Q&A: The Chazon Ish
The Chazon Ish
Question
I’ve seen that the Rabbi mentions the Chazon Ish many times with great appreciation. I noticed that the Rabbi points out that he did what he thought was right, and also his style of learning. In general too (that is, not only with the Rabbi), there is great admiration for the Chazon Ish.
I wanted to understand what people find in him. I don’t know the history well enough, but I understood that he led Haredi society and greatly advanced Torah study. But I’m asking about the analytic learning side: every time I studied his words, they seemed not very sharp and not so clearly defined. He deals a lot with details and doesn’t often explain the underlying reasoning, unlike Rabbi Shmuel for example and the other yeshiva heads who created the classic style of learning. So why study him?
Thank you
Answer
You describe with great precision the feelings that accompanied me when I studied the Chazon Ish. I felt that he learned like a regular layman. Like many earlier later authorities (the Sma was nullified in this respect), and the medieval authorities (Rishonim). But as you get older, you see that behind his approach there is plain common sense, and it can also be translated into analytic Brisk-style terminology (for whoever that matters to).
And after all that, I would say that my main appreciation is for his personality, and not necessarily for his learning.
Discussion on Answer
Absolutely.
Rabbi Michi, in my opinion he had very good intuition; at times I saw that he grasped the depth of the topic / passage, even its philosophical depth.
Isn’t that so?