הרב מיכל יהודה ליפקוביץ

Rav Michel Yehudah Lefkowitz (Kislev 5674/1913–26 Sivan 5771/2011) was the Rosh Yeshiva of Ponovezh LeTzeirim in Bnei Brak, who said shiur and raised talmidim for more than seventy years. Born in Volozhin to Rav Moshe Dovid, already an old man, and his wife Chaya, he grew up in deep poverty; his father spent most of the little that reached the home on melamdim for his son. At twelve he left home for yeshiva ketanah, marking his bar mitzvah among his chaverim without his parents, and went on to the Ramailes yeshiva in Vilna, where he became the close talmid of Rav Shlomo Heiman — whose shiurim he would one day publish as Chiddushei Rabbi Shlomo.

In 1936 he came to Eretz Yisrael with his mother and entered the Chevron Yeshiva in Yerushalayim, carrying letters from Rav Heiman and Rav Chaim Ozer Grodzinski; there he drew close to the mashgiach Rav Leib Chasman, and to Rav Isser Zalman Meltzer, with whom he fixed a seder in kodshim. In Bnei Brak he became attached to the Chazon Ish, who proposed his shidduch with Chava Esther, daughter of Rav Avraham Yitzchak Gershonowitz, rosh yeshiva of Tiferet Tzion — and on Lag BaOmer 5700/1940 walked him to his chupah. From his marriage until his last days he said shiur in Tiferet Tzion; Rav Chaim Kanievsky, Rav Nissim Karelitz and Rav Meir Tzvi Bergman were among his talmidim there. He also founded a nightly shiur for working baalei batim in the Chazon Ish’s own beit midrash, which continued some fifty years.

In Cheshvan 5715/1954 the Ponovezher Rav, Rav Yosef Shlomo Kahaneman, set him at the head of the new Ponovezh LeTzeirim together with Rav Aharon Leib Shteinman, and there he taught for some fifty-five years, until the grandchildren of his first talmidim sat before him. He founded a country-wide network of kollelim for seder Taharot, sat on the Moetzet Gedolei HaTorah of Degel HaTorah, and stood at the front of the battles for pure Torah chinuch. The Chazon Ish once handed him seeds from the etrog he had used that Sukkot and told him to plant them; the tree grew and gave fruit, the Chazon Ish and the Steipler chose their etrogim from it, and from its cuttings grew the orchards of mehudar “Chazon Ish etrogim” to this day.

His sefarim include Minchat Yehudah on masechtot of Shas, Emek HaShaar on the Sefer HaMekach VehaMemkar of Rav Hai Gaon, and the collections Imrei Daat and Darchei HaChaim. He was niftar on 26 Sivan 5771/2011, the yahrtzeit of his father-in-law, and some hundred thousand accompanied him in Bnei Brak; in his tzavaah he asked that only his two sons speak and that no one call him “gaon” or “tzaddik.” He was buried in the Ponovezh chelka of the Bnei Brak beit hachaim.