Yitzhak Herzog24.03.22 07:10 21 Adar 2 Tishpev
Photo: Large picture – Shuki Lerer, small picture – Jonathan Zindel / Flash 90)
There are great people who influence their generation, and there are huge people, whose influence is not only on their generation, but on many generations after them. The ‘Minister of the Torah’, the Gaon Rabbi Shmaryahu Yosef Chaim Kanievsky ztl.
Greater than I am in the Torah has already miraculously elevated his wondrous mastery over all of the Torah, the Talmud, the literature of questions and answers, the Midrash, the Aggadah and the Kabbalah. Some have emphasized his books in which he dealt with all Torah subjects and especially in rare and unique fields.
Some noted his perseverance and willingness to deal with small as well as large questions and the thousands of questions he was asked and answered, in every field and in every matter. While others pictorially described his immense and relentless perseverance, his commitment to the ‘arrangements’ and ‘duties’ he set for himself and which he maintained in times of routine and emergencies, holidays and weekdays, moments of sadness and joy.
Herzog visiting Rabbi Kanievsky
But anyone who watched the crowds marching after his bed and saw the nuances of multifaceted Judaism, Hasidim and dissenters, ultra-Orthodox, national-religious, traditional and secular, Sephardic and Ashkenazi, great men and Jews of everyday life, marching after his bed realized that we mostly lost R. Haim ‘, simply like that. Indeed, not all of us have studied in his books. Not all of us have dealt with his teachings.
Rabbi Kanievsky’s funeral procession this week
But we all felt as if we had lost one of the crown diamonds of the Jewish people, who had passed away. Because R. Chaim was a scholar, but not only a scholar. As great is his learning, so great is our humility and simplicity. And as I witnessed on my visit to him, his house was not only a house of sages, but a house of the whole public, not stopping for a moment from his Talmud, and returning to the fine print, immediately after receiving the next to him with special warmth and sweetness.
A few days ago, when I met with the President of France, I tried to explain to him who R. Chaim was. I told him about a man who was not a scientist or a Nobel laureate but whose genius and diligence were exemplary. I told him about a giant spirit that the wisdom of the Torah was his great passion. A man who distanced himself from honor, and refused to serve in any official rabbinical position.
The funeral procession (Photo: Haim Goldberg)
A man who, despite his closure and distance from any position, had a tremendous impact on the Jewish people. A man who embodied the Jewish ideal of Torah in its name. A man that so many people who did not necessarily know felt towards a tremendous appreciation and left everything to accompany him on his final journey. I told him about R. Chaim. His right will protect us and all of Israel Amen.
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The author is the President of the State of Israel, Yitzhak (Buzi) Herzog
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