הרב יעקב ישראל קנייבסקי

Rav Yaakov Yisrael Kanievsky (9 Tammuz 5659/1899–23 Av 5745/1985), known to all as the Steipler, or the Steipler Gaon, was among the leaders of Torah Jewry in Eretz Yisrael and the author of the Kehillot Yaakov on the Talmud. He was born in the Ukrainian town of Tashan to Rav Chaim Peretz Kanievsky, the town shochet and a Chernobyl chasid, and his wife Bracha, and was named Yaakov Yisrael after Rav Yaakov Yisrael of Cherkas. When he was eleven his father was niftar and his mother returned to her family in Hornostaypil, near Chernobyl — the town whose name clung to him for life. Before the age of twelve he entered the Novardok yeshiva of Rav Yosef Yoizel Horowitz, wandered with the yeshiva to Homel at the outbreak of the First World War, and was then conscripted into the Russian army, where he guarded military posts near Moscow and held fast to mitzvot under the mockery of the soldiers.

In 5682/1922 he slipped across the border into Poland and joined the central Novardok yeshiva in Bialystok under Rav Avraham Yoffen, and in 5685/1925 published his first sefer, Sha’arei Tevunah. On 7 Adar 5687/1927 he married Pesha Miriam Karelitz, daughter of Rav Shemaryahu Yosef Karelitz and sister of the Chazon Ish — the Chazon Ish himself was the shadchan — and from then until 5694 he served as ramm in the Beit Yosef–Novardok yeshiva of Pinsk.

In Adar 5694 (March 1934), some eight months after his brother-in-law, he sailed with his family to Eretz Yisrael and settled in Bnei Brak, where he was appointed rosh yeshiva of the Beit Yosef–Novardok yeshiva there. He held the Chazon Ish as his rebbi, and in the Chazon Ish’s last years the two households lived as one. Together with Rav Elazar Menachem Man Shach he stood at the head of the Litvish Torah world, though most of his day was given to learning and to the stream of Jews at his door: severely hard of hearing, he would read each written question or request and answer and bless. In learning he guided talmidim to review every daf four times before going on, and once a year, on the Chazon Ish’s yahrzeit, he would say a shiur in the Kollel Chazon Ish before a great crowd.

His life’s work, the Kehillot Yaakov on the mesechtot of the Shas, appeared from 5696/1936 onward; beside it stand Shiurin shel Torah on the halachic measures, following the shitah of the Chazon Ish, Birkat Peretz on the Torah, Chayei Olam on emunah and mussar, and the volumes of his letters, Karyana D’Igarta; a talmid described his daily conduct in Orchot Rabbeinu. He was niftar on leil Shabbat, 23 Av 5745 (10 August 1985); some two hundred thousand accompanied him, and he was buried beside the Chazon Ish in the Shomrei Shabbat cemetery of Bnei Brak. His son was Rav Chaim Kanievsky, and in Bnei Brak a whole neighborhood — Kehillot Yaakov — now bears the name of his sefarim.