Boruch Ber Leibowitz

Rabbi Boruch Ber Leibowitz with his students

Boruch Ber Leibowitz (1862 – November 17, 1939 (5 Kislev, 5700) (Hebrew: ברוך בער ליבוביץ) was a prominent student of Rabbi Chaim Brisker and was famed for his Talmudic lectures.

Reb Boruch Ber, as he is called by his students and followers, was born in Slutsk and was known as a prodigy at a very young age. He was sent to learn in Volozhin yeshiva. After having a difficult time conflicting with the methods of the Rosh Yeshiva, he adopted the Talmudic approach of Chaim Brisker.

He then married the daughter of Rabbi Abraham Zimmerman, whom he succeeded as Rabbi of Halusk. He also served as a pulpit Rabbi for other communities. In 1904 he was appointed head of the Kneseth Beis Yitzchak Yeshiva in Slobodka. During World War I he had to leave Slabodka and relocated the yeshiva to Minsk and then to Kremenchug and Vilna. In 1926 he re-established the yeshiva in Kaminetz, where it continued to attract hundreds of students for the next 13 years. In 1939, shortly before his death, he fled with the yeshiva to a suburb of Vilna, hoping to escape from the Nazis and the communists. He is buried at the Zaretcha cemetery, Vilna. His grave was identified in 2012.

His granddaughter married Rabbi Yitzchok Scheiner.

Works

• Birkas Shmuel (The Blessing of Shmuel), his magnum opus, named in memory of his father, Shmuel David Leibowitz. This work includes many otherwise unrecorded teachings of Rabbi Chaim Brisker as well as Reb Baruch Ber's novel understandings of Torah topics on the Talmud.
• Shiurei Reb Baruch Ber (Lectures of Reb Boruch Ber) - recorded and published by his students.

References

• Boruch Ber Leibowitz