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Lot : 38
Lengthy and Detailed Letter on Eruvin with a Hand-Drawn Diagram by the Chazon Ish
Lengthy and Detailed Letter on Eruvin with a Hand-Drawn Diagram by the Chazon Ish
Four full pages in the handwriting of the Chazon Ish – Rabbi Avraham Yeshaya Karelitz.
To clarify his words, the Chazon Ish drew a geometric diagram within the text of the letter.
The letter was written in response to comments on his sefer Chazon Ish on Eruvin. In it, the Chazon Ish explains and defends passages from his work, and the letter has since been extensively discussed and analyzed by contemporary Torah scholars.
He opens the letter with the words: “I received your letter and hesitated whether to continue our exchange, for I realized how difficult it is to express these complex ideas in writing, as the subject demands deep analysis. In the end, I decided to write, believing this was the proper course.”
The laws of Eruvin are one of the most intricate and complex areas of halachah. The Chazon Ish devoted exceptional effort to mastering this subject, clarifying many of its most challenging questions and establishing new halachic principles in his landmark sefer Chazon Ish on Eruvin (Vilna, 1929). After settling in Eretz Yisrael, he played a central role in the establishment and supervision of eruvin in towns and agricultural communities.
Page Count: [2] leaves, comprising four written pages. One leaf measuring 16 × 19 cm, the second 19 × 25 cm. Altogether, 70 generously spaced lines, including the original envelope, addressed and signed: "IS”H. Karelitz, Bnei Brak." .
Condition: Good. Published in Chazon Ish – Shu"t VeChiddushim (Bnei Brak, 2016).
The Diagrams in the Chazon Ish’s Sefarim
The Chazon Ish’s diagrams on the laws of the calendar and eruvin are well known. However, unlike the illustrations in his printed sefarim, which were executed by others according to his instructions, the diagram found here was drawn by the Chazon Ish himself in his own handwriting!
Saved Through His Study of Eruvin
The Chazon Ish once related that during the war, while in Minsk, he had no passport, and anyone caught without one was immediately executed. When he heard that soldiers had entered the city searching for such people, he fled — but mistakenly ran toward the very place where the soldiers were stationed. They stood in two rows, and he walked directly between them. Astonishingly, no one stopped him. After passing through, he escaped safely. He later remarked that he had been certain that he would be spared because he had just completed writing his sefer on Eruvin (Orchos Yosher, Rabbi Chaim Kanievsky, entry “Hashgachah, ” p. 27).
On another occasion, while pointing to a particular passage in his chiddushim on Maseches Eruvin, he told his disciple Rabbi Shlomo Cohen: “I thought of this chiddush in a cellar in Stowbtsy while bullets were flying over my head” (ibid., vol. I, p. 19).
Three Consecutive Years Studying Maseches Eruvin
Rabbi Chaim Brim recounted that it took the Chazon Ish three months merely to gain an initial grasp of Maseches Eruvin — what he called “the first entry into Eruvin.” Yet, from that point on, he studied with such enthusiasm and vigor that for three consecutive years he maintained the same intensity with which a yeshiva student learns a four-hour seder — or an exceptional masmid studies for six hours. After completing his study of Maseches Eruvin, however, the Chazon Ish was so exhausted that he remained physically weak for an entire year (ibid., vol. VI, p. 34).
