Thousands Gather at Rabbi Michal Yehuda Lipkowitz’s Grave for Prayer and Shofar Blowing

Fifteen years after the death of Rabbi Michal Yehuda Lipkowitz, the former head of yeshiva, hundreds gathered at his grave in the cemetery near the Ponevezh Yeshiva in Bnei Brak for a public prayer service seeking the salvation of the world of Torah.

The event drew many yeshiva students and pupils. Leading the prayers was his eldest son, Rabbi Moshe David Lipkowitz, the spiritual guide of the Beit Yaakov and Meshkenot HaTorah yeshivas and rabbi of the Heichal Moshe community in Bnei Brak. The Kaddish was recited by another son, Rabbi Avraham Yitzchak, of Beit Midrash Elyon.

The most emotional moment came when his grandsons, Rabbi Yitzchak Shaul Kanievsky and Rabbi Yoel Maklev, rabbi of the Pardes Katz center, read the Psalms verse by verse in tears and cries, against the backdrop of the tense situation in Israel. As dusk fell, just before the plea of the 13 Attributes of Mercy, Rabbi Moshe Mizrachi, head of the Nehalat HaTorah yeshiva in Bnei Brak, blew the shofar to stir divine mercy.