Bidspirit auction | A Heartwarming Family Letter to

A Heartwarming Family Letter to the Young Chazon Ish – From His Parents and Sister – Kosava, 1907 Beautiful family letter from the father, mother, and sister of Maran the Chazon Ish, Rabbi Shemaryahu Yosef Karelitz, his wife Rebbetzin Rasha Leah , and their daughter Mrs. Bande Kohn , written to the Chazon Ish while he was still a young avreich, barely a year after his marriage. Written in Kosava , 1907. Filled with the warmth and affection of devoted parents, the letter inquires lovingly after the welfare of their son and his young wife. It was written on 15 Iyar 1907 , a little more than a year after the Chazon Ish married Mrs. Batsheva , daughter of Rabbi Mordechai Baiman of Koidan , on 11 Shevat 1906. At the time, the young Chazon Ish was living near his father-in-law in Koidan (Kėdainiai, Lithuania), while his wife managed a fabric shop. • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • Rabbi Shemaryahu Yosef Karelitz (1852–1916), Rav of Kosava , was one of the distinguished rabbanim of Lithuania and a descendant of the author of HaPardes . Following the appointment of his father-in-law, Rabbi Shaul Katzenellenbogen , as Rav of Kobrin, Rabbi Shemaryahu Yosef succeeded him as Rav of Kosava, where he strengthened Torah and Yiddishkeit, founded a yeshivah, and became renowned for both his Torah scholarship and exceptional acts of chessed. The Torah of the Chazon Ish and the Torah of His Father Besides his sefer Beis HaTalmud on Chullin (Vilna, 1915), Rabbi Shemaryahu Yosef's Torah was preserved in the writings of his illustrious son. From his youth, the Chazon Ish learned with his father on a regular basis, and after inheriting—or otherwise receiving—his father's seforim, he frequently cites his father's handwritten notes preserved in their margins. Among other places, the Chazon Ish quotes his father's chiddushim in Hilchos Shabbos (siman 63), Hilchos Tefillin (siman 10), Choshen Mishpat (siman 22), Menachos (siman 42), and elsewhere. The home in which the Chazon Ish was raised was renowned for its atmosphere of kedushah, yiras Shamayim , and unwavering devotion to Torah, qualities that shaped him from his earliest years (Ma'aseh Ish, ch. 1). Before us is a precious early family letter from the parents of Maran the Chazon Ish, written while he was still a young avreich at the very beginning of his married life—a type of document of the greatest rarity, almost never encountered.