Vilna Gaon

HaGaon
Elijah ben Solomon Zalman
TitleVilna Gaon
Elijah of Vilna
Gra
Personal
Born
Elijah ben Solomon Zalman

April 23, 1720
Sialiec, Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth
DiedOctober 9, 1797 (aged 77)
Vilnius, Vilna Governorate, Russian Empire
ReligionJudaism
NationalityPolish-Lithuanian
DenominationOrthodox Judaism
Yahrtzeit19 Tishrei
BuriedVilnius, Lithuania

Elijah ben Solomon Zalman,[1] (Hebrew: ר' אליהו בן שלמה זלמן Rabbi Eliyahu ben Shlomo Zalman), also known as the Vilna Gaon[2] (Yiddish: דער װילנער גאון Der Vilner Goen; Polish: Gaon z Wilna, Gaon Wileński; or Elijah of Vilna, or by his Hebrew acronym Gra ("Gaon Rabbenu Eliyahu": "Our great teacher Elijah"; Sialiec, April 23, 1720 – Vilnius October 9, 1797), was a Lithuanian Jewish Talmudist, halakhist, kabbalist, and the foremost leader of misnagdic (non-hasidic) Jewry of the past few centuries.[3][4][5] He is commonly referred to in Hebrew as ha-Gaon mi-Vilna, "the genius from Vilnius".[6]

Through his annotations and emendations of Talmudic and other texts, he became one of the most familiar and influential figures in rabbinic study since the Middle Ages. Although he is chronologically one of the Acharonim, some have considered him one of the Rishonim.[7][8][9]

Large groups of people, including many yeshivas, uphold the set of Jewish customs and rites (minhag), the "minhag ha-Gra", named after him, and which is also considered by many to be the prevailing Ashkenazi minhag in Jerusalem.[citation needed]

Born in Sielec in the Brest Litovsk Voivodeship (today Syalyets, Belarus), the Gaon displayed extraordinary talent while still a child. By the time he was twenty years old, rabbis were submitting their most difficult halakhic problems to him for legal rulings. He was a prolific author, writing such works as glosses on the Babylonian Talmud and Shulchan Aruch known as Bi'urei ha-Gra ("Elaborations by the Gra"), a running commentary on the Mishnah, Shenoth Eliyahu ("The Years of Elijah"), and insights on the Pentateuch entitled Adereth Eliyahu ("The Cloak of Elijah"), published by his son. Various Kabbalistic works have commentaries in his name, and he wrote commentaries on the Proverbs and other books of the Tanakh later on in his life. None of his manuscripts were published in his lifetime.[citation needed]

When Hasidic Judaism became influential in his native town, the Vilna Gaon joined the "opposers" or Misnagdim, rabbis and heads of the Polish communities, to curb Hasidic influence.[10][11]

While he advocated studying branches of secular education such as mathematics in order to better understand rabbinic texts, he harshly condemned the study of philosophy and metaphysics.[12][13]

  1. ^ Within recent decades he has been given the surname Kremer. However neither the Vilna Gaon nor his descendants apparently used this surname, which means shopkeeper. It was possibly mistakenly derived from a nickname of his ancestor Rabbi Moshe Kremer. "The Vilna Gaon, part 3 (Review of Eliyahu Stern, The Genius)". Marc B. Shapiro
  2. ^ Yaniv, Samuel (Rabbi) (April 17, 2010). "The Vilna Gaon and his Vision of Redemption". Bar Ilan University. Archived from the original on March 23, 2017. Retrieved May 19, 2012.
  3. ^ Etkes, Immanuel; Green, Jeffrey M. (2002). The Gaon of Vilna: The Man and His Image. University of California Press. ISBN 978-0-520-22394-3. JSTOR 10.1525/j.ctt1pnj2v.
  4. ^ Cohn-Sherbok, Dan; Cohn-Sherbok, Lavinia (1994). Jewish & Christian Mysticism: An Introduction. Gracewing Publishing. ISBN 978-0-85244-259-3.
  5. ^ Eisenberg, Ronald L. (December 1, 2011). Dictionary of Jewish Terms: A Guide to the Language of Judaism. Taylor Trade Publications. ISBN 978-1-58979-729-1.
  6. ^ The Threefold step of Academia Europeana: a case of Universitas Vilnensis, 2009, p. 24
  7. ^ Karelitz, Avraham Yeshaya. קובץ איגרות חזון איש [Collected letters of the 'Chazon Ish'] (in Hebrew). pp. Part one, section 32. אנו מתייחסים להגר"א בשורה של משה רבנו, עזרא, רבנו הקדוש, רב אשי והרמב"ם. הגר"א שנתגלה תורה על ידו כקדוש מעותד לכך שהאיר במה שלא הואר עד שבא ונטל חלקו, והוא נחשב אחד מהראשונים,
  8. ^ Danzig, Abraham. זכרו תורת משה (in Hebrew). p. 31. רבי אליהו חסיד, הוא היה עיר וקדיש כאחד מן הראשונים
  9. ^ Tzuzmir, Yekuseil A.Z.H (1882). שו"ת מהריא"ז ענזיל (in Hebrew). Lvov. pp. 40b. ומהר"א מווילנא אשר כחו כאחד הראשונים{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  10. ^ Bloomberg, Jon (2004). The Jewish world in the modern age. Jersey City, NJ: KTAV Publishing House. ISBN 978-0-88125-844-8.
  11. ^ Etkes, Immanuel (2002-05-30), "The Vilna Gaon and the Mitnagdim as Seen by the Hasidim", The Gaon of VilnaThe Man and His Image, University of California Press, pp. 96–150, doi:10.1525/california/9780520223943.003.0005, ISBN 978-0-520-22394-3, retrieved 2024-07-27
  12. ^ Cite error: The named reference :2 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  13. ^ "Shulchan Arukh, Yoreh De'ah 179:6". www.sefaria.org. Retrieved 2023-12-30.