THE CHOFETZ CHAIM החפץ חיים

One of the outstanding personalities of the last 150 years in the Jewish, Charedi world, if not the most outstanding of all was R’ Yisroel Meir Kagan, universally known as the Chofetz Chaim. His fame as a great author of ספרים and universal acclaim as a great Tzaddik is acknowledged by all segments of Jewry, whether they are Ashkenazim or Sephardim, followers of the Lithuanian school or Chassidim.

His classic on Halacha, the Mishnah Berurah, has become the standard sefer on אורח חיים, the laws pertaining to day by day conduct for the whole year round.

There were other great scholars, teachers, Tzaddikim and phenomenal Torah luminaries in the same period. What was it that has made the Chofetz Chaim this outstanding person, so looked up to and respected by one and all.

One could perhaps attribute it to a number of factors including his great humility, the fact that he lived well into his nineties, was a Kohen, wrote his ספרים in a clear style, easy to understand and follow, and was one of the great leaders of the Agudas Yisroel movement in the early twentieth century. But, if one delves into the history of the period, one can find other people who also approached his greatness in various spheres.

I believe that the secret of his acceptance by all, of this outstanding personality, lies in two stories that I read about in a book produced by Rabbi Pesach Krohn, Travelling with the Maggid (from pages 138 onwards).

In short, the father of the Chofetz Chaim, Rabbi Aryeh Zeev Kagan lives in a suburb of Grodno, known as Zhetel. He married a lady called Miriam, and they had two sons, Moshe and Aharon and a daughter Reizel. Miriam unfortunately passed away and he was left as a widower with three small children. He then married Miriam’s younger sister, Dobrusha, and in 1839 they had a little boy named ah BrYisroel Meir. He was an extremely bright boy and by the time he was nine, Rabbi Aryeh Zeev decided to take the young boy to Vilna where a suitable melamed could be found to teach him.

Rabbi Aryeh Zeev himself had been supporting his family by giving private lessons in Vilna, as well as teaching in Yeshiva there and he decided that accordingly he would be able to keep a fatherly eye on his son, Yisroel Meir. When he was eleven years of age a cholera epidemic raged and Rabbi Aryeh Zeev, who was only 47, passed away, a poor man. Therefore, Yisroel Meir was left to fend for himself. He was taken in by a man who did that in exchange for Yisroel Meir tutoring his grandson.

Three years after Dobrusha was widowed, she remarried a person called R’ Shimon, a widower from Radin who had attended the Volozhin Yeshiva in his youth. The family moved to Radin and the Chofetz Chaim was by then approximately 15 years of age.

Some time later, R Shimon who had a daughter Freida by his previous marriage thought that it would be a good idea for his daughter to marry Yisroel Meir.

Shidduchim had already been suggested for this very bright and gifted boy, for example, a dowry of 10,000 rubles, a fabulous sum, had been offered by one of the wealthy Jews of Vilna. In addition, he had been suggested to the daughter of a very famous Rabbi and another who was a Rosh Yeshiva.

When his older half brother, Aharon, heard about the suggestion that he should marry Freida, his step-father’s daughter, he was incredulous, he stated emphatically that Yisroel Meir was doing a disservice to himself. “Not only is the girl much older than you but you could also marry into either a home full of Torah, being that of a great Rabbi or Rosh Yeshiva, or alternatively, with a father in law who has wealth and is able to keep you for the rest of your life.”

Yisroel Meir would not hear of it. He stated “If I marry Freida, can you imagine how grateful R’ Shimon will be to our mother. He will appreciate her all the more, imagine the good will that will be engendered between R’ Shimon and our mother.” Reading between the lines, I am tempted to suggest that there may have been friction or potential friction in the family and the Chofetz Chaim wanted to make sure that his mother would be looked up to and treated in the best possible manner.

Against all the advice that he was given, and his own natural inclination, he agreed to marry the daughter of his step father. I believe that they got married around 1860 and the Chofetz Chaim lived in Radin with the rest of the family.

Some ten years later, a bitter dispute broke out in Radin between the Rav and some members of the community. As a result the Rav had to leave his position and within two years he died, still suffering the heartache of having been forced to leave the position he loved. Rabbi Yisroel Meir Kagan, now a mature young man who was very learned, was terribly pained by that episode and he decided to write a sefer about the problems that words can cause. He worked on the book for a number of years and when it was published, he was in his mid thirties. This was the famous sefer Chofetz Chaim – Shmeras Haloshen, חפץ חיים, שמירת הלשון which basically is a definitive Shulchan Oruch on the laws of speech.

Incidentally, before I read this story, I often wondered how it was that the Chofetz Chaim, in his sefer, so accurately portrayed in detail the way people think, speak and spread tittle tattle, loshen hora etc. If, as I believe we all know, he was such a Tzaddik, how did he hear it all. However, having learned that he lived in this small town, almost a village, known as Radin for all the years that the community was in turmoil, because the dispute between the Rav and some of the members of the community, he, no doubt, could not avoid hearing various opinions expressed wherever he turned. Whereas a lesser person might have just ignored them or perhaps even accepted them, he stored them in his memory and utilised them to illustrate so brilliantly in his sefer, how one may not behave and how one must try to strive to speak and behave in general and indeed, in detail, according to the rules of our Holy Torah.

I am the proud possessor of a first edition of the Chofetz Chaim and Shmeras Haloshen which was printed in Warsaw in 1877. This sefer has on it, handwritten, that it has been מוגה, gone through by the Chofetz Chaim himself to ensure that there are no major mistakes. Furthermore, it does not give the name of the author, even though it has four approbations from famous Rabbis, they also do not give the name of the author. In his humility, the young man as he was then, R’ Yisroel Meir Kagan, had his first sefer published anonymously.

Now let me return to my original question, as to why this giant of stature has been so phenomenally successful and he and his ספרים accepted by every segment of the Charedi community.

I believe that the two stories I mentioned above, are the key to it. The Chofetz Chaim when turning down more glittering shidduchim and settling for the girl he married went beyond the call of any duty of Kibbud Av V’em. He set aside completely his own preferences in favour of his mother having a better life. Secondly, when he witnessed the terrible results of loshen hora and rechilas, he did something about it practically. He did not look for his own honour and he disregarded the fact that he might have considerable antagonism when he published the sefer and when it would finally come to light who the author was. He was motivated by a pure desire to try to repair the problem and help improve klall Yisroel.

It is related that he, himself, used to go round from town to town and city to city to sell the sefer. A leading scholar once suggested to him that he was, in fact, stopping people from talking, as people would be afraid to say something that was either loshen hora or rechilas etc. The Chofetz Chaim retorted that the opposite was the truth. Whereas previously, people were unsure as to whether they were allowed to say things because they might be doing something wrong, once they had studied his sefer, they would know what they may say and could speak clearly, in accordance with the Torah guidelines.

Once the Chofetz Chaim found that his sefer had been accepted with acclaim and was achieving his objects, he set about writing other seforim, only publishing those which he felt there was a burning need for in the particular context of the times.

For example, there is a sefer נדחי ישראל which goes into detail for the people who emigrated to the USA and other such places to ensure that they kept the minimal halachos even if they did not have a Rabbi or Torah structure in which to live. He wrote a sefer specifically for the Jewish soldiers who were conscripted into the Russian army, once again, to try to ensure that they kept the minimal halachos and there are many other examples in his numerous seforim published.

The sefer Ahavas Chesed is as its name would suggest devoted to showing the importance of doing kind deeds and charitable deeds with every fellow Jew. We are talking about a time and place where people were extremely poor in the main and it was very difficult to keep Jewish life going and his sefer helped considerably to raise standards of chesed.

I mentioned earlier on that the חפץ חיים was a Kohen. He was for ever hoping that the Moshiach would come quickly and that the Bais Hamikdosh would be rebuilt. Accordingly, he started off a Kollel to learn specifically קדשים in Radin. One famous member of that Kollel was the Ponivizher Rov. He discovered that there were very few classic commentaries on the Mesechtas of קדשים and that they were very rare and difficult to find. He, therefore, published a sefer ליקוטי הלכות which incorporates a number of the great classic commentaries to assist in understanding the difficult Mesechtas as well as bringing clarity to the matter.

I, in fact, myself heard from his grandson Rabbi Mendel Sacks who was in my house many years ago that his grandfather never published a sefer unless there was a major need for it and he felt that he could fill the gap.

His crowning effort was the famous משנה ברורה which was published originally, commencing in approximately 1885. It took the Torah world by storm and as I mentioned earlier on, has become the standard textbook studied world wide in Yeshivas and by lay scholars as well as, of course, all Rabbonim. It is considered as the final פסק to be relied upon.

In short, Rabbi Yisroel Meir Kagan’s extraordinary success was triggered by the fact that Hashem decided that because the Chofetz Chaim had been so self effacing and willing to give away his own future life of comfort, for the sake of his mother, coupled by his burning desire to produce seforim needed for the times and for future generations, Hashem has ensured that he be accepted as the final authority in so many ways as far as Jewish scholarship and learning is concerned.