BDE: Harav Yeruchim Leshinsky, zt”l: A Lifetime of Learning

The Mirrer Yeshiva in Brooklyn lost one of its most unique figures Sunday with the sudden and tragic petirah of Harav Yeruchim Leshinsky, zt”l, a maggid shiur for 65 years and, in the truest sense, a talmid chacham who never left the walls of the Beis Medrash. He was 89.

Rav Yeruchim born in Mir, Poland before World War 2,  where his father, Harav Dovid Leshinsky, zt”l, had learned. He came to America together with the historic flight of the Mirrer Yeshiva through Japan, and from the moment he arrived, the yeshiva became his world.

He was the first person named after the famed Mirrer Mashgiach, Harav Yeruchim Levovitz zt”l.

For decades, he served as a beloved marbitz Torah to generation after generation of talmidim. But his role extended far beyond the shiur. He spent long hours giving chizuk to bochurim,sitting with them, learning with them, guiding them with a patience and warmth that left a permanent imprint. He offered hadrachah to fellow rabbeim as well, serving as a quiet pillar of guidance within the yeshiva’s walls.

In his later years, Rav Yeruchim stepped back from giving shiur and could be found each day in the back of the beis medrash — second row from the last, last seat — learning with the same intensity as a bochur on his first day. He learned yomam v’layla. He was up before five in the morning, and those who knew him believe he was niftar early Sunday morning as he was preparing to make his way to yeshiva, as he had done every day of his life.

Mordy Weinreb, a talmid who learned in the Mirrer Yeshiva and merited a close relationship with Rav Yeruchim, shared his recollections exclusively with Belaaz.

“In tenth grade I didn’t have a chavrusa,” Mordy recalled, “and the Rebbe asked me if I had one. I said no. He said, ‘Neither do I’ — and we learned together for the entire year.”

That gesture, offered without fanfare, was characteristic of the Rebbe. Rav Yeruchim had a quiet radar for bochurim who needed a hand, and his response was never a referral or a suggestion — it was his own time, his own presence.

When Mordy entered twelfth grade, he approached the Rebbe and asked if he could have the zchus of continuing to learn with him. The Rebbe’s response stopped him in his tracks. “He told me he would love to learn with me,” Mordy said, “but that it’s not a zchus.” The humility was not performative. It was simply who he was.

Mordy described sitting across from Rav Yeruchim as a study in awe. “You could stand in front of him for fifteen minutes before he’d even notice you were there. He was so engrossed in his learning — and then when he finally looked up, he’d jump, like, ‘Oh! someone’s here!’ He simply did not realize anyone was standing there.”

When a question in learning was brought to him, Rav Yeruchim had a telling habit. “He would open the sefer and put his finger on the page,” Mordy said, “and then breathe heavily, searching — as if he couldn’t find it. Six minutes of this. And every single time, he had opened directly to the right place. He knew everything. But he would never let on.”

That anavah extended to every corner of his life. A story Mordy tells captures it perhaps better than any other.

“I remember him walking through the gym in the Mirrer Yeshiva. Someone was playing basketball, and a pass hit him square in the head. He must have been 85 at the time. He picked up his hat, didn’t look back, didn’t say a word — he just kept walking. He would never hurt a bochur’s feeling.”

A Home Built on Torah
Rav Yeruchim’s wife, Rebbetzin Libby Leshinsky, is the daughter of Hagaon Harav Avigdor Miller, zt”l, one of the preeminent marbitzei Torah of the previous generation. Rav Miller was known for his daily walks, which he used as dedicated time for thinking about Hashem — a practice he would not forgo under any circumstances. Rebbetzin Leshinsky absorbed this deeply from her father, and to this day maintains her own daily walk in that spirit, using the time for avodas Hashem.

The home they built together reflected both of their worlds. Rav Yeruchim was generous in inviting bochurim for Shabbos and weekday meals, and Mordy was among those who sat at his table many times. What struck him was not only the warmth of the welcome, but something he witnessed between the Rebbe and Rebbetzin themselves.

“Every single bite of food, he would say l’kovod Shabbos,” Mordy said. “Every bite, every time, throughout every Shabbos seudah.”

And in the way Rav Yeruchim and his Rebbetzin related to one another, Mordy saw something that moved him deeply. “I saw between them the same fresh energy you see by a young couple just starting their Jewish home in their shana rishona. That’s what it looked like — every day.”

Rav Yeruchim had previously lost his sister, Rebbetzin Rivka Kreiser, a”h, the wife of Harav Aharon Kreiser, zt”l; his brother, Harav Yaakov Leshinsky, zt”l, of Yerushalayim; and another sister, Rebbetzin Rochel Brudny, a”h.

He is survived by his Rebbetzin and his children — Reb Shmuel, Reb Avrohom, Reb Yitzy, Mrs. Avigail Klein, Mrs. Batsheva Alpert, and Mrs. Shulamis Fischoff — along with a distinguished family of marbitzei Torah and talmidei chachomim.

The levayah was held at 12:30 p.m. at the Mirrer Yeshiva in Brooklyn, with kevurah to take place in Yerushalayim.

Yehi zichro baruch.