Levi was the third son of Yaakov and Leah. Leah named him in the hope that her husband would become attached to her: “This time my husband will become attached to me, for I have borne him three sons” (Genesis 29:34). According to Midrash Tadshe and the Yalkut Shimoni, he was born on 16 Nissan.

Together with his brother Shimon he avenged their sister Dinah: in Shechem each took his sword and slew the men of the city. Before his death, Yaakov rebuked them for their anger and declared that he would scatter them in Israel.

His three sons, Gershon, Kehat and Merari, went down with him to Egypt, and his daughter Yocheved was born there; from this family came Moshe and Aharon, as well as the Kohanim and the Levites. According to the Midrash, cited by Rashi, the tribe of Levi was exempt from the hard labor of the Egyptian bondage. At the sin of the Golden Calf, when Moshe called out “Whoever is for the Lord, come to me!”, all the sons of Levi rallied to him.

Levi lived 137 years (Exodus 6:16), longer than all his brothers. Seder Olam teaches that as long as Levi lived Israel was not enslaved, and that the Egyptians began to enslave them only after his death. According to Sefer HaYashar, cited by Hebrew Wikipedia, he was buried together with Shimon in Manda, in the Galilee; a Samaritan tradition places his tomb at Nabi Lawin in Samaria.