Stories Of Rabbi Chaim Kanievsky | סיפורים על רב חיים

Rav Chaim Kanievsky one time fell in Lo Aleinu, he broke his shoulder. He had a full-length cast on his right arm, right in the middle of the when he was writing a piyush on Kochim. He was writing his piyush on the Rambam in Kochim. A very important piyush, and in the middle he broke his whole right hand, he was not able to write anymore. So, one of the his relatives, his grandchild, told him a maiseh. He felt bad because it was dafka his right hand, he said "Chaval, it wasn't the Rav's left hand, at least he would be able to continue writing his piyush." And he told him a once Rav Chaim Friedlander, the great Siftei Chaim, who was a great maggid here in Eretz Yisrael, he was a mashgiach in Ponevezh and other places, used to travel from yeshiva to yeshiva yeshiva, he was a talmid of Rav Dessler, and he was known for his tremendous oratory capabilities of the time, even before it's our anytime was around. And Lo Aleinu, at a certain age, he actually received the machla, he received cancer, and it was in the mouth. And there was a big question, you know, this person's mouth is like a you know, it's like one of the 10 martyrs, Chutzpis, who his tongue was taken out, they said this is the place of kedusha, and how can he go ahead and receive cancer dafka over there? They asked one of the gedolei hador, and he answered on the contrary, because it's in a place of kedusha, it's going to help him out. You're going to see that it's going to be a tremendous siyuah for him, it's going to be a tremendous help for his situation. And the truth is, he was prescribed, the doctors told him, they diagnosed him for approximately a month other month because they found an advanced cancer, Lo Aleinu, in his in his vocal cords, in his in his mouth, in his throat, and he actually lived for a number of years after that. He lived for a number of years because of the koach of the kedusha of the place, it was able to save him. So, too, they said to Rav Chaim, it must be that's why the Rav's right hand was hit in order that he'll get a refuah shleimah very quickly. That must be why it's there. Rav Chaim's looking the whole time at them and doesn't know what they're talking. What what What are you asking? I understand, of course it's better that it was my right hand than my left hand. If it was my left hand, I wouldn't be able to be putting on tefillin every day. So, they were at then they wondered, "Mhm, what's worse? The fact that he can't write divrei Torah, or the fact that he won't be able to put on tefillin?" He says, "Divrei Torah, you're chayav when you're able, and when you're not able, you're patur. Then you have a din of patur, you're not there. As opposed to if there's no chiyuv at all by Talmud Torah. As opposed to when it comes to tefillin every day, there is an obligation. If you're onus, onus rachmana patrei, if you were and you have no choice, then you don't put it on. But it doesn't mean that by obligation that day doesn't exist. So, I'm much happier that I'm able to put on my tefillin every day as opposed to writing the divrei Torah, cuz at least for that, I am officially not chayav at all. I wouldn't want to miss a day of putting on tefillin. From here, we see a tremendous idea, which I see always, especially with stories with Rav Chaim, and that is this idea that we tend to think in our own instinctive type of way. Action, reaction. The way I think, the way I want something to happen, I immediately do it, and that's who I am. A person who's living in a more spiritual world, such as Rav Chaim and many of our gedolim, the way they think is Torahdik. Behalachta bedrachav, they think in the way of Hakadosh Baruchu. This is the theme of Elul, Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur, going in the way of Hashem. Going in the way of Hashem means that I try to think Torahdik, in the way that Hakadosh Baruchu wants me to think. My decisions are made with that type of way of thinking. Elul is the mazal of Betulah, of the virgin, because it's a time of renewing. Instead of doing everything out of rut, out of just doing a reaction and reaction, finding myself in places which I have no idea why I'm there, a person should think first and then react. How often do you find yourself picking up your phone and flipping through it even though you have no idea why you're doing it. Who says that you should be picking up your phone and looking at it? Now, I'm not even talking about looking at the wrong places. How many I tell you, how many times have you looked through uh different you're going through flipping through your phone and going through different types of apps or things that you have to go through and looking even though there's absolutely no need for it. Even though there's no need for doing it at all. You're doing it only because it comes out of absolute habit, out of rut. I'm just doing it. You're busy getting angry at your child and while you're in the middle of getting angry at your child, you're wondering, do I want to be here? Do I need it to be here? Why am I here? The answer is because it's just what I do. Whenever my kid does X, I always do Y. It's just something that's part of the system that I do all year around. Once a year, such as Elul or coming to Rosh Hashanah, person stops and reassesses his actions and go, am I thinking the way the Torah would should be telling me to think? Am I acting the way I'm supposed to be acting? Am I coming here just to look at as many type of clips, and many type of things that people send me, and how many things on WhatsApp are only getting worse and worse because now you can just send everything from all different places, they could just fall from the sky, and I'm just looking at things from one thing to the next. You know, like we say in the Haggadah, what do we say in the Haggadah? The all the were sitting around the table and they said, "What did I give you last week?" And they woke and they told him in the morning they came to all the some people that are so busy on their flipping around in their phone and then he gives enough, no more. You okay? If you want you stayed up the whole night and enough. And again, I'm not even talking about his sermon here, that's a whole different level. That you could deal with your local Orthodox rabbi. I'm not telling you to say you're looking at kosher things, but who says right now you have to look at the news again. You just saw 10 minutes ago and now again, and you have to go ahead and re-look at another clip and they send that clip send you to another clip and this WhatsApp who says you have to go ahead and check every single WhatsApp every 16 minutes. Where does that come from? It comes from a chain reaction from addiction that comes from outside sources telling you just do it. Go ahead and do it. Not being in control of yourself. So what we see a story with Rav Chaim, we see someone who's in control of himself. Let's look at what his uncle said. The uncle of Rav Chaim, the great Chazonish, writes in a letter, "The biggest one I have is when I do the ratzon Hashem." And he brings quotes directly to Chaim Kanievsky. Every action I think of what the Shulchan Aruch would tell me in this case and we're not to do things about my own personal actions. You understand? He says that's the idea behind one's life. You want to live life, you want to live really and it's the most happiest way to live. There is nothing more exhilarating and nothing nothing that gives more to nefesh to know I'm living being in the way of Hashem. Because I'm positive about every action that I take and that's why our had such to nefesh. It's no coincidence that we call halacha. I teach in a girl's school and over there they call it dinim. Dinim is what we call laws. Laws is what you have in courts. Courts who make up laws and they do whatever they want and it's just black and white and it's meaningless laws. Halacha from halicha going, walking. Everything you do. When I learned masochist Irvin, I walked outside and I looked, "Oh, here's a car for for there's a tour. That's just a rabbit. You go ahead and you think in the world of halacha. You wake up 4:00 in the morning to go to excuse yourself. You have to go to the bathroom. You're about to turn on the light. Go, "One second, is it Shabbos?" No, it's not Shabbos. I can go ahead and turn on the light. Go ahead and remind yourself, "You're about to put something in your mouth. Did I check the here?" One second, I'm positive this is kosher, let me just double check. Oh, okay. One one time what bracha is this? Oh my gosh, it's a mixture of two things. All right, sir, do you know what exactly is the ingredients? What do you want from my life? Can you just tell me is there more flour here or what's the majority? How many vegetables do you have here? You have to go ahead and check everything before you know what to get the right bracha bracha acharina to be able to do that. And living life with a good as possible. You're not living by your instinctive actions. We're too busy living on a constant basis doing whatever I think I'm doing just because I'm doing it. Just because everyone else is doing it or just telling me what to be doing. Everything works by action reaction. Here we have it in Elul is the time for the turnover. And that's really what we say Shofetim v'Shotrim. We have The shofet is the one who judges and then afterwards we have the one who implements. The shoter is the is the cops. It's the policeman. He's the one that implements what the judge says. Shofet is your brain. Make a decision. Think before you react. Stop stop for 2 seconds before you go ahead and do something and then only there shoter go ahead and implement those actions that you want to do. Rav Lopatin would advertise and this is on a high level, we're not there. And he said in one of his speeches that one time he was waiting for the bus and then he got up and looked down the street to see if the bus was there. And afterwards he hit himself over the back for it because he said why did I have to do that? Who who says I have to look for the bus? When the bus comes I'll get to it. That was an unnecessary look. That's a person who's always thinking. We're not on that level, but you think before you do an action. Rav Yeruchem was in the same school of thought. Rav Yeruchem Levovitz, he would always three times a day do something different from what he wanted to do. And I'm not talking about something not permitted. He was going to walk on this side of the street, he walked on the other side of the street. He he decided to walk in a certain way or wear his watch in a certain way, he switched it to the other way just to show that I think before I go ahead and do my action. That's really what Elul is about. It's a time where we take a stop, we take a breather, and we rethink our necessary actions because we live 11 months a year in basic rut routine, just doing what we're doing cuz we're doing it, and not thinking, "Am I sure that I'm going down the right streets? That I'm walking the right way because of the lack of sneutas there? Are there other ways for me to go?" And that's a person who's thinking what could it be? Then I'm going to end with an incredible story with Chaim also with Chaim Kanievsky. Endless about the stories. In 2001, Chaim Kanievsky had a mild stroke. He had a stroke and he was in the hospital Mayanei Yeshua in Netanya. And he was able to get out of it. He came back to where to where he was. First thing as we classically know in therapy that they did in the hospital is they want to check your motoric skills and your cognitive skills by making you write. They give you a piece of paper and a pen. Once upon a time when people used to write on a piece of paper like this. And they gave him a pen in order to write something. They said, "Here, can you please write something?" They wanted to see that he was cognitively with it as they say. Guess what? Chaim wrote "May the heavens give me a yeshua." He quoted the saying "May the heavens give me a yeshua." He said "May the heavens give me a yeshua." He said "May the heavens give me a yeshua." The therapist looked at him and said, "Look, I've been in the business over 20 years. I have to tell you 99.99% of the time everybody writes their name. Everybody writes their name. If I give you a blank piece of paper, you always write your name. This is what people do. The first thing that comes to your head is especially after a stroke." They said, "Can you please tell me why you decided not to write Chaim Kanievsky? Why not?" He looked at him and was astonished by the question, "What are you talking about? You don't sign a blank piece of paper. You're not allowed to write your signature on a blank piece of paper because maybe a bad person is going to write on top of it 'You owe me a million bucks.' And you already have your signature on the piece of paper. So you're never allowed to sign a piece of paper that's >> million bucks and you already have your signature on the piece of paper so you're never allowed to sign a piece of paper that's blank because it could be someone will take advantage of your signature and make you pay up with a check. This is a man after a stroke who's thinking what could his brother have did. Everybody writes and reaction immediately to what they do. There's a man who stops and does things like his uncle said I'll pay a check on her. I'll pay what needs to be done. We're not going like that. We're not on these levels. I got it. Not a problem but at the same time we could take it and be cognitive of the actions that we do. If we think we live, that's kind of what we're talking about and kind of what we do. We're talking about the way of living. This is what life is about. To go ahead and reinvigorate the way I think, my decisions and not let someone else be telling me how to think.