Rabbi Naftali Weinberger's latest book, Rav Chaim: The Life and Legacy of the Sar HaTorah (ArtScroll/Mesorah), is being released next week

Text excerpts and photos courtesy of ArtScroll/Mesorah Publications

When a young man named Naftali Weinberger entered the famed apartment on Rechov Rashbam, he couldn’t dream that the visit would lead to a long, warm, and devoted relationship with Rav Chaim Kanievsky and his entire family. Rav Chaim encouraged him to write the biography of Rebbetzin Batsheva after her passing, and now, as Rav Chaim’s first yahrtzeit approaches, he’s done the same for the Sar HaTorah — gathering a wealth of encounters and reminiscences and retelling them with detail, charm, and longing

IN the mid-1990s, Rabbi Naftali Weinberger was facing a painful challenge, and so the American yungerman sought out Rav Chaim Kanievsky for a brachah.

“While Rav Chaim’s diligence in Torah was legendary, he also opened his home and his heart to all who sought him, and he somehow shared in everyone’s pain and suffering,” says Rabbi Weinberger, whose latest book, Rav Chaim: The Life and Legacy of the Sar HaTorah (ArtScroll/Mesorah), is being released next week in conjunction with Rav Chaim’s first yahrtzeit. “I became close to Rav Chaim after he directed me through my personal issue. He also instructed me to write a sefer on the mitzvah of Shiluach Hakan (sending away the mother bird before taking the eggs) — a segulah for finding a shidduch and having children, two issues that greatly pained him — and from them on, although I don’t reside in Eretz Yisrael, I’d generally come to Bnei Brak four to five times a year."

Over time, Rabbi Weinberger developed such a unique and close relationship with the entire Kanievsky family that Rav Chaim even encouraged him to write the biography of Rebbetzin Batsheva a”h after her petirah in 2011.

“I’m close with the family and love being around them, and when I released my book Rebbetzin Kanievsky, people realized that I had a connection and would often contact me for assistance in getting an audience with the Rav,” Rabbi Weinberger says. “I’ve been privileged to escort friends and acquaintances, and can testify to many yeshuos I’ve personally witnessed.”

True, some of those salvations sound like stretches of the imagination, but they are all unembellished and accurate. “I know,” he says, “because I was there.”

Some of those stories made it into the book, such as the lifesaving blessing bestowed upon his friend Josh Goldberg. Goldberg — who says he’s proud to have his name known in relation to the story — was working in finance in a high-powered firm. He was a self-described “modern” guy, clean-shaven with a knitted kippah — until he was diagnosed with a critical case of metastasized cancer, his doctor giving him a two-percent chance of survival.

“Josh came in to Rav Chaim, crying, humbled, begging for a brachah,” Rabbi Weinberger relates. “But Rav Chaim seemed unconcerned. ‘You should grow a beard and peyos,’ he told my friend emphatically. My friend was taken aback. ‘A beard? Peyos? In my firm, I had to get special permission just to wear a yarmulke! There’s no way they’ll allow it. And neither will my family.’ Now, Rav Chaim is not usually so assertive and straightforward, but this time he wouldn’t relent. He said, ‘Neither your family nor your company wants a dead father or a dead employee.’

“Well, Josh did it, and had what can only be described as a miraculous refuah sheleimah. Today, he’d never dream of shaving, and even if he does, his wife won’t let him.”

Rabbi Weinberger says that although he merited spending 28 years on Rechov Rashbam, few of the stories in the book are actually culled from his own observations. Mostly, they’re based on interviews he did with Rav Chaim’s children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren, his surviving sister Rebbetzin Yuspa Barzam, fellow members of Kollel Chazon Ish, and his driver and disciple Reb Shaya Epstein.

“Gadol biographies” sometime get a bad rap for portraying the subjects as infallible, perfect human beings, but Rabbi Weinberger took the reality route instead. In one section, he relates how Rebbetzin Batsheva heeded the advice of her physician and took Valium to calm her anxiety when the tragedies of her many visitors and petitioners became too much for her sensitive soul to bear. For Rabbi Weinberger, was there a level of self-censorship?

“The story about the Rebbetzin taking anti-anxiety medication actually appeared in her biography,” says Rabbi Weinberger. “The backdrop for that was an interview I conducted with her daughter and son-in-law, Rav Zelig and Rebbetzin Bracha Braverman. They told me how the Rebbetzin was very proud of her personal example when she occasionally needed the meds — it was an encouragement for others who were told by their own physicians to take medication.

“After that interview, I discussed it further with several other Kanievsky children who told me I should publish it, that the Rebbetzin would surely have wanted it published. And baruch Hashem, there’s been very nice feedback from this — from therapists, and also from people who told me they themselves became more compliant about taking necessary meds after knowing that Rebbetzin Kanievsky also took medication.”

Rabbi Weinberger, who has authored Rebbetzin Kanievsky, Rav Chaim Kanievsky on Shidduchim, Reb Aharon Leib, and A Practical Guide to the Mitzvah of Shiluach Hakan, says that the past 11 months working on the new book has been a labor of love. His unparalleled access to Rav Chaim and the entire family has given him a broad reach that he passes on page after page, providing readers with an insider’s view of the Sar HaTorah’s remarkable life and achievements.