[Avodah] Chop a Mitzvah

[Joseph Kaplan]

“There is a famous in YU circles story where RYBS, back when he
was Berel, got sick, and R' Chaim told R Moshe to turn on
the light so that the doctor could see better. R Moshe hesitated,
and RCB called him an apiqoreis for doing so. With the explanaiton
that the question wasn't about being meiqil in Shabbs, but about
being machmir in piquach nefesh. They ask why RCB didn't do it
himself; but bekhol zos, no one expected the doctor to.”

The way I heard the story in YU many decades ago, it was, in fact, RCB who turned on the light, and there was a lesson to Rav Moshe but he was not called an apikores. And while we’ll never know what really happened, I prefer my version. 

Joseph

Sent from my iPhone