Forty-Eight Ways of Acquiring Torah

Rav Chaim of Volozhin wrote that none of the Gaon’s wondrous ways or revelations surprised him, because he knew in his heart and had seen with his own eyes that the Gaon fulfilled all forty-eight ways of acquiring Torah listed in Pirkei Avos 6:6. He toiled in Torah lishmah, with great kedushah and taharah, and left no subject untouched: Bavli and Yerushalmi, Mechilta, Sifra, Sifri, Tosefta and all the Midrashim, the Zohar, Maaseh Bereishis and Maaseh Merkavah, Sefer Yetzirah and the writings of the early kabbalists and of the Arizal. He knew them by heart, organized clearly in his mind. From the time he came of age he did not look beyond his four cubits, and he kept so far from worldly matters that he did not ask after the well-being of his family, or write to them or read their letters. From around bar mitzvah age he barely slept. After unceasing effort the Torah was given to him as a gift, and his kidneys opened like fountains of wisdom. Yet he was exceedingly humble. Rav Chaim wrote that whoever never saw his holiness, his service of Hashem, his piety and his humility is like one who has never seen the sun. The Mishnah says that whoever toils in Torah lishmah merits “many things,” which Rav Chaim understood to mean revelations beyond words, and he saw all the levels listed in the Mishnah embodied in the Gaon. In the words of Yad Eliyahu, Eliyahu HaNavi and at times Yaakov Avinu appeared to him to teach him secrets of Torah, and from his letters it is known that roshei yeshivos of the Heavenly Academies taught him each night.