Part 1: The Quiet Lion of Vilna

In part one of this two-part episode, Gedalia and Rav Ephraim talk about the Chazon Ish, Rav Avrohom Yeshaya Karelitz, and try to define the vast influence of the Chazon ish on the frum world, and his impact on the conditions that allowed the Chareidi world in Israel to flourish. They discuss the Chazon Ish’s early life and family, and how a young masmid with virtually no yeshiva background could become the gadol that he was. Why didn’t the mussar movement resonate with the Chazon Ish? What was his marriage like, and why did he enter it knowing he would never have children? Find out how the Chazon Ish could identify a person’s yiras shomayim without meeting them and why he once took a bite of an apple without making a bracha.

Part 2: Building the Chareidi World

In part two of this episode, Gedalia and Rav Ephraim speak further about the Chazon Ish, and what he accomplished for the Chareidi world in the last two decades of his life. They discussed the fervor of the athiest Zionist movement was in those days, and how the Chazon Ish opposed Zionism and formulated a way forward for frum Jews. Was the Chazon ish the machmir on shmitta that people thought he was? What prompted R’ Chatzkel Levenshtein to say that the Chazon Ish had a once-in-a-generation siyata dishmaya to give psak? What was the Chazon Ish’s method of protesting the government? And find out which flaw the Chazon Ish said a young R’ Gershon Edelstein had.