Erev Yom Kippur, 5771
Literally a few minutes before Kol Nidre, R Michel Yehuda Lefkowitz places his kittel on his frail body. The holiness in the room is tangible. I feel like I am standing in front of an angel. R Michel Yehuda takes his tallis; lifts his frail hands above his head, says the blessing and wraps himself in the tallis. He then goes over to his Rebbitzen with tears in his eyes and gives her a blessing. May we have nachas from our children, grand children, great-grandchildren, from the entire family.
Purim, 5771
Shacharis is over and people approach R Michel Yehuda for a blessing. R Michel Yehuda is very weak. When R Michel Yehuda gives a blessing, he puts his whole heart into it, sometimes taking more than a minute until he is finished. During the last year or so, however, due to his weakened state, he started delivering one public blessing to everyone who was in attendance. This year on Purim, he went back to his lifelong practice and gave everyone a personal blessing. At the end of each one, he started to cry and said, may we merit to greet Moshiach.
Iyar, 5771
R Michel Yehuda had fallen right around Purim time and broke a few ribs and was in extreme pain. I did not visit him during the month of Nisan, because I felt that the best way I could make him feel better was by letting him rest.
At the beginning of Iyar I had the privilege of taking Josh Rosen of Chicago to be blessed by the great Torah scholars in Israel. We were in Bnei Brak and I told Josh that I would like him to see R Michel Yehuda.
However, since he was in a lot of pain, I told Josh that we would only go if he was feeling well enough to daven with the minyan that had been functioning in his house during the last few weeks.
I called his attendant, R Chaim Aschaik, and asked him whether there was a minyan in the house that morning. R Aschaik shocked me with his answer. He told me that the semester had started and R Michel Yehuda was davening in the Ponoveich high school, where he had been davening for more than 60 years.
I quickly went with Josh to the yeshiva and I saw a scene I doubt I will ever see again. R Michel Yehuda was clearly suffering excruciating pain, yet he was there in the yeshiva davening with the students he loved so dearly.
After davening, he approached the podium to deliver his daily lecture. His voice was hoarse and every movement in his body created a painful reaction.
This went on for about 10 minutes until he literally had no strength left.
When R Michel Yehuda walked off the podium he was in so much pain I simply turned around. I couldnt stand to see him suffering so much. Josh never did get a blessing, but he received a lifelong lesson on the meaning of dedication.
Tuesday 5 Sivan 5771
The last time I saw R Michel I went together with Rabbi Pinchos Lipschutz to receive a blessing in honor of the Bar Mitzvah of Rabbi Lipschutzs son Avrohom Aryeh. We left Jerusalem and arrived at R Michel Yehudas small house on 4 Vilkomirer St. We were scheduled to daven mincha with R Michel Yehuda in his house.
When we arrived, mincha had not begun yet because R Michel Yehuda was in the middle of delivering one of his daily lectures. Since it was too painful for him to travel to the shul that the lecture was usually given in, he simply transported the class to his house.
Until the end of his life, at a time when he had every possible valid excuse to cease disseminating G-ds Torah, he never stopped. After the lecture, he davened mincha, and after mincha, with his last ounce of strength, he gave a beautiful blessing to Rabbi Lipschutz and his son.
When R Michel Yehuda stood up to leave the room his disciple R Elimelech Hershkowitz thanked him for the lecture, R Michel Yehuda looked at him and said, I did not really teach anything today. When I heard this I commented to R Michel Yehuda that today he taught us a lesson on dedication.
Who was Rabbi Michel Yehuda Lefkowitz, who died last Monday? I do not know whether anyone can answer this question.
There are 70 faces to Torah.
There were 70 faces to R Michel Yehuda.
He had so many excellencies that he was singular in his generation.
Torah
I remember the first time I saw R Michel Yehuda studying. About 12 years ago during the summer, R Michel Yehuda came to Ramat Bet Shem for a vacation. These two weeks were a time that he could study the entire day undisturbed.
Every day after mincha, there was approximately a 40-minute break. During that time, R Michel Yehuda would sit down, open his Gemara and study without lifting his head once.
When my son was born I asked R Michel Yehuda to serve as the sandek. Since the bris was on a Friday, I figured that I would be able to start a little later than usual. Not so. I was informed that R Michel Yehuda delivered his daily lecture in the Ponoveich yeshiva six days a week. Indeed R Michel Yehuda delivered his daily lecture until the age of 95. It is no wonder that he produced thousands, possibly tens of thousands of disciples during a 70-year period.
By nature I am shy. Therefore, when I started to enjoy a relationship with R Michel Yehuda I did not want him to see me taking pictures of him. When I wanted to photograph him studying there was no problem. When he studied Torah, he was completely oblivious to his surroundings.
This extreme focus and concentration also found its way into other parts of his service of G-d. Did you ever notice that when you speak to someone you can have an entire conversation and that someone might not look into your face even once?
When one spoke to R Michel Yehuda, one had his undivided attention. When R Michel Yehuda spoke to someone he was fully focused on that person and only that person.
Prayer
During the repetition of the Silent Prayer (Shemoneh Esrei) Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, R Michel Yehuda would follow in his machzor and never once look out. He would follow with such interest that one would think that he was in the middle of studying a challenging learning a Tosafos commentary.
People once came to him and asked them for advice on various matters. At the end of the session, R Michel Yehuda said that everyone in the room should sing Yedid Nefesh during the third Shabbos meal and concentrate on the words.
Beloved of the soul, compassionate Father, draw Your servant to Your will. Then Your servant will hurry like a hart to bow before Your majesty. To him Your friendship will be sweeter than the dripping of the honey-comb and any taste.
Majestic, Beautiful, Radiance of the universe my soul is sick for Your love. Please, O G-d, heal her [the Jewish people] now by showing her the pleasantness of your radiance. Then she will be strengthened and healed, and gladness will be hers.
All-worthy One, may Your mercy be aroused and please take pity on the son of Your beloved, because it is so long that I have yearned intensely to see the splendor of your strength. Only these my heart desired, so please take pity and do not conceal Yourself.
Please be revealed and spread upon me, my beloved, the shelter of Your peace. Illuminate the world with Your glory that we may rejoice and be glad with You. Hasten, show love, for the time has come, and show us grace as in the old days.
I took R Michel Yehudas advice and started concentrating on the words of Yedid Nefesh when singing it. A couple of months later, when I was with R Michel Yehuda, I told him that ever since I started concentrating on the words of Yedid Nefesh indeed my third Sabbath meal was no longer the same.
R Michel Yehuda turned to me and said, From the words of this song you can see that the author (Rabbi Eliezer Azikri, a 16th-century halachist and kabbalist of Safed) was like an angel.
Interpersonal Relations
R Michel Yehuda had a phenomenal recollection of people and their names. My feeling tells me that he was not born with this trait; rather, it is something he worked on for many years.
I once witnessed the following scene. A middle aged man from New York introduced himself to R Michel Yehuda and told him that he had studied in his class 50 years ago.
R Michel Yehuda smiled at the man and told him that he remembered him. How can I forget the times we used to walk together at night talking and learning, said R Michel Yehuda.
The man was skeptical and clearly did not remember these walks. R Michel Yehuda then told the man, I remember that on Purim you gave me a book by the Vilna Gaon. The man started to think, the recollection came back to him and then he burst into tears. He had not seen R Michel Yehuda in 50 years, yet R Michel Yehuda remembered him down to the minor details.
Rabbi Menachem Savitz told me the following. His brother Rabbi Avrohom Savitz once saw R Michel Yehuda walking home on Shabbos. He stopped to greet every single person on the street, asked how they were and parted from them.
This was strange, because he was greeting strangers as if they were acquaintances. Rabbi Savitz approached R Michel Yehudas grandson and asked him if he had an explanation for this behavior.
The grandson indeed had a very powerful explanation. R Michel Yehuda had a procedure done on his eye the previous week and as a result could not see well for a few days. He was afraid that he might pass an acquaintance up on the street without greeting him properly and the person would be insulted. Therefore, in order to avoid this problem, he decided to greet everyone.
My father received an approbation from R Michel Yehuda on his Hebrew work, Hallel Hakohen. My father met R Michel Yehuda only once. But R Michel Yehuda would ask after my father almost every time I saw him, even a few years after he had written the approbation.
When I told him that my father was working on something new, he showed such excitement, as if he were speaking about his own children.
People he did not know would come and ask him to pray for a sick person he did not know. But R Michel Yehuda did not have a concept of a Jew that he does not know.
Every Jew was like a child to him. How many times did I hear him utter a sigh upon hearing tragic news. Here was a man who contantly heard about tragedies and illnesses, yet he never got used to it. Indeed it is truly a miracle that his intense love for all of klal Yisrael was able to last for 97 years.
Good Eye
R Michel Yehuda could take someone who was really struggling and make him fell like a million dollars. He saw only the good in people and was busy telling people about the good he saw in them.
Gratitude
Last year, R Michel Yehuda got up in front of a crowd of chasidim and praised their rebbe, who was more than 40 years his junior. He said that he owed the rebbe tremendous gratitude for teaching him Torah and chasidism. When R Michel Yehuda said these words, he was not exaggerating. This is the way he felt towards anybody who did him the slightest favor.
History
R Michel Yehuda was a living history book.
When the Hebron Yeshiva made its dinner last year, R Michel Yehuda vividly described his first Shabbos in the yeshiva when he arrived as a young boy in 1935. On Saturday night, a student went to the lecturn and began reciting psalms. The students repleated after him, verse by verse.
When they finished, R Michel Yehuda approached one of the students and asked him who was sick. The psalms were recited with such intensity that he was sure that someone was very ill.
When the student heard the question he smiled and explained the no one was ill. This was the way they said psalms every Saturday night for success in their studies during the upcoming week.
Copyright © 2011 by the Intermountain Jewish News
