Rav Avraham Chaim Brim related the following stories about the Chazon Ish zt”l:
The Chazon Ish said about himself that, due to sickness and a weak constitution, he never studied as much Torah as he wished he could. Nevertheless, he admitted that whenever he did study, he did so to the point of utter exhaustion and sheer collapse! In fact Rav Mordechai Shulam related that when he used to study Torah with the Chazon Ish, the seder limud (study session) always ended only once the Chazon Ish dropped from fatigue. When they recommenced it was only because he had regained enough strength to go on!
One time, as they studied, the Chazon Ish grabbed a fruit and bit into it, beginning to eat without reciting a beracha. He later explained that he had studied and pushed himself to such a point of exhaustion that he felt he had no strength whatsoever even to recite the beracha [because the way the Chazon Ish recited a beracha took some time!] before waiting and had he not eaten he felt his health might have been in a state of emergency.
Whoever knew the Chazon Ish could testify that when he quotes from another sefer and apologizes, saying he is paraphrasing because he does not have access to that sefer, this does not mean that he did not have a copy in his home, nor does it mean that he did not have a copy in that very room. It could even have been right there in his room on the bookshelf – but he simply did not have any strength left at that time to get up and take it!
This means that as the Chazon Ish was writing about some of the deepest, most difficult sugyas (topics) in Torah, he had exerted himself till he was at such a point of weakness and exhaustion that he did not even have the strength to get a sefer from the bookcase and look up a source. He truly embodied and fulfilled the teaching that the Torah is only miskayem (enduring) in one who literally kills himself over it – memis atzmo aleha!
Rav Mordechai Shulam once found the Chazon Ish in bed with his feet on the pillow and his head at the foot of the bed. The Chazon Ish excused himself, saying that had he had enough strength left before collapsing into bed to know which way was which, he would have used that strength to study more Torah.
The Chazon Ish remarked that he could only recognize the difference between cold and heat before he delved into a sugya; once immersed in Torah, he could no longer differentiate. Furthermore, he once commented that any taste in food and even any feelings of hunger were only distant childhood memories, because today he was so immersed in deep study and learning that he had simply forgotten these matters altogether and they no longer existed for him. He explained that nowadays when he felt so weak and sick that he would faint and collapse, that signaled to him that he should eat – but only to regain his strength to learn more, not because he felt hunger! (Marbeh Chaim p. 27-28)
