Forty-eight years have passed since the demise of the father
and teacher of all Jewry, Maran the Chazon Ish ztvk'l
on 15
Marcheshvon. He put his stamp upon every facet of
Torah, and his
lasting impression is present in every aspect
of life. Countless
stories are told, and will yet reverberate
for generations to come,
about his incredible toil in Torah,
his assiduous and pure yiras
Shomayim, the depth of
his noble character traits and the scope
of his intellect and
wisdom of heart.
We have asked R' Zvi
Yabrov, author of the series of works
Maase Ish, to delineate
for us several facts and
vignettes that have not yet seen print, so
that they can
provide us with new insights, lessons and
wisdom.
*
A kollel fundraiser of yore, for what is
today the
Kollel Chazon Ish, once asked the Chazon Ish, "Why do
people
repeatedly tell me to `come tomorrow'? Will these people be
any richer on the following day?"
The Chazon Ish replied, "Those
people still need the three
[daily] prayers in order to be worthy of
giving!"
(HaGaon R' Yaakov Galinsky shlita)
*
It
was once imperative for the father of the Chazon Ish, R'
Shmaryohu
Yosef Karelitz zt'l, av beis din of
Kosova, to eat on
Yom Kippur. He ate ten minutes before
sundown (which was the maximum
time allowed him to fast). He
did not wait for the stars to come
out.
(HaRav Chaim Kanievsky shlita who heard it from the
Chazon Ish)
*
HaRav Chaim Kanievsky was once witness to an
amazing scene:
It was before daybreak and the Chazon Ish lay in bed,
berating himself loudly, "You lazy one! Why are you lying
there?"
Immediately afterwards, he leaped out of bed.
*
A
bochur once came to the Chazon Ish with a question.
Since he
was an orphan, he had an obligation to daven
before the
omud. But another person in the yeshiva
apparently also had
such an obligation and would be given
preference. He preferred
remaining in yeshiva, where the
prayers were measuredly slow,
allowing for the proper
concentration, but if he sought a different
shul, he
would be able to lead the davening. However,
there,
the prayers would be faster paced. What should he do?
The
Chazon Ish replied: "You are better off praying at a
leisurely pace
in yeshiva, where you will be able to recite
Kaddish [at any
rate], than leading the prayers at a
rapid pace
elsewhere!"
(Source: word of mouth)
*
When he was a child,
R' Chaim Kanievsky asked him which was
the most difficult tractate in
Shas. The Chazon Ish
was thoughtful for a moment and replied,
"Kesuvos."
He was then asked which perek he found
most
challenging in all of Shas. His reply:
"Kirah!"
R' Chaim saw Rabbenu review the entire tractate
of
Brochos in about two hours. He did not mouth the words
but
skimmed across the pages with his eyes, without taking in
Rashi and
Tosafos.
*
R' Yisroel Yosef Shapira zt'l once came to
the Chazon
Ish before sunrise. The Chazon Ish was pacing the floor,
deeply engrossed in study, when along came a rabbi from Tel
Aviv,
suggesting his own explanation of a controversy between
Abaye and
Rovo on a certain subject, with a somewhat forced
explanation. The
Chazon Ish was not particularly pleased with
it and he smiled
indulgently, "When I `hear' Abaye and Rovo
talking, I am able to
enjoy it even if I can't understand
exactly what they're
saying."
(From his son, HaRav Moshe Arye)
*
HaRav Avrohom
Rapoport zt'l once spent a summer
vacation together with a
group of Novardok yeshiva students
in Tzfas in the company of the
Chazon Ish. For the first few
days they had the privilege of being
joined by the Chazon Ish
for the davening, but suddenly he
stopped coming. The
bochur attending the Chazon Ish had no
inkling of the
reason. He just knew that the Chazon Ish remained in
his room
during this time with a wet towel wound around his head
while
he kept pacing the floor.
After about three days, the
Chazon Ish resumed his prayers
with the yeshiva students. Extremely
curious, the students
pressed the attending bochur to find out
the reason
for the absence.
It turned out that the Chazon Ish had
encountered difficulty
in understanding a passage in the commentary
of the Vilna
Gaon. He had toiled over it arduously for those three
days
with a wet towel wound around his head until he finally
overcame the intellectual obstacle and understood the
Gra.
*
R' Zev Kibel shlita tells: "I once came to ask
the
Chazon Ish a halachic question: my Rabbenu Tam
tefillin
had fallen to the ground. He questioned me about
what I do and I said
I studied in a kollel.
"`Put a few coins into a
tzedokoh box,' he answered.
That would suffice. I was not
required to fast, he ruled,
since this would interfere with my Torah
study. I noted again
that the tefillin were `only' Rabbenu
Tam.
"His reaction was swift and vehement: `What? Do you think
that Rabbenu Tam's tefillin are any less holy than
Rashi's?'"
(From HaRav Moshe Arye Shapira who heard it from the
firsthand source)
*
As a child, Rabbenu was learning a
passage in gemora
dealing with an animal that died. He
translated the term into
the Yiddish as peigert, which
is a derogatory
slang term for death [like `bite the dust' or `kick
the
bucket'], instead of the more acceptable term. His rebbe
corrected him and told him to use the finer term [even though
only
an animal was involved].
(From HaRav Chaim
Kanievsky)
*
HaRav Yisroel Yosef Shapira was present when the
following
took place:
Children used to stand in line when the
Chazon Ish made
havdoloh to get a taste of the wine, which he
obligingly gave out. The daughter of one of his disciples
once
joined the line of little boys but her father hastened
to rebuke her,
"If you drink from that wine, you will grow a
beard."
The Chazon
Ish heard the remark and smiled, "That's what
der veldt says.
But der veldt is wrong. It's
the other way 'round. It isn't
the one who drinks the
havdoloh wine who grows a beard.
Rather, one who grows
a beard is the one who drinks the
wine!"
(From his son, R' Moshe Arye Shapira)
*
HaRav
Yaakov Steinharter tells:
I remember that once an entire class
from a certain Bnei Brak
cheder came to the Chazon Ish to be
tested,
accompanied by their rebbe. They all sat together in one
room, waiting to be heard individually. Before addressing
each
child, the Chazon Ish first turned to the rebbe and
inquired, "Can
this student be asked?"
If he understood from the rebbe that this
was a weak child,
he would either skip him altogether or ask him a
very simple
question.
*
R' Yisroel Yosef Shapira was employed
in a certain profession
but received a very meager salary. He once
came to the Chazon
Ish deploring his financial situation. He advised,
"If that's
the way things are, why don't you find a job with
diamonds?"
"But the diamond business is doing very poorly now,"
he
complained.
The Chazon Ish reassured him that it would soon
make a
comeback. And so it was.
(He had been working at
nikur, removing the forbidden
sciatica nerve from the
hindquarters of slaughtered animals.
He was adept at cutting and
chiseling and the Chazon Ish
intuited that he would do well at
cutting and polishing
diamonds as well.)
(From his son, R' Moshe
Arye Shapira)
*
R' Yosef Weinberg z'l once asked the
Chazon Ish's
advice about opening a slaughterhouse. How much should
he
invest in the venture to make it worthwhile and how much
profit
could he expect? The Chazon Ish discussed the various
aspects of the
business and then added, "Regarding profit,
you must take the chicken
feathers into account."
R' Weinberg was surprised. "Feathers? They
have no value.
Chicken feathers are thrown away!"
"Don't be so
hasty to discount feathers," replied the Chazon
Ish.
R' Yosef
went ahead and opened his slaughterhouse. Not long
afterwards, a Jew
approached him and offered him a large sum
for his feathers. Why did
he need chicken feathers, of all
things?
It seems that at the
time, when it was generally illegal to
own dollars, the government
permitted exporters to buy
dollars through the bank if they showed
proof of a
transaction. This Jew found it worth his while to "export"
chicken feathers -- which he dumped overboard as soon as the
ship
was out at sea -- for the right to buy dollars legally.
These, he
later sold on the black market for a huge
profit.
R' Chaim
Kanievsky added that if the Chazon Ish declared that
something had to
be taken into account, like the feathers in
this particular case,
then it was so, merely by virtue of his
having uttered the statement.
He said -- and it came into
being!
(HaRav Eliyohu Mann who heard
it from R' Yosef's grandson)
*
What is more preferable on the
night of Shavuos -- to study
Torah or to recite the
Tikkun?
R' Chaim Kanievsky told of a man who once came to
the Chazon
Ish with this question. "Go and study Torah!" ordered the
Chazon Ish.
Shortly afterwards, another Jew came to him with the
identical question and the Chazon Ish said, "Recite the
Tikkun."
"I was present throughout," testifies R' Chaim
Kanievsky,
"and heard the two contrary replies. I was very surprised,
but upon thinking about it, I realized that the Chazon Ish
knew both
people and their differences. The second one was a
man who recited
the Tikkun each year but somehow, a
doubt had arisen in his
mind this year if he had been doing
the right thing all along. The
Chazon Ish told him to
continue his practice as in previous
years.
"The situation with the other man was precisely the
opposite;
he had never recited the Tikkun in past years. He
had
learned Torah throughout but suddenly feared that he might
not
have been doing the right thing. The Chazon Ish urged him
to continue
as he had been doing in past years -- to
study."
*
R' Avrohom
Wertheimer relates:
I was the contractor who built the old beis
midrash in
the Vishnitz neighborhood of Bnei Brak. As excavations
were
being made for the foundations, the body of a man was
uncovered. The question immediately arose whether it was
permissible
to reinter it elsewhere and continue with the
construction.
I
accompanied the present-day Admor of Vishnitz shlita
to the
Chazon Ish who stated, If I am not mistaken, the
sugya at the
end of maseches Nozir which there
deals with bodies that had
been found says that it must be
three bodies to bear out the fact
that the site must once
have been a graveyard for burial. In this
case, however,
since only one body had been unearthed, there was no
need to
go digging to see if there were any more.
*
The
Chazon Ish once traveled to Petach Tikva with R' Zelig
Shapira
z'l to serve as sandak at a
bris. They picked up
HaRav Yosef Dinkles zt'l
en route and indicated that he sit in
the middle, with the
Chazon Ish to his left and R' Zelig to his
right.
The Chazon Ish nodded and said, "That will be in perfect
order: Kohen, Levi and Yisroel."
