Ahead of the Game

A reader emailed me to comment on my column in the Pesach issue, in which I mentioned how things didn’t go so easily in learning for a young Chaim Kanievsky and that his uncle, the Chazon Ish, tailor-made a different approach for him: “The line you wrote as a preface to the difficulties Reb Chaim had in learning as a youngster, ‘Although one might not know it from reading what has been recently written about Rav Chaim…’ left me with a sigh of relief, of ‘Finally!’ It is a fact that he and his family have actually repeated on many occasions. I find it frustrating that Rav Hutner’s letter disparaging biographies of gedolim is quoted often, and yet, when there is an opportunity to profile a gadol honestly — because he has made his limitations public — no one has the guts to do it. To me, the biggest lesson from Rav Chaim is look what a person can become if he has the desire and is willing to put in the work. The mofsim, etc. are only meaningful in that context.”

The idea that hard work and the will to learn are by far the two most essential ingredients for growing great in Torah is one that the gedolei Torah in Rav Chaim’s own family emphasized repeatedly. So too did they insist that one need not be anything like a child prodigy to reach the loftiest heights.

The Chazon Ish wrote numerous letters to struggling bnei Torah, encouraging them and seeking to spur them onward toward success in learning. In almost every one, he stresses that everything turns on making an unshakable decision to learn diligently. To one ben yeshivah he writes:

“All beginnings are difficult, but nothing can stand in the way of one’s will, and he who comes to purify will be assisted to do so. The main thing is the decision of the heart and not to retreat in the face of the challenges you encounter at the very beginning” (Collected Letters 1:17).