Rav Levine devoted his life to Israel

Rabbi Kalman Levine, Hy”d, a native of Kansas City, Missouri, worked tirelessly for Israel and its people, his grieving family in Colorado said on Tuesday.

Levine’s sister, Shelley Levine of Boulder, said her brother, who made aliyah in his 20s, was so committed to studying and teaching that he would sleep for only four hours at night.

“He would do whatever he could to fulfill all the kindnesses of us as humans,” she said. “His essence was that he was a man of great wisdom and prayer.”

Rabbi Levine’s brother-in-law, Jonathan Bein, said that “perhaps the saving grace was that, because of his commitment to the land of Israel, commitment to being in Jerusalem, that he went the way he would have wanted to go — which is in prayer in the land of Israel, in Jerusalem.”

Rabbi Levine attended the University of Southern California, where he studied the Torah and Talmud. He left afterward for Israel. He was born Cary William Levine, and later adopted the Hebrew name Kalman.

His nephew, Raphael Bein, said his uncle once turned down a position as a posek, an arbiter or decider of Jewish law, out of fear that a bad decision could destroy somebody’s spirituality.

Rabbi Levine had nine children and five grandchildren, Jonathan Bein said.

“There are people, once they get there, their ethic is to never leave the land of Israel. He was one of those people,” Bein said.