Mar 21, 2022

Tweet of the Day



and let's add in this second tweet as well, also from Itzik Ohana, reporter for Kikar


Ohana reports on Twitter of a kiddush hashem in that the players of the Macabbi Tel Aviv basketball team wore a black strap on their uniforms last night in their game against Hapoel Galil Elyon in memory of Rav Chaim Kanievsky. In the 2nd tweet he shows the fans of Beitar Jerusalem soccer club hung a sign in their game saying we all feel the pain of the passing of the gadol hador Rav Chaim Kanievsky.

These are all wonderful gestures, but not everything nice is a kiddush hashem. Rav Kanievsky was the furthest thing away from sports and I am not even sure he would appreciate such a gesture. Again, doing nice things is wonderful, but kiddush hashem? 

What do you think?

This also reminds me of the funny story (I do not know if it is true but I have heard it several times) in which someone asked Rav Chaim Kanievsky if he could play basketball on Shabbos. Rav Chaim asked him what is basketball? When the fellow explained it is a game where you try to throw the ball into a hoop, Rav Chaim suggested incredulously that he should just put the ball in the hoop before Shabbos...




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2 comments:

  1. There was a well-known saying of R. Yisrael Salanter that if the Jews in Lithuania were lax about Shabbos, the Jews in Paris would abandon their religion. The fact that R. Chaim Kanievsky, who basically spent his whole life learning Torah, and had no official position, is appreciated by those who are far from Torah is a positive thing.

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  2. More important is what it says about Israel.

    The story only serves to illustrate why poskim (R' Chaim was not a posek, despite best efforts to make him one) should live in the real world, and why questions should be asked to people who know.

    I am not at all denigrating R' Chaim or claiming that he *should* have known about basketball, but these are common-sense facts.

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