Rav Chaim Kanievsky, zt”l, leader of the Lithuanian charedi world and Sar ha’Torah (Prince of Torah), passed away shortly before Shabbos. His levaya Sunday morning was attended by over a half-million people.
Born in 1928 in Pinsk (then in Poland), he came to Israel at age six and lived in the charedi city of Bnei Brak. Never holding a formal position, he committed his life to pure study of Torah, and was supported by his family and community in doing so. In recent years, he was seen as the gadol ha’dor by many, especially in the Lithuanian charedi world.
His life held within it two distinct and notable parts, which can be discerned not only in his life itself but also in how he has been portrayed in the media.
On the one hand, Reb Chaim was the Sar ha’Torah in the sense of having mastered Torah. This is demonstrable in term of both his input (i.e., Torah study) and output (production of sefarim).
Reb Chaim had a set of regular learning commitments (chovos) which spanned much of his day. His goal was to learn through kol ha’Torah kulah – the entire classical Jewish canon (Tanach, classical midrashim, mishnah, Tosefta, Yerushalmi, Bavli, Rambam’s Mishneh Torah, Tur, Shulchan Aruch, and Zohar) every year, a monumental feat that granted him a fluency with every detail of the Jewish textual tradition.
This fluency is reflected in Reb Chaim’s publications as well – he authored a host of volumes, almost all of which cover more obscure areas or aspects of Torah. Among his unique strengths was the ability to bring in texts from far-flung places in order to further clarify the passage at hand, a testament to his bekius. A few examples: he authored two volumes that located sources for passages in Rambam that had no obvious precedent. He wrote commentaries on several of the masechtos ketanos (non-Mishnaic short tractates studied infrequently), and also on various parts of the Mechiltos, both Mechilta of Rabbi Yishmael and Mechilta of Rashbi.
His approach followed that of the Chazon Ish, aiming to best make sense of the language of the text, with the goal of ultimately arriving at halachic conclusions. Conceptual analysis can be used, but always as a tool towards pursuing those goals and not as an end in itself. (In that sense this approach differs from the Brisker approach that has become much more popular over the past century.) Interestingly, Reb Chaim was also very much open to using manuscripts and other modern methods in study. The best example of this might be his writing a commentary on Mechilta de-Rashbi, which was fully reconstructed in the 19th and 20th centuries on the basis of sporadic manuscripts and citations.
Speaking personally, I have benefited deeply from two of Reb Chaim’s works. The first is his masterful commentary on Yerushalmi, which, due to its status as the less-studied of the two Talmuds, is often harder to understand and also has fewer and less authoritative commentaries. Reb Chaim’s commentary synthesizes the existing commentaries and makes its own interventions, always aiming to arrive at the simple meaning of the Yerushalmi itself, rather than reading it in light of the Bavli. I have found it to be the most helpful commentary on Yerushalmi. (For what it’s worth, at a recent conference, a Talmud professor told me that he shared this impression.)
I also had the great joy of using Reb Chaim’s sefer Nachal Eisan when I taught Perek Eglah Arufah a couple of summers ago. An entire volume devoted to the laws of the Eglah Arufah (see Devarim 21:1-9 and Sotah ch. 9), drawing from the scant material in that perek but also from everywhere else in the Talmudic corpus, and raising important textual and conceptual questions throughout. The volume, 350 pages long, was first published in 1949 (when he was 21!) and was reviewed by the Chazon Ish. A masterful work on an area of halacha that gets too little attention.
In addition to being the Sar ha’Torah, Reb Chaim was also seen as the leader of the Lithuanian Yeshiva community, especially in Israel. Alongside Rav Gershon Edelstein (lehavdil bein ha-chayim), he was positioned as the head and spokesman for that community, and his advice was sought in all areas by a wide cross-section of people. There were regular lines waiting outside Reb Chaim’s spartan apartment by those seeking advice on halachic matters, on practical issues, or those wishing for a blessing or for advice on a segulah.
As prior rabbinic generations passed and Reb Chaim’s influence grew, his advice was consulted by the charedi political parties on issues of the day, as well. Over the past two years, this included intense negotiations around charedi adherence to Covid policies, as his decision held sway for whether all the charedi schools would close or stay open amid a new wave. The back and forth and political intrigue surrounding this earned Reb Chaim some unexpected attention, both in Israeli press (and comedy skits) and in the New York Times.
So Reb Chaim had two sides – a Torah side and a political side. What is fascinating is how little connection there was between the two. Precisely because his genius manifested itself in writing commentaries and analyses of the more obscure topics within the traditional Jewish canon, the casual yeshiva student is unlikely to have encountered his work. Contrast this with the publications of his father Rav Yaakov Yisroel Kanievsky, “The Steipler,” in his sweeping commentary on the entire Babylonian Talmud, Kehillos Yaakov, which most everyone comes across when studying classical yeshiva masechtos.
Not only is there no connection, but in many ways the two are in great tension with one another. Precisely because of Reb Chaim’s hasmadah, his constant learning, he was not acquainted with worldly matters. Some of his rabbinic peers described him as ignorant of the names of streets in his own neighborhood (where he lived nearly his entire life), and all the more so of recent trends in Israeli culture and politics.
Because of Reb Chaim’s removal from worldly matters, when he was sought for his da’as Torah, advice on how to proceed in worldly matters based on his Torah knowledge, his advice could stem only from his knowledge of Torah, kabbalah, and hashkafah, but not on the basis of his reading of reality. To that end, it was possible for the questioner to pose the query in such a way as to make Reb Chaim’s answer inevitable. When this approach was taken for matters of great communal severity, and especially over the past two years, it meant that the questioner (often someone steeped more in politics than Torah) could significantly influence Reb Chaim’s views on matters of great communal import and safety.
What holds together these two distinct aspects of Rav Chaim Kanievsky, simultaneously the great Torah scholar and the great leader and miracle worker of our generation?
There are two factors that bridge these two sides of Reb Chaim. The first is yichus. As noted, Reb Chaim was the son of the Steipler, not only a great talmid chacham but also known as a communal leader and miracle worker in his own right. Possibly more significantly, Reb Chaim was a nephew of the Chazon Ish, the unparalleled leader of (even founder of) the Israeli charedi community. He lived in the same apartment with the Chazon Ish, who was childless, and inherited his approach to Talmud study (as above), albeit in more obscure areas of Torah. He was also a son-in-law of Rav Yosef Sholom Elyashiv, another leading Torah scholar seen as the gadol ha’dor in the last decades of his life before his death in 2011. It was only fitting – and inevitable – that Reb Chaim would ultimately inherit both the Chazon Ish’s and Rav Elyashiv’s position as Torah scholars who were leaders of the charedi Torah world, as well.
The other factor bridging the two is in some ways opposite to the first – it is Reb Chaim’s hasmadah, his absolute commitment to studying Torah at all times. This commitment consumed the overwhelming majority of his life, which of course was the point: Ki heim chayeinu ve’orech yameinu, Torah was his life.
That hard-earned knowledge of Torah was the basis of Reb Chaim’s success in both areas. Clearly he was able to write sefarim based on his encyclopedic knowledge of all areas of Torah, and he routinely entertained questioners in all areas of Torah, responding fluently.
His profile as someone steeped in Torah knowledge was also what impelled everyone to seek his counsel and advice on all things large and small, personal and political, Torah-adjacent or further removed. Whether based on the formal doctrine of da’as Torah) or not, it was Reb Chaim’s Torah knowledge that provided him the gravitas to be sought after, almost non-stop, in a manner that only increased with his age. His ability to command people’s attention, both in the charedi community and in the broader sphere of Israeli politics and life, ultimately grew out of his status as the Sar ha’Torah.
Thus, even the unifying factors between both sides of Reb Chaim’s life stem are opposites – the yichus that we essentially have no control over, and the commitment and hasmadah in Torah, which is all about one’s effort and agency.
It is worth noting that Reb Chaim’s self-understanding, the way he viewed his own contribution, was as a teacher of Torah rather than as a communal leader. In a wide-ranging interview last year, his son Rav Shlomo asserted that his father didn’t see value in the miracle-working attributed to him, and saw himself simply as someone who studied Torah.
The Torah world has lost a Torah giant. Let us commemorate and recognize this Torah giant for his amazing and unparalleled contributions to Torah, especially in its most difficult and inaccessible areas.
Baruch Dayan ha-Emes. Chaval al de’avdin ve-lo mishtakchin.
