Rabbi Yehuda Levin’s life was replete with vast prosperity, but also challenging setbacks. There were times of youthful vitality, but also times of physical debilitation. Yet he left us with timeless lessons in how to smile through it all: fervently clinging to limud haTorah, living modestly despite a burgeoning bank account, never raising the communal bar, and genuinely loving, caring for, and supporting others with whatever means each of us has been gifted

Photos: Family archives

It was late at night,and Rabbi Yehuda Levin was just coming home after a vigorous seder with his chavrusa. Upon entering the house, he overheard his wife on the phone with a close friend.

“What can I tell you — the salary they pay is just not working for me,” the voice on the speaker phone was confiding to Mrs. Chaya Levin. “Look, I’m not blaming the school — it’s hard to raise a teacher’s salary. But you would think that after all these years of giving it my all, I would be able to actually cover my expenses….” The conversation continued, but Reb Yehuda had heard enough.

Before long, Reb Yehuda was on the phone with the school’s administrator. “Double her salary,” he instructed. “Don’t worry — I’ll make sure to cover the difference, whatever it is.”

This arrangement went on for years, the teacher never discovering the secret behind the school’s sudden plenitude of funds and Reb Yehuda never receiving any credit for his largesse — but that was exactly how he wanted it. Because to Rabbi Yehuda Levin, it was never about the applause, the accolades, or even the simple thank-you; it was about enabling another Yid to live with dignity and peace of mind.

It’s quite an undertaking to write an article about this incredible, multifaceted individual, who passed away after years of health challenges on 9 Adar II (March 19). He was a stalwart kollel yungerman and talmid chacham, but also a magnanimous philanthropist like no other; he endured various forms of adversity, but was simultaneously one of the happiest and most empowering people around; he was the successful CEO of a multimillion dollar company, yet he lived a life of such simplicity and dedication to Torah values that some of his young children were totally unaware of his wealth; he cared intensely for others and fought for their success and serenity, yet never allowed himself as much as a building name, a plaque, or even a photo in the paper if he could help it.

Across the Ocean

Yehuda Levin was born on 23 Adar 5709 (March 1949) in the Haifa suburb of Kiryat Chaim. His father, Rav Moshe Levin, was a talmid of the Mirrer Yeshivah who had immigrated to Eretz Yisrael in the mid-1930s and eventually became the rav of the small municipality. In 1952, when Yehuda was just three years old, his family moved to Netanya, where Rav Levin was appointed as head of the city’s religious council and later as Netanya’s chief rabbi (today there is a street named after him). Yehuda and his two brothers attended the local Bnei Akiva school, the only religious school network at the time, relying heavily on their parents’ strong mesorah and chinuch.

Rav Moshe Levin was the right person to transmit untarnished Torah values to the next generation. He was a paragon of the extreme dedication to limud haTorah and yiras Shamayim of prewar Europe. His children would later relate that they never saw their father sleep in a bed during the week; he would always be learning and simply doze off at the table in between his learning sedorim. These early influences at home served Yehuda well when, at age 17, he went to study at Beis HaTalmud in Jerusalem, under the tutelage of Rosh Yeshivah Rav Dov Schwartzman. It was there that Yehuda was influenced by some of the greatest maggidei shiur of the last generation, including Rav Moshe Shapira and Rav Binyomin Zilber zichronam livrachah, and Rav Yochanan Zweig, who spent six years as a maggid shiur in Beis HaTalmud before founding a yeshivah in Miami Beach.

How Reb Yehuda ended up in Lakewood was essentially due to his older brother, Rav Eliyahu Levin, one of Lakewood’s foremost talmidei chachamim and rosh kollel of Kollel Choshen Mishpat V’Even Ha’ezer.

In the late 1960s, Rav Eliyahu had been learning under Rav Berel Soloveitchik, toiling through sugyos with the group of American talmidim that were with him in Brisk at that time, and when they headed back to learn in Lakewood, he decided to go along with them. In the summer of 1972, when Rav Eliyahu was getting married, Yehuda came to America for the wedding — and it was on that trip that he met Rav Shneur Kotler, who suggested he try out a zeman in Lakewood. Yehuda heeded the Rosh Yeshivah’s advice — and Lakewood wound up being his hometown for the next five decades. At the age of 27, Yehuda married Chaya Weisman of Queens, New York, becoming a full-time kollel yungerman.

“Living in a new country can be challenging for anybody — but challenges never scared off my father,” says his son Reb Bentzi Levin. “He didn’t speak English — but that didn’t matter. He smiled to his peers, he joked, and he spent some of his spare time leafing through the dictionary. And before long, he had fully acclimated to Lakewood society.”