It is with tremendous anguish that we inform you of the petirah of the Sar HaTorah, Maran HaRav Chaim Kanievsky. He was 94.
Hatzolah rushed to his home on Friday night after the gadol hador suffered a massive heart attack. Hatzolah members worked valiantly to revive his, but were sadly unsuccessful.
Rav Chaim was widely recognized for decades as the preeminent Gaon HaDor and the model of a one shakul b’torah day and night. The gadol famously finished kol hatorah kulah (Bavli, Yerushalmi, all Medrashim, etc.) every single year, making a siyum on Erev Pesach.
Hundreds of thousands of people sought his Brachos, advice and guidance over his lifetime, and he was the first person to be turned to in times of crisis and pain.
It appears that the Levaya will be held on Sunday.
HaRav Chaim Kanievsky was born on January 8, 1928, in Pinsk, Second Polish Republic, to HaRav Yaakov Yisrael Kanievsky, known as the “Steipler Gaon”, and Rebbitzen Miriam Karelitz, sister of the Chazon Ish. He married Rebbitzen Batsheva Elyashiv, daughter of the late Posek Hador, Hagaon HaRav Yosef Sholom Eliashiv. She was Niftar in 2011.
In his youth, he was already known as a brilliant child prodigy who had a photographic memory for Torah and could elucidate complicated rabbinic teachings, despite his young age.
Y’hei Zichro Baruch.
(The Yeshiva World News).