Rabbi Yeruchom Levovitz רבי ירוחם ליבוביץ
mashgiach of the Mir yeshiva: the man answerable for the person, not for the analysis
Born at Lyuban about 1875. He studied with Rabbi Simcha Zissel Ziv at Kelm and with Rabbi Nosson Tzvi Finkel, the Alter of Slabodka—that is, with both chief mussar teachers of his time.
He was mashgiach of the Mir yeshiva from 1910 until the First World War and again from 1924 until his death in 1936. The post is a peculiar one in a Lithuanian yeshiva: the rosh yeshiva answers for the study, the mashgiach for the person. He gave shmuessen, talks, and asked of himself and of his listeners not about knowledge but about what becomes of a man while he knows.
He published no books of his own. Daas Torah and Daas Chochmah u-Mussar were put together after his death by his students and his son Rabbi Simcha Zissel from records of the talks.
His students would take long to list; it is enough to name Rabbi Chaim Shmulevitz, Rabbi Dovid Povarsky, Rabbi Shlomo Wolbe and Rabbi Shimon Schwab—through them his way of speaking to a man passed into the yeshivot of Israel and America.
On the timeline
Places
Related
Sources
Acharonim and later rabbinic literature
- Daas Chochmah u-Mussar — his talks, recorded by students and published posthumously
Scholarship
- Encyclopaedia Judaica, "Levovitz, Yeruham" — the teachers at Kelm and Slabodka, the years as mashgiach at Mir
Basis: documents and evidence.