Rav Eliyahu of Vilna
The Vilna Gaon, the towering Lithuanian Torah scholar and kabbalist who never took a rabbinic post, yet shaped the way Torah is learned to this day.
Biography
Early years
Rav Eliyahu of Vilna zt"l, the Vilna Gaon, known by the initials of Gaon Rabbi Eliyahu as the Gra, was born on the first day of Pesach in 1720 in Selitz (Sialiec), near Brisk, Lithuania. He was the firstborn of Rav Shlomo Zalman, son of Rav Yissacher Ber, son of the pious Rav Eliyahu Chassid, after whom the Gaon was named. Rav Eliyahu Chassid was the son of Rav Moshe Kramer, Av Beis Din (head of the rabbinical court) of Vilna, and the son-in-law of Rav Pesachya, son of Rav Moshe Ravkash of Vilna, author of Be’er HaGolah.
The Gaon’s brothers were Rav Avrohom Ragaled, author of Maalos HaTorah, Rav Yissacher Ber of Vilna, Rav Meir of Yanishock, and Rav Moshe, posek and maggid of Padzeleva, near Vilkomir.
At six he studied with both a teacher and his father, and at seven he learned under the author of Pnei Moshe on the Yerushalmi. While still young he became the friend and study partner of Rav Aryeh Leib, Av Beis Din of Tshechnovitz. At about the age of seven he delivered a complex drashah in shul that his father had taught him. At Shalosh Seudos his father brought him before Rav Heschel of Vilna, who asked the gedolim sitting with him whether they had ever seen so wise a child. They replied that the boy had surely only memorized the drashah, but Rav Heschel believed that the child could say such insights on his own. He promised that after an hour of preparation the boy would show it. For an hour the young prodigy studied alone, and then he answered the many difficult questions the gedolim put to him on that portion with one single answer that resolved them all. They embraced and kissed him.
By eight he had mastered astronomy texts, according to Aliyos Eliyahu. By nine he had mastered Tanach, Mishnah and Gemara, and had studied the midrashim and begun the works of Kabbalah such as Eitz Chaim, which he mastered within half a year. By ten he had surpassed all his teachers, and learning on his own with total concentration, he gained knowledge of the revealed and the hidden Torah alike. He also mastered mathematics and music. By twelve he was helping elders, and even rebbeim, understand the complex laws of Kiddush HaChodesh (the sanctification of the new moon). His text of Sefer Yetzirah was complete before his bar mitzvah. It is told that at about this age he even began to create a golem, but Heaven held him back.
At thirteen he took upon himself the ways of piety and asceticism that befit the title Chassid. From then on he never looked beyond four cubits, and he guarded his eyes until his last day. He limited himself to two olive-sized pieces of bread soaked in water, for breakfast and for supper, and he swallowed them whole so as not to taste them. He slept no more than two hours in twenty-four, and for thirty years never more than half an hour at a stretch, with his lips murmuring halachos and aggados even as he rested. After each half hour he rose, washed his hands and returned to his learning.
For six years he studied Shas, the Bavli and the Yerushalmi, together with the Tosefta, Mechilta, Sifra and Sifri, emending incorrect texts and perfecting the girsa (the wording). For six more years he studied the poskim, tracing the sources of the halachos as the Beis Yosef had done. Rav Eliyahu began to show how every ruling has its source in the words of Chazal in the Bavli, the Yerushalmi and the halachic midrashim, or in the comments of Rashi and the Tosafos.
Torah and leadership
At twenty he began a period of self-imposed exile. He wandered from place to place wrapped in tallis and crowned with tefillin, and from Berlin, Lisa and every place he came, wondrous stories about the Gaon spread. On his way home he hired a coach and promised the driver extra payment for waiting while he davened Shemoneh Esrei. As told in the introduction to Peas HaShulchan, while the Gaon stood silently davening, the driver hurried the horses and drove off with all his possessions, and the Gaon came home empty-handed.
In 5505 he returned to Vilna and studied in poverty and asceticism. He studied in seclusion in the countryside, in a place known only to his wife, Chana, daughter of Rav Yehuda of Kidan. She saw to it that he was undisturbed, fed and cared for. She passed away on 5 Kislev 5543. He closed the windows of his home and learned by candlelight so that no one would disturb him, and he reviewed the whole of the Talmud Bavli every month. At one point he set out for Eretz Yisroel but returned for reasons he never disclosed, and he gave back all the donations that gevirim had given him to support his journey.
In all his life he never engaged in idle conversation. He never accepted a rabbinical position or role as leader, he rejected every bribe, and he secluded himself in a study in the forest. He was so immersed in his learning that he never asked his children about their business, income or livelihood, nor how their families fared, and he did not write to them or read their letters. When they visited he rejoiced after not having seen them for some time, and then asked how much Torah study they had lost on the road, and had them made comfortable so that they could make up the learning at his home. The wisest and most respected people came in great numbers to speak with him in learning and to daven with him in his beis medrash. They saw how every word he said in tefillah was uttered in holiness, and those who experienced it were filled with a love and yearning for Hashem that lasted all day.
He endeavored in nothing unless he had determined that it was Hashem’s will. His sons asked him from time to time why he never went to live in Eretz Yisroel, and he answered, “I do not have permission from Heaven.” He had also said that he would compose his own Shulchan Aruch on the model of the four Turim, with a single binding ruling backed by irrefutable proofs. When a few years before his passing his son asked him again, he gave the same answer, “I do not have permission from Heaven.”
He cleared a new path in the study of Gemara, aiming at clear understanding through keen analysis of the principles and approaches of the early authorities. This stood in sharp contrast to the pilpul system of the Polish yeshivos. He worked hard at emending the texts of the Gemara and the midrashim, and later discoveries of ancient manuscripts confirmed the soundness of his corrections, which appear in the Vilna edition of the Gemara as the Hagahos HaGra.
He taught few talmidim, chosen from the foremost scholars of his time. In order, his seven talmidim from Vilna were Rav Chaim of Volozhin, author of Nefesh HaChaim and of Ruach Chaim on Pirkei Avos; Rav Shlomo Volkmir; Rav Shlomo Zalman, the brother of Rav Chaim of Volozhin; Rav Saadia, the brother-in-law of Rav Shlomo Zalman of Volozhin; Rav Shlomo of Tultshin, maggid of Vilna; Rav Tzvi Hirsch of Semyatitz; and Rav Shlomo of Mogilev. The talmidim of Shklov were Rav Binyomin, Rav Simcha Bunim and his brother Rav Menachem Mendel. Rav Yisroel of Shklov, author of Tekalin Chaditin, Peas HaShulchan and Nachla UMenucha, served and studied under the Gaon for half a year and was with him for the last twenty days before his passing. Rav Meir of Vilna also learned from him for several years.
The Gaon and his followers, known as misnagdim, were fierce opponents of Chassidus, which the Baal Shem Tov began in 1736. The opposition arose in the wake of the Shabsai Tzvi movement, which had led many Jews astray. Many rabbonim saw Chassidus as potentially dangerous. They held that it took liberties with the Oral Torah, put emotion in place of intellect in the study of Torah, and departed too far from the traditional form of tefillah, claims that the Chassidic leaders vigorously denied. The opposition took the form of bans, excommunication, boycotts on employing chassidim, and driving chassidim out of town.
Teachings and seforim
The Gaon wrote a number of seforim, and the count among his talmidim ranges from fifty-five to about seventy-two works, not all of which were printed. It was his custom to revise seforim with his glosses and emendations. Rav Chaim of Volozhin testified that before he amended a text of the revealed Torah, from the Tannaim or Amoraim of the Gemara, he did so only if he had first tested the change against fifteen to twenty sugyos. For the hidden Torah, he made a change only where he found no fewer than 150 sound reasons for it.
His works, recorded and published by his talmidim, include Aderet Eliyahu, a commentary on the Torah; a commentary on Koheles; Shenos Eliyahu on the Mishnah, Seder Zeraim; Biur HaGra on the Shulchan Aruch, on Orach Chaim and Yoreh Deah; a commentary on Sefer Yetzirah; Mishnas Eliyahu; and a commentary on Pirkei Avos. His commentary on the Torah is filled with allusions that show the unity of the Written Torah and the Oral Torah and their common source in Divine revelation. Rav Binyomin and Rav Yisroel of Shklov prepared and published his commentaries to the Shulchan Aruch, Orach Chaim and Yoreh Deah, the Mishnas Eliyahu and the glosses on tractate Shekalim (Rav Yisroel). Rav Menachem Mendel of Shklov prepared the emendations to the text of the minor tractates, the sefer Tzuras HaAretz VeTavnis HaBayis, and the commentaries on the Pesach Haggadah and on Sefer Yetzirah. Rav Meir of Vilna wrote Eliyahu Rabba on the Mishnayos of Seder Taharos, based on what he heard and learned from the Gaon. The Gaon taught in Taharos only after he had clarified that it was also true according to the secrets of Torah.
His sons wrote that the Gaon accomplished all this because of his drive for truth. He sought the emes constantly and ignored the falsehoods of this world. In purifying his heart he was left to serve Hashem with immense joy, and nothing ever truly bothered him. Day by day his intellect grew, and he used it to find truth, so that his actions would match only the will of his Creator. Rav Chaim of Volozhin wrote that the Gaon exerted himself in an extraordinary manner, going days and nights without food or drink and denying himself sleep, and that when he reached the level he had struggled for, his face was suffused with an unearthly glow that radiated the light of Torah.
Later years and passing
In 5551, when he was advanced in age, the Gaon became ill. Instead of going to doctors, he turned to the Dubno Maggid, who helped him through the insightful stories and parables he told.
In 5554, when the Gaon was seventy-four, Russian soldiers attacked Vilna. They surrounded the city to capture it from the Poles, and on 21 Tammuz about thirty Jews lost their lives to the gunfire. On Tu B’Av the fighting grew more intense, and when the sounds of battle came near, the Jews fled, and men, women and children gathered in the Great Synagogue for safety. It is told that the Gaon went up to the bimah, opened the doors of the aron kodesh and recited Tehillim, chapter 20, seven times. Suddenly a loud blast was heard, and the Jews were stunned to learn that a shell had hit the roof of the shul. The Gaon cried out, “Batel, batel,” declaring the shell null and void. The shell failed to explode, and even after quiet returned to the city it remained on the roof as a sign of the miracle.
In 5556 he fell ill again, and again he called the Dubno Maggid and was healed. On the eve of Yom Kippur 5558 he called his children and grandchildren to his side and blessed them for the last time. As Sukkos approached, he gathered his strength despite the severity of his illness, and on the second and third days of Chol HaMoed Sukkos he still fulfilled the mitzvos of lulav and esrog with great fervor and simchah.
It is told that the Gaon passed away on 19 Tishrei 5558 (1797), with the arba minim still in his holy hands. He is buried in Vilna.
Legacy
The Vilna Gaon was revered in Vilna and throughout the world for his phenomenal knowledge and his saintly character. One of his foremost disciples, Rav Chaim of Volozhin, founded the yeshiva of Volozhin, which followed the Gaon’s approach to learning and spread Torah for more than a hundred years. Today most yeshivos follow the pattern of study of Volozhin, keeping alive the approach to Torah that the Gaon pioneered.
Those who came to him saw great miracles, though he himself never pursued the path of miracles. His sons wrote that such lofty levels were beyond what their generation could fully appreciate or imitate.
Stories
Zevachim and Menachos in One Night
It is told that on Simchas Torah, when Eliyahu was eleven years old, he suddenly remembered a vow he had made to finish tractates Zevachim and Menachos by the end of the Yom Tov, and he had not even begun. He sat down and learned both tractates all night long.
Rav Michel of Datneve was there and fell asleep, but he woke around midnight to find the young Eliyahu still going strong, up to page 50 of Zevachim. Astonished, he asked how he could learn fifty pages of Gemara in just two hours. He tested him on several difficult passages and found that the boy’s understanding was complete and thorough.
When Rav Michel returned at dawn, he found that Eliyahu had begun Menachos and finished almost half of it. He tested him again and blessed him. The Gaon finished both tractates before Shacharis.
The Blind Man and His Wife
During his years of self-imposed exile, the Vilna Gaon once entered a beis medrash and sat down to learn as an unknown guest. After a while he noticed an old woman bring a small afternoon meal to a holy-looking blind man who sat wrapped in tallis and tefillin. As the man ate, he remarked on the sweet voice of a stranger, one he did not recognize. “This traveler must be a righteous man,” he said. “Please invite him to eat. He must be hungry.”
The woman invited the Gaon, but he hesitated, worried that his hosts would not have enough for themselves. Seeing his reluctance, the old man explained, “My good wife works at the miller’s. The flour mill grinds wheat constantly, and as her payment the owner lets her collect all the flour that spills. So we have plenty and to spare.” He was filled with joy, and he ate the gruel of flour and water as though it were a great meal.
Afterward the blind man invited the Gaon to his home for Shabbos. Again the Gra hesitated, and again the man reassured him. “My wife also works at the slaughterhouse, helping the butcher pluck the fowl. For her pay he gives her the feet and the head, so we have plenty of meat for Shabbos, and all the poor are our guests.”
That Shabbos the Gaon saw how the old blind man and his elderly wife shared with their poor guests a Shabbos meal of watery flour gruel with chicken feet and heads, and to them it was a royal feast. All his life the Vilna Gaon said that he envied the good character of that couple and how happy they were with their lot, and he wished that he were as content as they were.
The Blanket and the Humble Rav
On another of his journeys of exile, the Gaon met the rav of a small town. It was a cold and rainy night, and the rav invited his unknown guest to sleep at his home. He led him to a comfortable bed and covered him with a sheepskin. The Gaon feared that the blanket might be shatnez according to a stringent view in the Rambam, and he slipped it off.
The rav came to check and found his guest uncovered. He covered him again and went back to his learning. Again the Gaon slipped off the suspect blanket, and again the rav found him uncovered. “Now, my good man,” said the rav, “I want you to be warm. Please see that the cover does not slip off. I cannot keep coming to interrupt my learning to cover you again and again.”
The Gaon was impressed by the rav’s humility, that he would come back to cover him again and again, and by how strong his love of hachnasas orchim was. He told the rav the true reason, that he feared the blanket was shatnez. The rav simply brought a different blanket, lighter but less problematic.
But the Gaon’s explanation of the halachah had given him away as a Torah scholar. The next morning, when the rav went to look for his guest, the Gaon had already left. What stayed with him always was his envy of the humility he had seen in that rav.
Until Your Soul Goes Out
Once, while on a journey, the Gra and one of his disciples stopped to rest at the home of an upstanding Jew. In the evening the host served supper and asked Rav Eliyahu to please eat something. The Gra had an upset stomach and felt ill, yet to please his host he tried to eat. After tasting the food he threw it all up. When the host returned and saw the plate still full, he urged him again. The Gra complied, and again he vomited. This happened a few times.
“Why do you force yourself to eat when you are clearly unable to keep anything down?” asked the disciple.
“Chazal say that we must do whatever the master of the house tells us, except to leave,” the Gaon explained. “The halachah is that wherever Chazal tell us to do something, even a rabbinic decree, the amount required is ‘until your soul goes out.’ He is our Master, and we must fulfill His will and bow before Him.” The Gaon was simply fulfilling the halachah as he understood it.
A Month of Seclusion
The Gaon’s sons wrote of how far their father went in giving up even the love of his own children for the love of Torah. When their brother Sholom Zalman was five or six years old, he was the Gaon’s beloved only child at that time. He fell dangerously ill and was bedridden. Before the boy was out of danger, their father left Vilna to continue his practice of seclusion. The private quarters where he isolated himself were seven parsangs from Vilna.
He had the wagon readied and set off, and he spent a full month there, alone with Hashem and Torah. Only at the bathhouse, a place where it is forbidden to think words of Torah, did his mind turn to personal matters. On one such visit he counted that a full month had passed since he left his sick son, and he realized that he had no news of him. Overcome with love for his beloved son, he was jolted out of his hisbodedus (seclusion), and he at once ordered a coach to go home and find out how his child was.
The Seven Explanations
Rav Chaim of Volozhin once spoke with the Gaon about tefillah, and the Gaon told him, “I was once shown from Heaven how awesome tefillah truly is. For twelve weeks I struggled to understand a passage in the Zohar about Rosh Chodesh, but it stayed unclear. Then one Rosh Chodesh, while I davened Shemoneh Esrei, seven different explanations of the passage came into my mind in a single moment.
“I asked myself what to do. Perhaps I could pause for a moment to organize my thoughts, but would that be a forbidden hefsek in my davening? In the end I did pause, for about fifteen seconds, organized my thoughts and went straight back to my davening. When I finished and tried to recall them, they had vanished completely. I was greatly troubled, and I spent half an hour calming my anguish so that I could say Hallel properly.
“When I stood to daven Mussaf, the same seven explanations came back to me. This time I did not interrupt my davening or pay any attention to them. When I finished, there they were, fully organized in my memory, all seven of them sweeter than honey.”
Rav Chaim remarked, “See how great and pure the Gaon’s thoughts were during tefillah, that even Torah ideas counted as foreign thoughts for him while he davened.”
Refusing the Heavenly Maggid
Rav Chaim of Volozhin testified that he heard from the Gaon’s own mouth that heavenly maggidim often appeared to him and offered to reveal the secrets of Torah, and that he always refused. Though Heaven was willing to give him such understanding freely, he gave up all such help, seeing his own unaided effort as his most valued resource.
One maggid persisted, and the Gaon still refused him, paying no attention to his awesome appearance. He said, “I do not wish to understand Hashem’s Torah through any intermediary. My eyes are lifted to Hashem. Whatever He Himself wishes to reveal to me directly, and whatever portion of His Torah He wishes to give me through my own effort, that is my desire. I ask only for wisdom from Hashem Himself, the understanding He plants in my heart and the insight He plants in my kidneys, so that through my own toil my inner self becomes like two fountains of knowledge. Then I will know that I have found favor in His eyes. What comes through angelic forces, and not through wisdom I earned, I do not want.”
Rav Chaim also related that the Gaon once sent him to his younger brother, Rav Shlomo Zalman, who was greater than Rav Chaim in piety, sanctity and holiness, with a message from the Gaon. “Say to him in my name that he should not receive any angelic maggid who comes to him. Soon one will appear to him. Rav Yosef Karo, author of the Beis Yosef, did speak with a maggid, but that does not apply here. That was over two hundred years earlier, in a generation still worthy and prepared for such revelations, and he lived in the Holy Land, while we are outside it. In our situation it is impossible to be wholly devoted, free of ulterior motives and improper thoughts.” The Gaon rejected every revelation that came by any means other than direct Torah study.
The Forgotten Revelation
On the first day of Pesach, two of the Gaon’s main disciples were visiting their rebbe on Yom Tov. They knew that the Gaon was always exceptionally joyful on Yom Tov, in keeping with the mitzvah of simchas Yom Tov, and they were surprised to see him troubled. When they asked what was wrong, at first he refused to say. After they pressed him, he gave way.
“I am not accustomed to do this, but I must tell you something, so that I fulfill Chazal’s teaching that a person with a burdensome worry should speak of it with others. Last night I was visited by Eliyahu HaNavi, though it is possible that it was some other great figure from the Heavenly Academy, if my memory serves me. He revealed to me new understandings of the twelve-letter Name of Hashem and of the pasuk ‘Alu zeh baNegev.’ I woke with joy and could not stop thinking about these chiddushim before I said Birkas HaTorah. I was punished for it, and I forgot them all.” In the Gaon’s own opinion it is forbidden even to think Torah thoughts before saying the berachah.
His disciples comforted him and blessed him that Hashem would return his lost object. After some time, one of them asked whether he had recovered his chiddushim. “Baruch Hashem, they were revealed to me a second time,” the Gaon answered. “There were 2,260 explanations. Just as I knew why they were taken from me, I also know why they were given to me again. One of these insights gave me the ability to discern the powers of all creatures and the purpose of each limb.”
Rav Chaim of Volozhin adds that such ascents seemed natural to the Gaon, and that he needed no kavanos or yichudim, meditations on holy Names, to reach them, since all that passed his lips and filled his heart and mind was Torah, day and night.
The Dreamer of Vilna
Rav Chaim of Volozhin heard from the Gaon that once, in Vilna, a dreamer frightened everyone who heard of him. He could tell each person private things they had said or done, even behind the closed doors of their homes. The man was brought before the Gaon. “Rabbi,” he said, “please allow me to say just this. Two weeks ago on Thursday you sat in this very place and said a chiddush, a new approach to several pesukim in Haazinu. Rav Shimon bar Yochai sat at your right hand and the Arizal at your left.”
The Gaon was surprised that an ordinary man could know this. “I remember that before this I even sent the gabbai out of my house,” he said. He admitted to the man, “It is true that I innovated those chiddushim,” and his face showed deep satisfaction, for these were wondrous secrets worthy of being told even to Rashbi himself. Then he looked at the dreamer and saw that he was a deeply depressed man, to whom dreams of this kind are open as well through paths of tumah. He asked the gabbai to lead the man out.
A Derashah Saved for the Next World
Rav Yisroel of Shklov wrote that the Gaon said the first pasuk alone had 150 explanations, and that no scribe was skilled enough to record them all. He also told of what Rav Menachem Mendel of Yerushalayim, a disciple who wrote ten works on the secrets of Torah, saw while serving the Gaon in the town of Serhay. The Gaon was about to complete his commentary on Shir HaShirim and was in high spirits from the simchas Torah of this achievement.
He called in his mechutan, the Rav of Serhay, and his son Rav Yehuda Leib, the Maharil, and asked that the doors and windows be closed and many candles lit so that no one would disturb them. As he sat and completed the commentary, he gazed heavenward in great dveikus (rapture) and offered praise, blessing and thanks to the Name that had granted him the merit to understand both the inner workings and the outer garments of the Torah.
The Gaon also spoke of 420 pillars of light, whose names and locations are unknown. He said that he could learn and grasp all of them, since they are embedded in the written Torah, but he never revealed them to anyone and they are not recorded in any sefer. The Rav of Serhay pleaded with him to write them down and leave some hint for later generations, but the Gaon refused, saying that they would be his opening derashah when he arrived in the World to Come.
What the Gaon Said of Aristotle
Rav Menachem Mendel of Shklov told how, in a conversation with the Gaon, the subject of Aristotle came up. The Gaon said that the philosopher was a true heretic, a total atheist. “If he had come before me, I could have shown him, on this very table, the orbits of the sun, the moon and all the stars shining just as they do in the sky above. How could he then deny providence and say that the world runs by the laws of nature alone? Shimon HaTzaddik lived in the same generation as Aristotle. Was it impossible for him to show Aristotle wonders of Hashem’s mighty acts? The truth is that Aristotle did recognize a Creator, and he rebelled against Him anyway.”
Rav Menachem Mendel was taken aback at what he heard from the Gaon’s mouth. The Gaon answered, “Why are you astonished? Using just one Divine Name I could do this, and the Geonim of the period after the Talmud knew it as well.”
A Segulah for Surviving Children
The Gaon’s daughter lost her children one after another in their early years. When she was expecting again, she left her home in Disna at once and travelled to her father in Vilna for his blessing and advice. When she explained why she had come, he gave her brief instructions. She should name the baby after his late brother and also give him a new name, with the new name first and the name of the deceased brother second. Having given his advice, the Gaon returned immediately to his learning.
They followed his instructions and named the child Zalman Ber, with Zalman as the new name and Ber after the baby’s late brother, Dov Ber. The child survived and grew to adulthood. She used the same segulah, which she had heard from her father, for her other children, and others who had lost children also used it, and it helped them to have children who lived.
The Verdict in the Heavenly Court
It was the third day of Chol HaMoed Sukkos, the yahrzeit of the Vilna Gaon. The Munkaczer Rebbe, author of Minchas Elazar, sat with his chassidim in his sukkah and told a story that he had heard from reliable people, who had received it directly from Rav Levi Yitzchok of Berditchev, author of Kedushas Levi.
“It was the third day of Chol HaMoed Sukkos in the year that the Vilna Gaon passed away. Rav Levi Yitzchok said, ‘Just now the Vilna Gaon has passed away and been brought before the Heavenly court. They looked over his case and ruled that the gates of Gan Eden would be opened for him at once. At that moment the souls of the talmidim of the Baal Shem Tov appeared and appealed the ruling, because the Gra had opposed them and made their lives so difficult. The Vilna Gaon answered that his intentions were purely for the sake of Heaven, and that he had misunderstood the ways of the chassidim. The talmidim of the Baal Shem Tov replied that even if his intentions were purely for the sake of Heaven, his opposition had kept them from serving Hashem properly.
“‘The court was about to reconsider its judgment, but then the holy Torah herself surrounded the Gaon and shielded him on every side. Other versions say that it was the thousands of pages of Gemara he had learned. The Torah testified that the Gra never transgressed even the smallest detail of any law, Torah or rabbinic. “How can it be,” said the Torah, “that someone who spent his whole life studying me should be treated this way? Do not touch him.”
“‘Then and there the court confirmed its first judgment and sent the Gra straight to the highest level of Heaven, Gan Eden HaElyon, to receive his reward.’”
The Berditchever told all this on the very day of the Gaon’s passing. Then word went out in Berditchev that the Gra had passed away and ascended to Heaven to walk before Hashem in everlasting light.
Teachings
A Path of Learning for His Talmidim
The Gaon guided his talmidim to learn first all twenty-four seforim of Tanach, with the nekudos and taamim and the laws of dikduk. Then they were to study and memorize the six orders of Mishnah with the major commentaries, and afterward delve into the Gemara with great emphasis on Rashi and the Tosafos. Pilpul and chiddud should not be taught to young students, or to those who lacked the preliminary studies. He set up a beis medrash with constant study and review of Mikra, Mishnah and Gemara, and reviewed these with them at set times. His program let them finish the Gemara within a few years and know it well by heart, and know the sources of all the halachic rulings of the four Turim and the Shulchan Aruch. He warned against pilpul, believing that it often leads to vanity and pride and not to truth. Its only purpose, he held, was to help reach a halachic decision once all the fundamentals were clear. His talmidim used his method for eighteen years, and he rejoiced in their growth.
Introduction of Rav Avrohom and Rav Yehuda Leib, the sons of the Vilna Gaon, to his commentary on Shulchan Aruch, Orach Chaim
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.
Introduction of Rav Chaim of Volozhin to Sifra DiTzniusa; Yad Eliyahu, siman 25 (on Pirkei Avos 6:6)
Torah and the Other Wisdoms
The Gaon said that all the secular wisdoms depend on Torah, are needed to understand it fully, and are contained in it, among them algebra, trigonometry, geometry and music. He held that without music many of the taamim, the secrets of the songs of the Leviim and the Tikkunim of the Zohar cannot be understood, and that its sweet melody can cause people to expire or be revived. He described niggunim that Moshe Rabbeinu knew from Har Sinai, while the rest come from the Torah SheBeal Peh. He wanted to study pharmaceutical medicine and the secrets of herbal remedies from the experts of his time, but his father stopped him, afraid that he would be constantly called to heal the sick and lose time from learning. He believed that the Sanhedrin and Tannaim knew a whole body of wisdom about magic and sorcery, and that one should be well versed in it, as Shas shows. He lacked only knowledge of certain plants, and tried to learn to identify them from villagers, but the rugged outings proved too much for his constitution. He studied philosophy as well, and concluded that he learned only two things from it, the seventy powers of the soul of man, as he writes in his commentary to Yeshayah 11:1, and one other thing that he did not name. The rest, he said, is rubbish and can be cast away.
Introduction of Rav Yisroel of Shklov to Peas HaShulchan
Sleep, Dreams and Free Will
The Gaon held that what is truly valuable is what a person attains in this world through his own effort. Hashem has the most nachas from a person who uses his free will to choose good over evil and exerts himself in Torah. Revelations that the soul receives in sleep come without toil and without that choice, and so he did not count them as of great use. He taught that sleep was created so that a person can attain what he cannot while awake. Awake, the soul is bound to the body, and even after immense struggle the body remains a barrier. In sleep, when the soul detaches somewhat from the material, we become receptive to spiritual revelation, and we can don a supernal garment called the chaluka d’rabbanan, the robe of the rabbis. Rav Chaim of Volozhin wrote that he was sure the Gaon experienced aliyas neshamah, the soul’s ascent to the Heavenly Academies, every night from the day he came of age, and that one of his talmidim heard the Gaon say that from a certain point in his mature life it became a nightly experience.
Introduction of Rav Chaim of Volozhin to Sifra DiTzniusa
Honor for the Arizal and Care with Every Text
Rav Chaim of Volozhin saw with his own eyes how the Gaon honored the Arizal. When he spoke of him, his whole body trembled, and he said how awesome it is to speak of such a G-dly person, whose ability to perceive the awesomeness of Hashem’s works grew even greater after he merited the revelation of Eliyahu HaNavi. Yet the Gaon felt that many writings of the Arizal had been corrupted by emendations of students other than Rav Chaim Vital, who had failed to understand the Arizal’s true meaning, and he did not rely on them for halachic rulings. He said that the words of the Zohar and the Tikkunim cannot be properly understood without several weeks of intense effort, since every idea has to be worked through laboriously. His revised Sefer Yetzirah, formed in his younger years, was as clear as the Arizal’s, with one small change where the Arizal’s text was mistaken. When Rav Chaim asked whether this would make it easy to create a golem, the Gaon answered that he had once begun to create one, but in the middle of the work he had a vision that stopped him, and he thought that Heaven was holding him back because of his young age. It was before his bar mitzvah.
Introduction of Rav Chaim of Volozhin to Sifra DiTzniusa
Seforim
- Aderet Eliyahu: A commentary on the Torah, filled with allusions that show the unity of the Written and Oral Torah.
- Biur HaGra on the Shulchan Aruch: His commentary on Orach Chaim and Yoreh Deah, prepared for print by Rav Binyomin and Rav Yisroel of Shklov.
- Shenos Eliyahu: A commentary on the Mishnah, Seder Zeraim.
- Mishnas Eliyahu: His commentary on the Mishnah, prepared for print by his talmidim of Shklov.
- Commentary on Koheles: Recorded and published by his talmidim.
- Commentary on Sefer Yetzirah: A kabbalistic commentary, together with his revised text of the sefer.
- Commentary on Pirkei Avos: Prepared for print by his talmidim, with an introduction by Rav Menachem Mendel of Shklov.
- Commentaries on Shir HaShirim, the Haggadah and Sifra DiTzniusa: Further commentaries recorded by his talmidim.
- Hagahos HaGra: His emendations of the texts of the Gemara and the midrashim, printed in the Vilna edition of the Gemara.
Family & talmidim
Teachers: Rav Shlomo Zalman, his father, The author of Pnei Moshe on the Yerushalmi
Talmidim: Rav Chaim of Volozhin, Rav Shlomo Volkmir, Rav Shlomo Zalman of Volozhin, Rav Saadia, Rav Shlomo of Tultshin, Rav Tzvi Hirsch of Semyatitz, Rav Shlomo of Mogilev, Rav Binyomin of Shklov, Rav Simcha Bunim of Shklov, Rav Menachem Mendel of Shklov, Rav Yisroel of Shklov, Rav Meir of Vilna, Rav Menachem Mendel of Yerushalayim
Children: Rav Avrohom, Rav Yehuda Leib (the Maharil), Sholom Zalman, A daughter, who lived in Disna
Also on 19 Tishrei
All hilulos on 19 Tishrei ›Historical sources
- Ruach Eliyahu
- Aliyos Eliyahu
- Introduction of Rav Avrohom and Rav Yehuda Leib to the Biur HaGra, Orach Chaim
- Introduction of Rav Chaim of Volozhin to Sifra DiTzniusa
- Introduction of Rav Yisroel of Shklov to Peas HaShulchan
- Introduction of Rav Menachem Mendel of Shklov to the commentary on Pirkei Avos
- Yad Eliyahu
- Toldos Kedushas Levi (Munkacz)