I actually thought the Rabbi would have plenty to say.
Specifically regarding Rabbi Chaim, there were many things connected to topics that come up on this site from time to time.

The Rabbi (Michi), in many articles, raises the painful issue that outwardly displayed emotion has conquered every good domain.
More than once the Rabbi has charged that most of the public is interested in nonsense and the vanities of this world
("MasterChef Is Born," in your golden phrase), and with that they waste their time and clog up their minds and the wellsprings of their understanding.

Likewise, there is round-the-clock preoccupation with the soap operas of Judaism (Hasidism, songs, feelings, and other such creatures)
and not with its one true essence, which is Jewish law.
And also (in the columns about Bibi and company and more) one can see the revulsion the Rabbi feels
toward permissiveness and charlatanism that many are drawn after, like blind mice in a gutter,
and so on and so on.

Yesterday at the funeral, more than being a sad event over the magnitude of the rare loss,
I think there were some pretty unusual things there in the landscape of the Land of Israel, and in general.

A man without money, without status, without any official position (he wasn’t even a maggid shiur for the third study session),
whose whole pleasant manner was a challenge and a scorn toward externality, emotionalism, and permissiveness.
He didn’t even worry about his own appearance (as befits a Torah scholar).
With the stroke of a hand he wiped out the three well-known crowns (money, honor, power), and showed that even when your surroundings are corrupt and rigged to the core, you can remain clean and white as snow, and nothing will budge you from your four cubits of Torah (which does not happen, and almost has not happened, in our times).

And beyond that, here on the site the Rabbi has more than once, with his good hands, taken swings at Rabbi Chaim
for not knowing what "Florence" is and for not being familiar with the form of a coin,
and also at his epidemiological ideas during the different waves of the coronavirus,
and for bringing the Jewish people and the world into a situation of danger to life
(both medically and because of inviting a "night of pitchforks," as written in that article),
and that those who seek his lists and whisper in his ear insist on disgracing him morning and evening.

I think many of those who were at the funeral yesterday, and others who cherish his memory,
knew these things very, very well.
We all have "Rabbi Chaim" jokes in our arsenal,
but the event yesterday was a kind of demonstrative proof that Torah will not be forgotten from Israel.
Yes, we do know how to distinguish between the essential and the secondary, between inside and outside, between a deep authentic tone and a jumble of background noise.
People came to say, at one in the afternoon in the heart of the year twenty twenty-one:
yes to spirit and no to rain, yes to wisdom and not to materialism. Yes to intellect and not only to emotion.
And to bless the One who distinguishes between Israel and Israel—and the nations.

Personally,
among all those tens upon thousands of Jews,
I was דווקא looking for the Rabbi there.

Dear Yankush, you don’t understand…
Rabbi Michi always has to be the contrarian. That’s his motif. He always has to bring to the front of the stage whatever everyone else pushes into the corner, and show the brilliance and pearls he knows how to extract from places where others are lax in understanding. And the truth is, he’s pretty good at it. But whereas the attempt is supposedly to be especially honest and upright in clarifying things in depth—which is actually the reason for the impressive ability just described: to see things opposite to the way most people see them and illuminate genuine points in them—his mind has gone off course into always looking to say the opposite of everyone else. And he also finds wonderful explanations for this, organized in a remarkably systematic way.
About Ruth Gavison and other figures whom the believing herd doesn’t especially like, he has to jump in and compose words of sense and wisdom (usually true and correct) to show nations and princes their beauty. But to relate to a uniquely precious person (in his domain) like Rabbi Kanievsky?? What is there even to say here? Why waste time on him at all?
And true—it could be argued that he really sees no reason to deal with a matter that everyone is already discussing and exhausting, saying what there is to say about it—the obvious. But the scent (a sharp one, it must be said) that rises from his style is one of an annoying agenda to simply be different. With indifference and lack of interest he’ll respond when everyone else is stirred up and roaring, and the opposite in the reverse situation.
The days of integrity and honesty have given way to days of agenda and tendentiousness, carefully and skillfully dressed up.
What a pity for what has been lost…

There are those who went to the funeral.
And there are those who didn’t go to the funeral.
A protest against what has gone on here in recent decades in the name of Rabbi Chaim…

So you appreciated him and therefore went, while I—and apparently most of the Jewish people—chose not to go.
This time Rabbi Michi is with the Jewish people…[almost all of it]

Rabbi Michi, maybe you don’t have anything specific regarding Rabbi Chaim, but we’d be glad to read your views about the recent great Torah leaders in general. Most of them (or all of them) did not deal with faith, and it seems they didn’t really know whether the Torah is true because it is true or because that’s how they were born, and if so, does that mean they chose to stay in their comfort zone? And that this is basically like any person who lives inside his own vanities and is unwilling to confront reality (especially Rabbi Chaim, who did everything his father did)? And so every reader who comes in here and thinks a bit about faith is much more of a Jew than these great Torah leaders—isn’t that so?

I’ve written more than once that people choose their path, each in his own way. One according to intuition, another according to arguments and examining alternatives. No one really covers and checks everything, so this is a matter of degree and not a categorical difference.
I do indeed agree that there is an advantage to someone who decides by way of serious examination of the alternatives. This is especially true if, had he examined them, he would have changed his position. In such a case I don’t know whether to relate to him at all as a believer.
A general evaluation of a person should be formed on the basis of several parameters: both how and how much he examined his path, and also the investment and achievements he had in the path he chose. Therefore, even if someone did not examine his path, that doesn’t mean it isn’t right to value him for his achievements, and vice versa.
If someone is a great Torah scholar, he is worthy of appreciation. Period. That is not conditional on anything else except his efforts and achievements. If he did not examine his path, then from that standpoint his value is less, in my opinion. But there is no reason to assume that specifically Torah scholars do not examine their path and ignoramuses do. Each person according to what he is.

Would you be willing to share with us some of your experiences in the Chazon Ish kollel when you tried to talk with them about faith? Assuming you spoke about it, of course—did they talk with you beyond slogans? Thanks.

As a rule, I didn’t talk with people beyond learning, and certainly not about matters of faith (because it doesn’t interest me) and worldview (because there’s no one to talk to). Aside from a few individuals with whom I did get to talk a bit, and I definitely found critical thinking and an open mind. I assume part of that comes from familiarity and trust, which make openness possible. These are talented people and also critical, except that it doesn’t find practical expression beyond thoughts. When you meet an intelligent person, all the more so when there is familiarity and trust, human nature is the same everywhere. The stereotypes are wrong. The problem is mainly on the social plane (incidentally, that’s true of any problematic society. Palestinians, for example). All the ferment and criticism and thought are under the table or underground, with no public-social implications. Haredim are very lacking in courage and unwilling to pay a price. They wait for revolutions to be done for them.
Incidentally, for this reason I also have no sympathy for the suffering and distress many of them feel there. If it matters to you, come out of the closet and pay prices in order to change things from within, or leave Haredi society altogether. Likewise regarding requests from users whose internet is filtered. I comply with requests, but I’m not willing to go out of my way and make an effort for them.
And another aside: I had the very clear impression that the Ponevezh people are more analytical and more closed-off (critical mainly in learning) than the Chazon Ish/Slabodka people.

Avi, with conclusions like those,
maybe it really would be better if you just relied on your fathers… and mainly spared us from them.

It’s enough to see from the few lines you wrote here that your investigative world is still narrower than an ant.
For example, to call Rabbi Chaim a man of comfort zone—that’s ignorance pure and simple.
Comfort was the last thing he sought. Even if he didn’t exert himself in the things you think are worthy of effort, the man toiled to the utmost in what he thought mattered and got where he got.
Lack of investigation is not some novelty of the later generations—"enough already with this nonsense"—most of the great Torah leaders did not engage in it, and a very small minority who did usually did so while conducting difficult battles with other rabbis.
Rabbi Michi has always wondered, sitting in his seat of wisdom, how the elders of Bnei Brak know how to fight like lions over passages of Jewish law, yet when it comes to matters of thought and worldview they’ll buy from you any line of nonsense you choose to load onto them. And behold, wonder of wonders, that is indeed the way of the Talmud: matters of Jewish law are discussed there with full seriousness, while homilies and the distribution of rewards and punishments are said as slogans in the air between the afternoon and evening prayers and were written down for generations without investigation or examination. And in the few places where our sages answered questions of these kinds because of the government and the like, the answers they provided don’t add or subtract much.
That doesn’t mean it’s good, but it’s clear to everyone that that’s how it was.

According to what you’re saying, observance of Jewish law, sanctifying God’s name, opening one’s home and heart to every leper and sufferer, Torah study without interruption,
writing books, and more—
all of that is null and void compared to investigation and confronting reality. Unbelievable.

I’ll just say that my excitement peaked in light of your words:
"And so every reader who comes in here and thinks a bit about faith is much more of a Jew than these great Torah leaders—isn’t that so?"
I don’t know what to say, but maybe as part of the eased conversion policies being discussed now, maybe that really will be one of the parameters:
entry to Rabbi Michael Abraham’s website.

Yankush, your writing is excellent; I enjoyed it.
And on the substance: indeed, Rabbi Kanievsky was a great and towering man whom almost no one comes close to matching, and there is a tremendous amount to learn from him. And as you noticed, I spoke about being a "Jew." If you know Rabbi Michi’s approach, you can certainly wonder, regarding giants of spirit who know the entire Torah except for the faith-related part of it, what the level of their Judaism is—not practically, but intellectually. Does a person opening his home to every sufferer strengthen his Judaism in some way? And if a person loves to learn and be committed to Torah because it gives him meaning, and prefers to invest his whole self in it without checking whether the foundations are correct, when he has the intellectual ability to check—and assuming that if he did check, he might change his mind—does that tell you nothing about his current Judaism? So yes, a serious person who wants meaning in his life and decides to invest his whole self in Torah without checking whether it is true, at least at a certain point, is a bit of a comfort zone.
Beyond that, your quotations that things were also this way in the past do not add or subtract anything from the discussion. It may very well be that he is continuing a tradition of burying one’s head in the sand—maybe yes and maybe no—but I am asking only about the later generations, regarding whom we have more knowledge.

Rabbi Michi, the descriptions are fascinating; we’d be glad to read more. Thanks.