Rabbi Yerucham HaLevi Levovitz was born in 5633 (1873) in Lyuban, near Slutsk, in Belarus, to Avraham and Chasya Levovitz. After studying in small towns and at the Bobruisk yeshiva, he entered the Slobodka yeshiva at about sixteen, where Rabbi Nosson Tzvi Finkel, the Alter of Slobodka, devoted himself to him and passed on his love of Mussar.

Rabbi Finkel then sent him to the Kelm Talmud Torah to study under Rabbi Simcha Zissel Ziv, the Alter of Kelm, whom he could hear for only a few months before his teacher's passing. He wept bitterly, feeling he had barely begun to understand what a human being is. He then became a disciple of Rabbi Nachum Zev Ziv and Rabbi Tzvi Hirsch Broida, the Alter's son and son-in-law, and studied for ten years in chavruta with Rabbi Naftali Trop.

In 5667 (1907) the Chafetz Chaim welcomed him as mashgiach of his yeshiva in Radin. He then became mashgiach, the spiritual guide, of the Mir Yeshiva. He left during the First World War and returned in the early 1920s, remaining until his death. He gave Mussar discourses several times a week, and the yeshiva grew year by year, drawing students from America and Germany as well.

A living model for his students, he demanded more of himself than of them and practiced what he taught. Attentive to each one, he said: "You are the father of a few children; I am the father of hundreds." His thought centers on the person himself: Torah study and mitzvot are paths to revealing a person's innermost self. His disciples included Rabbi Yechezkel Levenstein, who succeeded him, Rabbi Chaim Shmulevitz, Rabbi Dovid Povarsky and Rabbi Shlomo Wolbe. The Mir Yeshiva was one of the only yeshivas to survive the Holocaust almost intact, escaping to Shanghai.

He passed away on Monday, 18 Sivan 5696 (June 1936), in Mir, where he is buried. His discourses were published posthumously by his students and by his son, Rabbi Simcha Zissel. Works: Daas Chochmah U'Mussar, Daas Torah, Maamarei HaMashgiach, Shvivei Daas, and Sifsei Daas on Pirkei Avos.