Elijah ben-Solomon Zalman

(the Vilna Gaon)

(1720–97)

   Lithuanian scholar. The Jewish community of Vilna, Lithuania, was founded in the 16th century. From the early 17th century it was renowned as a centre of Jewish learning, and Elijah was the greatest of its sons. He was born in Selets, in the province of Grodno, and his father was a rabbi in Vilna. His prodigious intellect was apparent as a child: at the age of six he delivered a discourse on halachah in the synagogue, and began to study under a distinguished rabbi when he was seven. As well as the Torah, he acquired a knowledge of mathematics, astronomy, history, philosophy and anatomy, believing that secular learning was necessary for a true understanding of the Torah. He married at eighteen, and two years later went into self-imposed exile, emulating the exile of the Shechinah (the Holy Presence) in the Diaspora. Many legends are told of his wondrous deeds during his period of wandering through Europe for eight years. His reputation spread as a result of his travels and he was recognized as an authority by rabbis throughout Europe. After this he returned to Vilna, where he remained for the rest of his life. Declining to accept a rabbinical office, he lived humbly, subsisting on a weekly stipend granted him by the Jewish community. Elijah was acclaimed as a talmudic genius (gaon) by other scholars, and as a saint by the ordinary people. He was an ascetic; it is told that to stop himself falling asleep he studied in an unheated room with his feet in a basin of cold water. According to his sons he slept no more than four hours, taken in four periods of an hour each. At the age of forty he began to teach some disciples. Mystic longings among the oppressed Jews of eastern Europe made them receptive to the message of ISRAEL BENELIEZER BAAL SHEM TOV, whose revivalist movement of pious men (Chassidim) gave pride of place to religious exultation. This kind of popular enthusiasm was abhorrent to Elijah Gaon; it seemed to him to have dangerous echoes of the upheaval caused by the pseudomessiah SHABBETAI ZEVI, and to deny the virtue of scholarship. For Elijah, true religion was demonstrated in the harmony between heart and mind. When news of the chassidic innovations in worship and re-evaluation of the authority of the Talmud reached Elijah, he denounced its adherents as ‘set apart from the whole people of Israel’. Led by Elijah, Vilna became the centre of the Mitnagdim, the opposition to the chassidic movement, and in 1772 the Chassidim were excommunicated. When two chassidic leaders came to plead with him, he refused to receive them. Denunciations and counter-accusations grew virulent and factional squabbling divided even Vilna Jewry itself.

   Elijah Gaon longed to emigrate to the Holy Land. On one occasion he actually set out on the journey but for reasons that are not known, he had to turn back. He was the author of over seventy commentaries and works on every topic relative to Judaism.