked, “And when he gets older will the chinuch he received as a child suffice? Rather, the meaning of the pasuk is in regard to self-mastery and self-education. If he does so in his youth then even as he ages he will grow in that manner.

Talmidim of the Mir who became rabbanim and had taken other positions of Torah instruction would often return to the Mir Yeshiva for Elul or the Yamim Nora’im. They would arrange for lodging and then come to the yeshiva.

Rav Yerucham would give a mashal from real-life incidents. He explained that when he had visited the spas at Marienbad, Czechoslovakia, the new arrivals would come bathe in the mineral-rich and curative waters of the spa and then they would arrange for their lodgings. By Torah, it should be no different.

Rav Yerucham had a desire that the yeshiva should be run in the time-tested manner of the yeshivos of old—tzu halten a yeshiva oif a fartzeitigen oifen.

Rav Yerucham had a very powerful method of speaking wherein he built his students and cultivated fundamental ideals within them. He delivered ma’amarim in which one principle was built upon another. His students were affected for life by these fundamental ideals that he carefully developed within them.

Reb Yerucham, a product of Kelm, kept meticulous records of how he spent his days. He kept a log of what time he arose each day, how long it took him to dress, how long it took him to bathe, eat, take care of daily activities, how much time he learned in the beis midrash and when he went to sleep. In this manner, he could better have his sechel control his actions.

Rav Tzvi Hirsch Broide, the Alter of Kelm’s son-in-law, explained that Rav Yerucham was his shver’s greatest talmid.

His talmidim included such giants as Rav Yechezkel Levenstein, Rav Chaim Shmulevitz, Rav Aryeh Leib Malin, Rav Dovid Povarsky, Rav Abba Berman, Rav Zelik Epstein, Rav Shlomo Wolbe, and Rav Shimon Schwab.

His son, Rav Simcha Zissel, published his shmuessin and thoughts in nine sefarim entitled “Da’as Chochmah U’Mussar,” which are found in virtually every yeshiva library in the world.

Rav Yerucham was niftar on the 18th of Sivan in the year 1936 at the age of 63. He is buried in the town of Mir, Belarus.

The author can be reached at yairhoffman2@gmail.com.