Soon after Rav Boruch Ber Leibowitz was buried in 1939, the Jewish community of Vilna was destroyed and his unmarked grave forgotten. But then, 70 years later, a little girl’s sudden deformity led to a series of seemingly unrelated events that resulted in the discovery of his resting place. This week, on the Torah giant’s 75^th yahrtzeit, the Torah world will gather to honor his memory

His talmidim gathered around his deathbed, waiting for a bit of instruction, a last sign, but the Rosh Yeshivah’s thoughts were elsewhere.

“The Rebbi is coming!” whispered Rav Boruch Ber Leibowitz, the rosh yeshivah of Yeshivas Knesses Beis Yitzchak in Kamenitz. “I must wash my hands in honor of the Rebbi!”

“The Rebbi” could refer to only one person. Throughout his life, it seemed as if Rav Boruch Ber had never left the benches of the beis medrash of Volozhin, and had never stopped quoting the words of his rebbi, Rav Chaim Soloveitchik. “The Rebbi” was at the center of Rav Boruch Ber’s life.

Now, on the 5th of Kislev, 5700 (1939), Rav Boruch Ber faced his final hours. The Nazis had already invaded Poland and Jews everywhere had fled in panic and confusion to one of the safe spots, Vilna. Rav Boruch Ber Leibowitz and other Torah scholars had also fled to the Lithuanian capital, where Rav Chaim Ozer Grodzensky, the leader of Diaspora Jewry, had greeted Rav Boruch Ber and asked him to open a yeshivah for the masses of refugees.

But Rav Boruch Ber’s stay in Vilna did not last long. Already in his 70s, the Torah giant was ebbing away. He asked his students to accompany him in those last moments — and there they stood.

“The Rebbi is coming,” he whispered, frightening his talmidim. It seemed as though he could sense his rebbi, who had died in 1918, waiting for him in the Heavenly realm. “I should put on a new shirt, something clean, in honor of the Rebbi,” he said. He further requested that an empty chair for his rebbi be placed at his bedside.

Rav Boruch Ber prepared himself for his petirah like a person preparing for a lavish repast. “Review the shiur,” he begged his talmidim. They looked at each other in astonishment. Review the shiur? Now? Who could do such a thing?

One of his students, Rav Meir Pantel, mustered up the courage to begin reviewing the shiur aloud. As he listened, Rav Boruch Ber’s face lit up, angelic, as he heard for the last time the teachings of his master, Rav Chaim Soloveitchik.

When the shiur reached its conclusion, Rav Boruch Ber recited the brachah of Ahavah Rabbah and the pesukim of the “Hallelukahs.” Then he fell silent. After a moment, he cried, “V’shavti b’shalom el beis avi!” And his holy soul departed.

With that, the Torah world was plunged into mourning.

A Fateful Request

Thousands of miles away in Bnei Brak, the Chazon Ish received the news and collapsed to the floor in tears. The great Rav Chaim Brim approached the Chazon Ish, tearing his clothes and sitting on the floor like a mourner. “When Rav Boruch Ber was alive, his toil in Torah study shielded the generation from harm. Now who will protect us from our enemies?”

The fifth of Cheshvan, 5700, was a bitterly cold day, but people of the Torah world, fearful of their fate, gathered in the streets near the yeshivah and walked Rav Boruch Ber to his final rest. They could still feel his burning love; there were many times in his life when he had given away the last of his food to a poor Jew. His sole concern in life was the welfare of others. “When I come before the Heavenly Court,” he used to say, “they will look to see what I have brought with me. Torah? Whatever I have learned can’t really be called Torah. Yiras Shamayim? Is my yirah even worthy of the term? But there is one thing that I will be able to tell them: I loved every Jew, and whenever I saw another Jewish person, all I thought about was what was good for him.”

The massive funeral procession, made up of thousands of yeshivah students and gedolei Yisrael, made its way toward the main shul of Vilna. The Brisker Rav walked the entire way with a bent posture, ignoring the pleas of those around him to sit in a car or wagon. “We are accompanying a gaon from another world to his final rest,” he said. “Rav Boruch Ber was a gadol of a caliber that has not existed for 200 years.”

As the procession neared the cemetery on Zaretcha Street, the men of the chevra kaddisha tensed up. For 25 years already, this cemetery — where over 70,000 Jews had been buried (including such illustrious Talmudic commentators as the Rashash and the Cheshek Shlomo) had been filled to capacity. No other graves could be dug, not even a place for a piece of parchment from a sefer Torah. But Rav Boruch Ber’s final words continued to echo in their ears: “V’shavti b’shalom el beis avi — I shall return in peace to the house of my father.” It was seemingly a request to be buried near the grave of his father, Rav Shmuel Dovid.

The mara d’asra, Rav Chaim Ozer, asked the chevra kaddisha to do everything in their power to bury Rav Boruch Ber alongside his father. “There is only one slim possibility,” they told the rav. “There is a path that runs near the kever of Rav Boruch Ber’s father. We can break into a portion of that path and bury him next to his father’s grave.” Rav Chaim Ozer ruled that they should do so, and Rav Boruch Ber thus became the last person to be interred in that cemetery. He was buried in a highly unusual spot, in what later would prove to be a stroke of incredible Hashgachah pratis.

Mourners covered the improvised grave with mortar — until a tombstone could be erected. But no tombstone was ever placed there. Not long after his petirah, the Jewish refugees in Vilna fled from the city, fearing for their lives as the war rumbled closer.

Bringing Honor to the Torah

Seventy years later, in 2009, a group of girls were playing in the courtyard of a Bais Yaakov school in the western United States, clutching photographs of rabbanim that their teachers had given them.

One of the girls held a picture of a man with a snow-white beard, large peyos on either side of his face, and piercing eyes. At her young age, she failed to appreciate the depths of Torah knowledge behind those blazing eyes, and in a moment of pure folly, said: “Look at this! He looks like… a monkey!”

The other girls playing near here showed their disapproval, but soon enough they carried on with their games. A few minutes later, they heard a piercing scream. The girl who had insulted Rav Boruch Ber sat still, her face twisted hideously. She was rushed for emergency medical treatment, but to no avail. Her parents took her to a wide assortment of specialists, but not one doctor could cure her of her disfigurement.