Nothing Through an Intermediary
The Gaon refused every heavenly messenger who offered him secrets, preferring only what he could earn by his own toil.
A story ofRav Eliyahu of Vilnaהרב אליהו בן שלמה זלמן מוילנאProfile ›
Rav Chaim of Volozhin bore witness, having heard it straight from his rebbe, that heavenly maggidim, angelic teachers, would sometimes appear and offer to reveal the secrets of Torah to him. Each time, the Gaon declined, although Heaven was willing to give him this understanding as a gift.
One maggid was especially persistent, and the Gaon was not impressed by his awesome appearance. He replied that he would take no go-between in coming to know Hashem's Torah. His eyes were lifted only to Hashem, and he asked for no wisdom except what Hashem Himself would plant in his heart as the reward for his own effort. Wisdom that arrived by way of angels, and not through his own labor, he did not want.
Rav Chaim also told of an errand the Gaon once sent him on, to his own brother, Rav Shlomo Zalman, whom Rav Chaim counted as greater than himself in piety. He was to tell him, in the Gaon's name, not to receive a maggid who would soon come to him. The Beis Yosef had spoken with a maggid, the Gaon said, but he lived two hundred years earlier, in a worthier generation, and in Eretz Yisroel. Outside the Land, in the Gaon's view, it was impossible to be wholly free of improper thoughts and ulterior motives.
Source: Introduction of Rav Chaim of Volozhin to the Gaon's commentary on Sifra DiTzniusa
Pick one thing you have been trying to understand, a sugya, a perek of Tehillim or a difficult middah, and give it twenty unhurried minutes today without looking for a shortcut. Sit with the questions until you can state them clearly, and then look for the answer yourself before asking anyone else. What you earn by your own effort stays with you in a way that a quick answer does not. Even a small success is a reward that Hashem gives to those who toil.