Tag Archives: Chazon Ish

Jew of the Week: Rav Chaim Kanievsky

Prince of Torah

Shmaryahu Yosef Chaim Kanievsky (1928-2022) was born in Pinsk (then Poland, now Belarus) and made aliyah with his family to Israel when he was six years old. He never left the Holy Land thereafter. His father was the great “Steipler Gaon”, Rabbi Yaakov Kanievsky, and his maternal uncle was the famed Chazon Ish. Following in their footsteps, Kanievsky became a rabbi, too, and was recognized as a sharp scholar at a young age. As a yeshiva student during Israel’s Independence War, he briefly served in the newly-formed IDF and defended Jaffa (though he did it spiritually, spending most of the time at his post learning Torah!) He then married the daughter of another great rabbi, Rav Elyashiv. Rabbi Kanievsky typically studied Torah for about 17 hours a day. He would wake up at midnight to pray Tikkun Chatzot (mourning for the destruction of the Temple and the exile of the Jewish people) and then learned for the rest of the day, starting with eight (double-sided) pages of the Talmud Bavli, followed by eight pages of the Talmud Yerushalmi, and then selections from a number of Jewish legal codes, the Tanakh, as well as Midrashic and Kabbalistic texts. What normally takes a typical rabbi a lifetime to study, Rav Kanievsky would complete every year! He was famous for his total mastery of all Torah texts, with photographic memory and an ability to mentally “scan” these texts for any word or phrase. He was often called the “Prince of Torah”. In addition to his studies, Rav Kanievsky wrote over a dozen popular books and commentaries. Hundreds of people would line up daily to ask questions and request blessings. His blessings were known to be fulfilled, often miraculously, and his legal rulings were followed closely by religious Jews, especially those in non-Hasidic Ashkenazi communities. He regularly responded to thousands of letters, too. Rav Kanievsky lived simply in a small apartment in Bnei Brak his whole life. After the passing of Rav Shteinman in 2017, he was widely-recognized as the supreme authority on Jewish law, and the top gadol hador. Sadly, the Prince of Torah passed away shortly after the conclusion of Purim last week. He had completed his yearly study cycle the previous day. Some 750,000 people came to his funeral, making it among the largest in Israel’s history.

Words of the Week

In a lottery, it is not the ticket that wins but the person.
– Rabbi Chaim Kanievsky

Jew of the Week: Rafael Halperin

Rafael “Mr. Israel” Halperin

Rafael Halperin (1924-2011) was born in Vienna, immigrating to Israel as a child along with his family who fled rising tensions in Europe. Despite living in Ultra-Orthodox Bnei Brak, and studying in yeshiva, Halperin was drawn to body-building and exercise. To everyone’s surprise, Halperin’s rabbi, the famous Chazon Ish – one of the greatest Jewish leaders of the last century – actually permitted Halperin to pursue his new passion! After learning the depths of the sport in the U.S., Halperin returned to Israel and opened The Samson Institute – Israel’s first chain of gyms and health clubs. He soon organized the first ever Mr. Israel contest, and drew the attention of a wrestling promoter. As a professional wrestler, Halperin earned the nickname ‘Samson the Second’. Among the most famous wrestlers at the time, he refused to throw matches or participate in match-fixing, which has always been the norm in wrestling. [Click here to see Halperin in action.] Amazingly, he was also the personal trainer for Ethiopia’s emperor Haile Selassie, the father of Rastafarianism. Halperin was adept in business, opening many restaurants and hotels across Israel, as well as the country’s first automated car wash. His greatest success was ‘Optica Halperin’, Israel’s largest chain of optical stores. To the last days of his life, Halperin was a businessman. A year before his passing, he opened ‘Zisalek’, Israel’s newest glatt-kosher ice cream parlour. Devoutly religious throughout his life, Halperin officially received his rabbinic ordination in the 1970s, and in his later years worked to develop a credit card that wouldn’t function on Shabbat. Oh, and he also started his own political party called Otzma, published several books including an encyclopedia, worked as a diamond cutter, was once Israel’s karate champion, and fought in the Yom Kippur War. What have you done lately?

Words of the Week

Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree it will live its whole life believing it is stupid.
– Albert Einstein