הרב חיים קנייבסקי

Rav Shmaryahu Yosef Chaim Kanievsky (15 Tevet 5688/1928–15 Adar II 5782/2022), known throughout the Torah world as the Sar HaTorah, was the eldest son of the Steipler, Rav Yaakov Yisrael Kanievsky, and of Pesha Miriam, sister of the Chazon Ish. Born in Pinsk — his father was sandek at his brit and named him for both grandfathers, Rav Shmaryahu Yosef Karelitz, rav of Kosava, and Rav Chaim Peretz Kanievsky — he came up to Eretz Yisrael with his family on 1 Nisan 5694/1934, settling in Bnei Brak, at first in the home of his uncle the Chazon Ish. He learned in Yeshivat Tiferet Tzion under Rav Michel Yehuda Lefkowitz, then a period in his father’s Yeshivat Beit Yosef, and then in the Lomza yeshiva of Petach Tikva under Rav Reuven Katz, where at seventeen he finished the entire Talmud Bavli for the first time and heard the shiurim of Rav Elazar Menachem Man Shach; every Shabbat he returned home to learn from the Chazon Ish. When the yeshiva bachurim were sent to stand guard in the war of 5708/1948, his commander sent him to the top of the hill with his Gemara, and there he learned until the fighting passed.

On 7 Kislev 5712/1951 he married Batsheva Esther, daughter of Rav Yosef Shalom Elyashiv; the Chazon Ish, in a letter praising the chattan, crowned him mara d’chula talmuda — master of the entire Talmud. The couple settled in Bnei Brak, where he learned for decades in Kollel Chazon Ish and kept the order of learning he called his chovot, his obligations: from midnight until sunrise, eight daf of Bavli each day with the parallel sugyot of the Yerushalmi, together with daily portions of Tosefta, Rambam, Tur and Shulchan Aruch, Tanach and Zohar — completing the entire Talmud every year at a siyum held on Erev Pesach before a great crowd, and using the added month of a leap year to ready a new sefer for print.

Best known of his sefarim is Derech Emunah, on the mitzvot that depend on the Land; beside it stand Shoneh Halachot, prepared with his chavruta Rav Elazar Tzadok Turtzin, and his editing of the Tevunah commentary of Rav Yitzchak Eizik Krasilschikov on the Yerushalmi. Thousands of letters of she’elot reached him each year, answered in a few words apiece; about a hundred sefarim of other authors carry sections of his teshuvot, and the Da’at Noteh series gathers his answers on the order of the Mishnah Berurah. Hundreds came to his door daily for counsel and for his brachah, famously brief: bracha v’hatzlacha.

At the founding of Degel HaTorah in 5748/1988, Rav Shach set him at his side and said of him that he is the greatest we have in the world; after the petirot of his father-in-law Rav Elyashiv and of Rav Aharon Yehuda Leib Shteinman, he led the Litvishe Torah community together with Rav Gershon Edelstein, holding firm to the rulings of the Chazon Ish, such as not relying on the heter mechirah in shemittah. He was niftar on erev Shabbat, 15 Adar II 5782 (March 18, 2022), at his home on Rechov Rashbam in Bnei Brak. His levaya, from his home to the Shomrei Shabbat cemetery in the city where he was buried, drew an estimated half million or more — the second largest in the country’s history.