Sacred and awesome segulah leaf!
Unique and rare manuscript – all the segulahs for memory, [65 segulahs] collected from all over the Torah! Handwritten by the Sar HaTorah himself, Rabbi Shmaryahu Yosef Chaim Kanievsky. [Bnei Brak, pre-1973.]
What most especially characterized the gaon Reb Chaim was his complete knowledge of the entire Torah by heart, hence his unique title, “Sar HaTorah” – one who has mastered all that is contained in the Torah. Reb Chaim clearly possessed every Torah virtue: depth, broad expertise and adjudication, etc, but this is the field in which the gaon Rabbi Chaim stood out. There was no man who paralleled him in his generation. There was no one who had his broad expertise in Torah, to the extent that it was said of him that even things that computer search programs couldn’t find, Reb Chaim did.
It is obviously unnatural to have this vast amount of knowledge, and Reb Chaim was not known for an especially photographic memory, but he did know kol haTorah kulah – quite literally. This is almost superhuman, but given that the Torah itself is not of human origin, the ability to remember it all is also supernatural.
This sacred leaf, written in Reb Chaim’s youth, has notations by him on one side of all the things that are wont to cause forgetfulness, and on the other side he wrote the segulahs that help with memory. According to the fold marks on the leaf which reduce it to 6×8 cm, it is evident that the gaon Rabbi Chaim Kanievsky would take this sacred leaf around in his pocket, possibly for constant study and review of the segulahs for memory, the essence of the life of this giant of giants – hence the constancy of it being on his person – as if his life depended on it. It may be that the gaon Rabbi Chaim Kanievsky also saw this as a segulah for memory – the very act of holding on to this manuscript where all the segulahs for memory, from the entire Torah, are grouped together.
The importance of this list was huge for the gaon Rabbi Chaim Kanievsky, as demonstrated by the fact that in 1973, upon the passing of his beloved mother, Rebbetzin Pesha Miriam (the Chazon Ish’s sister), he found it appropriate to write a kuntress called Sefer Zikaron in which he recounts all sixty-five segulot that appear on the two pages of manuscript here, along with explanations. This is an important bibliographic manuscript. It was used as the basis for a sefer to write and expound upon later by the gaon Rabbi Chaim Kanievsky, his Sefer Zikaron , written in his mother’s memory.
This is obviously in addition to the segulah matter concealed in this sacred and awesome manuscript containing all the segulahs for memory from kol haTorah kulah , written in the very hand of the person with the greatest memory of recent generations. As is known, the characteristic sign of a true amulet is itmachi kamiya – an amulet with proven effectiveness. This sacred manuscript, whose author became the gadol hador , the person with the best and most storied memory in the world, certainly proved to be extremely effective!
Refer to the Hebrew catalog text for a brief biography of Rabbi Shmaryahu Yosef Chaim Kanievsky .
[2] pages, 20 cm. Densely and very clearly written [approximately 800 words]. With additions and revisions.
Very fine condition. Fold marks.