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Biography / By Yochonon Donn

“Are you sure you couldaccurately portray RavLifshitz?”

Rabbi Binyamin Yudin, atalmid of Harav Dovid Lifshitz,the famed Suvalker Rav whowas a Rosh Yeshivah inYeshivas Rabbeinu YitzchokElchanan for nearly a half cen-tury, was doubtful that such agreat mind, yet a man not aswell-known as other Gedolim,would be accurately portrayedin a newspaper article.

But for the 20th yahrtzeitcommemoration Monday,Rabbi Yudin agreed that theattempt must be made.

Rabbi Yudin was describedby the family of Harav Lifshitz,whose yahrtzeit was markedthis week with shiurim andevents across the tri-state area,as someone firmly in the familyloop during the 1960s, when hewas in the Suvalker Rav’s shiur.

During an extended inter-view, the Rav of Fair Lawn, N.J.,gives no hint of the esteem hisgreat rebbi held him in, duringa discussion about the enigmaof a Rosh Yeshivah who spoke apoor English yet managed tocapture the hearts ofAmerican-born and -bredtalmidim many decades hisjunior.

“What made Reb Dovidunique was his incrediblewarmth,” said Rabbi Yudin,who gives a weekly shiur on theradio. “One of his favoriteexpressions was ‘Kumpt nenter— come closer.’ And he reallymeant it.”

Reb Dovid, 86 at the time ofhis petirah, was known amonghis talmidim for his ability tocondense his vast knowledgegained as a prime talmid ofHarav Shimon Shkopp, zt”l,along with his expertise in allof the commonly learnedRishonim and Acharonim thathe knew by heart, and funnel itinto the minds of his talmidim.

“He had the ability to trans-port and bring Suvalk and thegreat personalities ofEuropean Jewry that we werenot exposed to here inAmerica,” Rabbi Yudin said.“He was able to bring it by theway he dressed and the way heacted... to bring it to Americantalmidim in the yeshivah. Hewas able to bring the mesorahto us.”

“We felt there was a connec-tion to an earlier generation,”Harav Moshe Weinberger, atalmid from the 1970s,affirmed in an interview. “Weheard stories, but with him itwas very powerful. We felt aconnection to something big-ger, something greater.”

Rabbi Weinberger, Rav ofCongregation Aish Kodesh inWoodmere, came to YU seek-ing a yeshivah to learn in, butalso a rebbi to guide him in lifeand lead him in personalgrowth and direction.

An American teenager whospoke not a word of Yiddish, hefound that rebbi in Reb Dovid,who gave him all the time inthe world.

“Not a day goes by that Idon’t think of my rebbi,” RabbiWeinberger said at the YeshivaUniversity hazkarah for RebDovid on Sunday. “He made meinto who I am today.”

Elaborating on that theme,Rabbi Weinberger toldHamodia that “He didn’t speakEnglish, he came from a totallydifferent culture. And yet, Idon’t recall a rebbi understand-ing the nuances of the life of an

American boy like Reb Dovid.”Mrs. Sarah Ittel Stein, one of

Reb Dovid’s three daughtersand a daughter-in-law of HaravChaim Stein, zt”l, the late RoshYeshivah of Telshe Yeshivah inCleveland, recalled her child-hood where phone calls, a rari-ty and maybe a cause for alarmin those days, were common inher home as her father dedicat-ed himself to an array of causesin the Torah world.

“Don’t be nervous,” sherecalled her father saying. “Theearly, early morning (definedas five in the morning) phonecall is from Rav AvrahamKalmanovitch, and late at nightit is from Rav Aharon Kotler.Phone calls during the day arefrom Rav Moshe Feinstein.”

Reb Dovid was in constantcontact with the Gedolei Hadoras a member of the Vaad

Hatzolah during WWII, afounding member of ChinuchAtzmai, an early leader ofTorah Umesorah, and later as amember of the AgudasHarabbanim and president ofEzras Torah.

“I remember picking up thephone and asking, ‘Who is it?’”Mrs. Stein recalled, “and avoice would say, ‘MeisheFeinshtein,’ and I would yellacross the house, ‘Papa, itsMeishe Feinshtein.’”

He took his work with EzrasTorah, undertaken at the per-sonal urging of Harav YosefEliyahu Henkin, zt”l, extreme-ly seriously — especially beforeYamim Tovim, his daughtersaid, when he was asked to signoff on huge sums for poor fam-ilies.

“I remember him in thestudy, reading over the letters

on Erev Pesach,” said Mrs.Stein. “Some nights he wouldstay up through the night” toread of the pain peopleexpressed in their letters.

‘We Are All Suvalkers’But aside from Reb Dovid

being a lamdan, an askan and aRosh Yeshivah, he was a Ravand posek in Suvalk. The repu-tation that preceded him ledthe Skokie, Illinois, kehillahwhere he was initially hired asRosh Yeshivah of Beis MedrashL’Torah after coming to theU.S., to declare: “We are allSuvalkers.”

It was in Suvalk, a city innortheastern Poland close tothe border with Lithuania, thatReb Dovid first became knownto the world.

Born in 1906 to Reb YaakovArye and Ittel Lifshitz, RebDovid showed an eye for Torahfrom a young age. Togetherwith a friend, Avraham the 10-year-old wrote a peirush calledTal Yelados — the Dew ofChildren — on sifrei Daniel,Mishlei and Ezra.

The two children dividedthe kisvei yad between them-selves. Reb Dovid was devastat-ed years later when he lost hispart of the sefer while travelingon a train.

Shortly after that, the eventsthat turned Reb Dovid’s life onits trajectory began evolving.

Reb Dovid’s paternal grand-father, Harav Shlomo ZalmanLifshitz, was a baal habayiswho devoted so much of histime to learning that heauthored the Olas Shlomo onKodshim from his home inGrodna. As the Great Warraged on around them, theLifshitz family gathered inGrodna as Reb Shlomo Zalmanlay on his deathbed. When hewas niftar, Reb Yaakov Aryeremained with his family inGrodna, where Dovid celebrat-ed his bar mitzvah.

In 1920, the majority ofEurope’s Rabbanim gatheredin Vilna to discuss how theolam haTorah could survive theonslaught caused by the doubleassault of the convulsions ofthe First World War and thefarming out of Jewish youth tothe ideologies of Communism,Bundism or Zionism.

“Give me Yavneh and hersages,” declared RabbanYochanan ben Zakkai 2,000years ago.

“Give me Grodna and heryeshivah,” Harav Chaim OzerGrodzensky proclaimed toHarav Shimon Shkop at theVilna knessiah.

Reb Chaim Ozer, Europe’s

Hagaon Harav Dovid Lifshitz, zt”l: A Rosh Yeshivah Who

Cared for Every Yid

In honor of the Suvalker Rav’s 20th Yahrtzeit

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undisputed Gadol Hador,charged Reb Shimon with thejob of revivifying Torah inPoland by becoming the headof Yeshivah Shaar HaTorah inGrodna.

Arriving in Grodna shortlyafterward, Reb Shimon foundready ears in the form of RebDovid and a small coterie of hisfriends. The relationship blos-somed when shortly after hisarrival, regional events forcedReb Shimon to consider clos-ing the yeshivah. Reb Dovidand a small number oftalmidim were invited to theRosh Yeshivah’s room to dis-cuss how to keep the kol Torahstrong.

They were successful, andReb Dovid developed a lifelonglove for Reb Shimon that didnot end even decades after thelatter’s passing.

And Reb Dovid succeeded inpassing on that reverence hehad for his rebbi to successivegenerations of his owntalmidim.

“I heard from Mori v’RabiRav Shimon, zt”l,” punctuatedwith a deferential rise from hisseat and a tremble in his voice,was a common refrain duringhis shiur.

In 1926, Reb Shimon sug-gested that his talmid go to theMirrer Yeshivah, whereEurope’s best talmidimlearned. Reb Dovid emergedduring that time learningunder Harav Leizer YudelFinkel, zt”l, the Rosh Yeshivah,and Harav Yerucham Levovitz,zt”l, the Mashgiach, as a baki inall the primary Rishonim andAcharonim, which he hadlearned by heart, as well as aserious man with a refinednature.

In later years, sitting next toReb Dovid during shiur, RabbiWeinberger saw him look intoa Rashba and excitedly repeat along passage. Unbeknownst tothe class, he was turned to adifferent page and was recitingit verbatim.

“He was very excited and hesaid the entire thing frombeginning to the end. It was along Rashba and he wasscreaming it out loud,” RabbiWeinberger said. “And it wasall by heart, he was on thewrong page.”

“He seemed to us that heknew the entire Torah by heart.There wasn’t anything that weasked him that he wasn’t com-pletely comfortable with.”

One noted Rosh Yeshivah inthe United States who learnedwith Reb Dovid during thosedays once said in wonder, “RavLifshitz knew the followingsefarim: Ketzos Hachoshen,Nesivos Hamishpat, ShevShmaatsa and MeshovevNesivos — he knew thesesefarim like aleph-beis!”

It was Reb Leizer Yudel whosuggested Reb Dovid whenHarav Yosef Yuselovich, theRav of Suvalk, came seeking ashidduch for his only daughter,Tzippora Chava. It was under-stood at the time that her hus-band would one day take overthe prestigious rabbanus of

that city.The couple got married in

1933 and settled in Suvalk. Theesteem Reb Dovid was held inby the Mir was evident in thefact that when the Mashgiach,Reb Yerucham, was niftar in1936, the hanhalah asked himto travel to Mir to deliver theyeshivah’s hesped on behalf ofthe talmidim traditionallygiven at the end of the shivah .

(Throughout the years RebDovid was also asked to bemaspid various Gedolim, suchas Harav Yaakov Kamenetzky,zt”l, his mechutan and RoshYeshivah of Yeshivah TorahVodaath; Harav MosheFeinstein, zt”l, and HaravAharon Kotler, zt”l, RoshYeshivah of Bais MedrashGovoha in Lakewood — all sin-gular honors.)

The awe Reb Dovid, as allthe talmidim, had for RebYerucham was astounding.

On a ship in 1941 fromEurope to San Francisco —along with Harav AvrahamYaffen, zt”l, Rosh Yeshivah ofNovardok, and Harav MosheShatzkes, zt”l, the Lomza Rav— was Reb Yerucham’s son.

During the trip, Reb

Yerucham’s son’s wife gavebirth to a boy, now known asReb Yerucham Levovitz, whocurrently lives in Lakewood.When Reb Dovid was honoredwith krias hashem and heardthe name of his Mashgiach, hefainted from hisragshus.

Reb Dovid’s shver was niftarin 1935, and Reb Dovid, at theyoung age of 29, was appointedby Reb Chaim Ozer as Rav of acity of more than 20,000

Yidden.

Beloved by HisContemporaries

Reb Dovid’s new titleremained with him his entirelife, through a short-lived stayin Skokie and a half century ofteaching in YU. The name“Suvalker Rav” evoked an awein Gedolim who were familiarwith him.

During a visit to Bnei Brak

in the 1970s, Rabbi Weinbergersaid that he went to theSteipler’s home to purchase aset of Kehillas Yaakov. TheSteipler, Harav Yaakov YisraelKanievsky, zt”l, refused to sellthe entire set to a youngbachur, arguing that he didn’tneed more than the volume onthe masechta he was learning.

But when he was informedthat the bachur before him wasa talmid of Reb Dovid, theSteipler backtracked.

“The Suvalker Rav?” heinquired. “Reb Dovid Lifshitzis a very chashuve person, avery respected talmidchacham.”

He then went to his sefarimshrank and removed an entireset of sefarim to sell to RabbiWeinberger.

While the Rav — HaravYoshe Ber Soloveitchek, zt”l,the Rosh Yeshivah — was con-sidered a thinker and a truthfulpurveyor of the Brisker meso-rah in YU, Reb Dovid’s shiurwas authentically Litvish,heavy on Rishonim. But therespect the two had for eachother was remarkable to watch— such as when an elderlywoman who was in the middleof sitting shivah came to RebYoshe Ber asking if she wereallowed to attend her grand-child’s chasunah.

Go to Reb Dovid, the Ravadvised.

“The Rav knew hilchosaveilus!” Rabbi Yudinexclaimed in amazement. “Butthe Rav knew that if there wasanybody who could — whowould — find a heter, it was RebDovid.”

A Chassid of the SatmarRebbe, Harav Yoel Teitelbaum,zt”l, related that he was oncemeshamesh the Rebbe during atrip to Florida in the 1960s.Staying in the same city wasHarav Simcha Elberg, editor ofthe Hapardes Torah periodical,and Reb Dovid.

The Chassid said the twodecided to visit the Rebbe inorder to speak in learning.They arrived at 8:00 p.m., andremained absorbed in theirdiscussion until midnight.

When eleven of the fore-most Roshei Yeshivah in theU.S. issued their landmark banin 1956 to join an organizationwith a non-Orthodox compo-nent, a decision that reverber-ates until today, Reb Dovid wasamong them.

Mrs. Stein remembers clear-ly waking up early one morningto hear loud sobbing comingfrom her father’s room. He hadjust received word that hisclose friend from the Mir,Harav Leib Malin, zt”l, RoshYeshivah of Beis Hatalmid, hadbeen niftar.

“It was the saddest face Iever saw on my father,” shesaid.

One of Reb Dovid’s closestfriends in life was Harav ChaimShmulevitz, zt”l, the son-in-law of Reb Dovid’s RoshYeshivah, Reb Leizer Yudel,and a chavrusa from bothGrodna and the Mir.

During a trip to Eretz

Harav Lifshitz dancing (L) at a chasunah with two of his mechutanim, Harav Chaim Stein (R) and Harav YaakovKamenetzky, in the mid 1970s.

Harav Lifshitz speaking at the Ezras Torah chanukas habayis in Ramat Aharon in 1969. (L-R): Unidentified, Harav ElazarShach, Harav Yaakov Kamenetsky, Harav Yisroel Gustman, Rabbi Shlomo Lorencz, Harav Dovid Lifshitz (speaking),unidentified, ybl”c, Harav Shmuel Wosner.

Harav Lifshitz with Harav Chaim Stein, holding one of their mutual einaklach.

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Yisrael in 1962, the Lifshitzeswere invited for the first nightseudah on Rosh Hashanah byHarav Yechezkel Sarna, zt”l,Rosh Yeshivah of Chevron, andthe second night to eat withReb Chaim Shmulevitz, whowas then too sick to get out ofbed.

Reb Chaim indicated that hewanted Reb Dovid to sit at thehead of the table in his place,and to make Kiddush. (RebDovid refused, to Reb Chaim’sobvious disappointment.)

A member of the Shmulevitzfamily said that when RebDovid would come visit RebChaim, “It was a Yom Tov inshtub.”

Harav Shlomo Haberstam,the Bobover Rebbe, zt”l, askedReb Dovid to come to BoroPark to test the talmidim of hisyeshivah.

Survival and TragedyDuring his abbreviated stint

as Suvalker Rav, Reb Dovidconcerned himself withstrengthening Torah andhalachah. There was a nearbyarmy base with many Jewishsoldiers and he concerned him-self with their well-being. Heonce even made a Pesach sederfor them before heading hometo his own seder with his fami-ly.

Reb Dovid’s idyllic existenceas a rising star of Poland’s andLithuania’s Rabbanim, as hebegan to build his family withthe birth of a daughter, crashedin 1939 with the German inva-sion.

Entering his home to findout where the wealthy peopleof the city were hiding, a Nazidiscovered a chalaf — ashochet’s knife — on the table.He seized it, pressed it againstReb Dovid’s throat and threat-ened, “Der rabbiner vellen mirshlachten auf kasher — we willshecht the Rabbi in a kosherway.”

Although the incident endedpeacefully, Reb Dovid realizedthat it was time to escape fromthe city with his wife.

During that time a tragicincident occurred that left adeep and lasting scar on both ofthem. On the way out of Suvalkthey heard shots being fired,causing everyone in the vicini-ty to seek shelter in a nearbyforest. In the tumult, RebDovid’s six-month-old daugh-ter Avivit Rashel passed away.

It was an event that theynever forgot, although they sel-dom discussed it. But theyremained forever bound to thememory of Avivit Rashel, a”h,who was named in honor of hermaternal grandfather — Avi,“my father” and Rashel, afterher grandmother.

When Rebbetzin TzipporaChava became ill in 1995 withher final illness, Mrs. Steinasked her sister if she thoughtshe would survive to her birth-day on Chanukah.

“You know that Tuesday isAvivit’s yahrtzeit,” her sisterreplied.

Indeed, while RebbetzinLifshitz’s situation turned

graver by the day, it was on 28Cheshvan, Avivit’s yahrtzeit,that she appeared with an ethe-real glow when her childrencame to visit her. Later that dayshe passed away, confident thather young child’s yahrtzeitwould remain bound with hers,unforgotten.

“The lengths that thisYiddishe mamma went throughto make sure that her daugh-ter’s yahrtzeit should not beforgotten,” Reb Chaim Steinexclaimed when he heard this.

Teaching a Way of LifeRabbi Weinberger, who

today presides over a kehillahof more than 300 families,described Reb Dovid’s warmth,but more importantly, his gen-uineness as the thing that fas-cinated his talmidim.

“In the world that we grewup in, our heroes were baseballplayers and celebrities,” RabbiWeinberger said. “Here we hada person who not only taughtus Torah on the highest level,but there was something greatand heroic about it. He repre-sented earlier times.”

Reb Dovid thrived in takinga half-baked sevara or kushyaasked by a talmid and develop-ing it into a well-constructedidea, then repeating it as if thatis what the talmid had meantall along. He would then callthe fathers of the talmidim totell him that their sons “saidsuch a beautiful sevara.”

A most eagerly awaitedevent of the year came onSimchas Torah night, whendozens of talmidim came toReb Dovid’s house around thecorner from the YU campus toescort him to the yeshivah forhakafos. Hundreds of neckscraned to watch how Reb Dovidwould walk majestically intothe hall, to the thunderousstrains of “Baruch ElokeinuShe’beraanu Lichvodo,” or afavorite of his, “Tzavei YeshuosYaakov.”

But what was his initialattraction for American youths— many of whom had come toYU more for its college pro-gram — that caused them tothrow away their dreams andpursue a full-time career inTorah study?

“He was beautiful,” RabbiWeinberger said simply. “He

had an unbelievable hadraspanim and he carried himselfin a very regal way. I just wasattracted to the appearance ofsomething very authentic. ... Iwas never zocheh to have agrandfather, and there wassomething about him thatinspired in me a feeling that ‘ifI had a zeide, that’s the kind ofzeide I would like to have.’”

Rabbi Weinberger recalled a

year-end bechinah, a writtentest that took the five dozenbachurim taking it about sixhours to complete.

Suddenly they heard RebDovid mumbling to himself, histone getting louder each time.

“What a heilige time this is,what a heilige time this is,” herepeated many times.

As the bachurim looked athim quizzically, Reb Dovid

explained that during shiur it ispossible that someone’s mindwould wander. But now duringthe test, everyone was totallyabsorbed in Torah. Saying that,in the middle of the bechinahthe boys had worked so hardon, Reb Dovid began singing“Vetaher libeinu l’avdechab’emes.”

“He was literally crying,”Rabbi Weinberger said. “We

Harav Lifshitz (seated left) as a 15-year-old bachur in Grodno in 1921. Harav Chaim Shmuelevitz is seated in the middle.

R-L: Harav Eliezer Yehuda Finkel and Harav Chaim Shmuelevitz with Harav Lifshitz (C) speaking at an event inYerushalayim in 1954 during his first trip to Eretz Yisrael.

Harav Shlomo Zalman Lifshitz, RebDovid Lifshitz’s paternal grandfather.

Harav Yosef Yoselevitch, Reb DovidLifshitz’s father-in-law.

Harav Lifshitz davening at the kever of his shver, Harav Yosef Yoselevitch, dur-ing his sole return visit to the city of Suvalk, Poland, in the 1980s.

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were all singing ‘Vetaherlibeinu.’”

Knowing that RabbiWeinberger enjoyed delvinginto chassidishe sefarim, RebDovid asked him once as theywere returning from bakingmatzos to tell him over a chas-sidishe vort. Rabbi Weinbergerrecalled telling him somethingfrom the Avnei Nezer.

“I began to speak,” he said,“and he said, ‘Quick, we have toget off the highway; this is notsomething to talk about duringdriving.’”

Rabbi Weinberger turnedoff onto a side street inManhattan, where Reb Dovidasked him to repeat the Torah.After listening to it again, hegrabbed Rabbi Weinberger’shand and began singing.

“And we sang that niggunover there, on some street inManhattan,” he says with alaugh.

Rabbi Weinberger admitsthat he always had a leaningtoward Chassidus — his shul isnamed for the Piacezna Rebbe,Harav Klonimus KalmanShapiro, Hy”d — and he hadbeen looking for a Rebbe whenhe found Reb Dovid.

“In Yitzchak Elchanan, hewas a Rebbe,” RabbiWeinberger said. “Not by pedi-gree — he was a straight Litvakthrough and through. But inhis personality, and thewarmth, and the way he saweverything in a very positiveway. Those who were lookingfor a Rebbe in that Litvisheworld — we found it in him.”

“The fact that he seemed sodetached from American cul-ture, and so completelyenwrapped in kedushahbecause of the world that hecame from, I found that themost attractive thing. Thatdrew me to him very strongly.”

One aspect of that kedushahwas Reb Dovid’s insistence onspeaking only Yiddish orLashon Kodesh during learningor at a Shabbos table.

In the 1960s, sensitive to thefact that many of their newertalmidim were not as well-versed in Yiddish, YU beganurging maggidei shiur to deliv-er their shiurim in English.Uncomfortable speaking divreiTorah in English, Reb Doviddeveloped a perfect LashonKodesh, in the Ashkenazihavarah, in which he gave hisshiurim.

“His sincerity overcame thegeneration gap,” Rabbi Yudinsays, “and became a bridge toan American youth so foreignto his upbringing.”

For Rabbi Yudin, Reb Dovidwas more than a rebbi, he was amentor for life. Reb Dovid washis mesader kiddushin, sandakat his eldest son’s bris, andtrained him in for rabbanus.When he had difficulties dur-ing his initial years in FairLawn, Reb Dovid was there tohelp.

“During all that time,” RabbiYudin says, “he was there forme.”

When Rabbi Yudin became achassan, Reb Dovid called his

kallah to wish her mazel tovand ask her about her furniturepurchases.

“It meant the world to her,”Rabbi Yudin marvels.

He said that when it came toselect a name for his shul,aware that there was a largeReform temple in the city, RebDovid insisted that the nameinclude the word “Torah” in itso that it should be clear wherehe belonged. (He chose“Shomrei Torah.”)

During the annual tests thatReb Dovid gave, where thetalmidim would write answersto oral questions the RoshYeshivah asked, one of the firstquestions he would invariablyask was, “Did everybody eat?”If not, he would send thebachur out to go eat.

When meeting a formertalmid, the first thing was a“Shalom aleichem,” followed inrapid succession by “Vu haltstuin lernen — how are you learn-ing?”

When greeting someone hewould grasp the person’s handin both of his own, make eyecontact, always making sure hewas wearing his kapote whensomeone came to his home. Hisregal bearing was commentedupon even by their non-Jewishpostal deliveryman, who wouldsay, “When Rabbi Lifshitz goesby it’s a prince walking by.”

Reb Dovid’s method ofreproof was by emphasizingthe positive, rather than focus-ing on the negative.

“He was the type of personwho, if he were at a chasunahand there was inappropriatedancing, he would start a newcircle of appropriate dancing,”Rabbi Yudin said. “He didthings in a positive way bybeing proactive instead of sim-ply protesting.”

Reb Dovid’s three daughters— Mrs. Shulamis Kamenetskyand Mrs. Chaya Waxman, bothof Yerushalayim, and Mrs. SaraIttel Stein of Cleveland — recall

him as a very warm and emo-tional family man who wouldlearn Chumash with themevery Shabbos.

As his daughters left thehouse to begin their own fami-lies, Reb Dovid would mentionthem on Friday night, “Ichbentch der fun veiten — I blessthis daughter from afar.”

Although 20 years havepassed since his petirah on 9Tammuz, 1993, organizers andfamily members who attendedthe multiple yahrtzeit eventson Sunday and Monday weresurprised at the hundreds ofpeople who turned out tohonor him. Years after they lefthis shiur, the image of thesmiling Reb Dovid and hiswarmth remained with histalmidim, infusing them withhis enthusiasm for Torah.

“The rebbi is still with us,”one participant summed upthe feeling that permeated thehall.

Others who prided them-selves to call Reb Dovid theirrebbi include Harav YaakovMoshe Kulefsky, zt”l, the cele-brated Rosh Yeshivah of NerYisroel in Baltimore, whosenotes were used to publish oneof the volumes of ChiddusheiRav Dovid Lifshitz, and, yblc”t,Harav Chaim Dov Keller, cur-rent Rosh Yeshivah of Telshe inChicago.

“I learned in his shiur forone year,” Harav Keller wrotein an appreciation based on hishesped at Reb Dovid’s levayah,“yet I gained from him a derechin learning for my whole life,and I remained, as did many, atalmid my entire life.”

An invitation to the vort of Harav Lifshitz and Tzippora Chava Yoselevitch.

Harav Lifshitz in the early 1940s.

With Harav Moshe Feinstein.

With Harav Aharon Kotler.