The Meaning of Cold Detachment

A man once came to the Chazon Ish to ask whether he should accept a job in a workplace where his coworkers were not religious and had no fear of Heaven. He said it was clear to him that the job would not cause him to transgress any prohibition, not even a rabbinic one. What he feared was that such surroundings would leave him with a certain detachment, a coolness of heart, which is called kerirus.

The Chazon Ish answered him in his characteristic way: “Kerirus is yehorag ve’al ya’avor.” Coolness toward Torah and mitzvos is so grave, he meant, that it is better to allow oneself to be killed than to suffer it.