The noted Mashgiach Rabbi Don Segal told the following story involving Rabbi Chaim Brim a mechutan of Maran HaRav Yosef Shalom Elyashiv ztz”l at one of the many hespedim delivered during the latter’s shiva. In the early days of the State Rabbi Brim and his chavrusah used to travel daily from Jerusalem to Bnei Brak to learn. Over time many Yerushalmim began to send inquiries with the two young men to the Chazon Ish.
One day Rabbi Brim apologized to the Chazon Ish for all the time they were taking from his Torah study by the various inquiries many of which were not specifically halachic in nature. The Chazon Ish replied that answering those inquiries did not detract from his Torah learning but rather increased it. Success in Torah learning he explained is not derived from the same input as in other chochmos (intellectual disciplines); it depends on the neshamah of the one learning. And when one helps his fellow Jew he expands his neshamah and is therefore able to absorb more Torah.
With this insight I was finally able to understand a story about the Chazon Ish related by Rabbi Shlomo Lorincz in his book In Their Shadows. I am greatly moved by this story and have told it over many times but I never fully understood it.
The Chazon Ish’s personal doctor once told him about an elderly patient hospitalized in one of the Tel Aviv-area hospitals whom no one ever came to visit and whose health was being adversely affected by his loneliness. The next day when the doctor made his rounds in the hospital he found the Chazon Ish sitting at the patient’s bed conversing with him.
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