The Chazon Ish
As a young man, Rav Elyakim Schlesinger of London, a Talmid of the Brisker Rav, zt”l, served the Chazon Ish, zt”l. One time, he built up the courage to ask the Chazon Ish if he knew that he was the Gadol HaDor.
The Chazon Ish thought for a moment and then replied that he was aware of his role and responsibility as the Gadol HaDor. When the young Rav Elyakim asked how the Chazon Ish balanced that awareness with the Middah of Anivus.
The Chazon Ish explained, “Humility does not require one to deny his abilities. Rather, one must appreciate the talents Hashem has given him and realize what he has. Anivus helps one attribute those gifts to Hashem.”
The Chazon Ish concluded, “I am certain that if someone else would have been given the gifts I was given, he too would have become the Gadol HaDor!”
In his later years, the Steipler Gaon, Rav Yaakov Yisroel Kanievsky, zt”l, would give his annual Shiur, in memory of his brother-in-law, the Chazon Ish, to an assembly of thousands of people.
One evening, following a Shiur that had an unusually large crowd, the Steipler, in his great humility, said, “It is only because the Shiur is given once a year that I have such a large crowd. If I were to give this Shiur on a weekly basis, I would be lucky to have a Minyan to say Kaddish D’Rabbanan after!”
Another episode, of many, also reflected the humility of the Steipler. One Purim, an especially large group of young children were brought by their parents to visit the Steipler Gaon to receive a Brachah. The Steipler commented, “The large crowd is the result of their day off from Cheder. Children are home, and the mothers have to occupy them with something to do. The easiest thing is to bring them to an old man for a Brachah!”
Reprinted from the Parshas Vayeitzei 5784 email of Rabbi Yehuda Winzelberg’s Torah U’Tefilah.
