‘Dinim Vehanhagos Chazon Ish’ – a Book Review
On the one hand, DV is meant to be super-accurate (although the introduction honestly warns against relying on anything in practice, of course). It wasn’t just written by Rabbi Meir Greinemann shlita, no insult intended, but by a team directed mostly by his brother, Rabbi Chaim (although you won’t find a hint of this), and Rabbi Chaim zatzal took full responsibility for the result. The items were reportedly narrowed down from approximately seven times the amount of material. And the introduction, written by Rabbi Yechezkel (Chatzkel) Brettler, is a gem.
And yet, for all the care taken, it’s not perfect (even in the second edition). First of all, the constipated “Ktiv Chaser” language, mimicked from the Chazon Ish is a barrier to those accustomed to kinder Hebrew. There are a few typos, I think.
Also, the reader is supposed to fill in some blanks with data he likely lacks:
For example, the Chazon Ish would often refer to his own de novo rulings as “The Minhag” reigning “here” (Bnei Brak? Israel?), because he wanted it to be so, and thought it would become so, and to give his opinions greater weight. A Minhag he disapproved of didn’t carry much weight in his eyes, anyway, even more so than by other Torah scholars. (This is assuming he even knew what it was. Recall well: the Chazon Ish didn’t know too much of the reid in Achronim.) He felt he was in charge of determining custom, not Chassidic Holocaust survivors. See, for instance, Shvi’is Siman 20 before the laws of non-Jewish fields, or his remarking the “custom” is to refrain from work on Erev Pesach, even before Chatzos (according to some book I read), etc. The same is true for Dinim Vehanhagos 18:11 re not shining shoes on Chol Hamoed.
This should be spelled out!
Also, “too many cooks” trying to be too careful can result in forgetting what you wanted to say. For instance, in chapter 11 #9, the source is Chiddushim Ubi’urim Kiddushin 33b who wrote: “כמדומה” (or: I am almost positive). This then somehow became “יש אומרים” (some say), which was not their intention at all (since it has the weaker connotation), which informs us by the way, the two terms are synonymous in their lexicon (כמדומה!). Comical, sure, but at the end of DV chapter 3, is “העידו” the same as “יש אומרים” or closer to “אמר”…? Some people have never taken to heart the Chazon Ish’s letter on “Lashon K’tzara”.
In other words, the unnamed writers’ haughty insistence on not adding any extra words leaves us playing the games readers must play to comprehend Charedi news rags (viz. “Why is X titled Y and not Z?”).
Sometimes the writers’ need for varying the language (so it doesn’t sound silly, like “אכל הודו” or boring) led them into error. For example, in DV 6:9 “לא הי’ מדקדק על רביעית במים אחרונים”, the truth is far stronger: the Chazon Ish thought the notion is ridiculous and didn’t believe “Ma’aseh Rav” the Gra said so.
