Shavuot 5786
“If I knew that I could be only what I am, I could not bear it. But if I did not strive to be like the Vilna Gaon, I would not even be what I am”
— Rabbi Nota Hirsch Finkel
As Shavuot approaches and the anniversary of the revelation of the Torah looms, it is inspiring to contemplate the teachings of those who mastered the Torah on a level that is beyond us. One such master was the Vilna Gaon, the “Genius of Vilna,” Rabbi Elijah son of Shlomo Zalman (d. 1797).
At a very young age he committed to memory the entire Hebrew Bible and both the Babylonian and Jerusalem Talmud, plus a wide range of associated literature.
Not to mention, the entire kabbalistic (Jewish mystical) literature.
In his lifetime, he was not called a gaon or genius, but a chasid or pious one, because of his utter devotion to Torah study. He did not sleep the night through. He slept in short spurts and studied some 18 hours daily.
He never held a communal position, yet his towering scholarship made him the commanding authority in Lithuania. No one elected him. The community paid him a stipend because it was an honor to have a person like this in its midst.
No Jewish scholar has, or would claim to have, reached his level of Torah knowledge since he died.
As if all this were not enough, he spent a couple of years wandering anonymously across Europe to visit libraries that held manuscripts of Jewish sacred literature. He memorized literally hundreds of thousands of variants in the post-Biblical literature. He emended countless texts based on these manuscripts.
He had no computer, nor even a typewriter. This was all in his head.
How might a person like this write? Elliptically. Extremely elliptically. The Gaon didn’t need to cite lengthy quotations from any talmudic text; all he needed to do was to cite the source (tractate so-and-so, page so-and-so, sometimes with and sometimes without an additional few words from the text).
Now, the Vilna Gaon published nothing in his lifetime, but he did teach extensively and did write in the margins of his Code of Jewish Law. For decades after his death his disciples labored to publish his teachings.
The most authoritative are his comments on the Code, since only these he wrote himself.
To read the Vilna Gaon’s comments on the Code of Jewish Law, is, well, not to read. One puzzles over these comments, so terse and compact they inevitably are. They are easily mistaken for a mere set of source citations. Carefully fleshed out and analyzed, however, the student of the Gaon sees that he provides just enough of any citation to reveal that he is making a point about a teaching in the Torah. He is taking a stand. He’s analyzing a text. He accepting one reading and rejecting another. All this is derived from the barest hints.
The Gaon, for example, might refer the reader to a long comment of Rabbi Samson of Sens, an authoritative commentator on the mishnaic order of “Purities.” Rabbi Samson’s comment might cover 50 wide lines; the Gaon’s reference might be to two words out of the hundreds of words in those lines. The careful reader will discern that the Gaon’s specific reference, taken in the context of his entire notation, is extraordinarily well chosen, highlighting a point of view and taking a stand.
All this must be carefully and extensively teased out from terse references.
The Gaon does not slip. Nothing is ever wrong. There are no mistakes. Often one must puzzle and ponder to figure out his meaning. For example, the Gaon might cite Rabbi Samson of Sens and then observe that another authority disagrees. One looks into the other authority and spots no disagreement. What’s going on? The bad news is: It’s very hard to see any difference between the two. The good news is: The Gaon is never wrong. If one stays with him long enough, one sees his point, sees the Torah in a different light.
Another example: The Gaon might comment on topic A by referring to topic B. What is he doing? He sees a connection that no one else has ever seen. What is it? It may take the reader some time to figure this out. Again, the good news: One is always rewarded. There is always a point, often an innovative one, in the words of the Gaon.
How long does it take to figure out a difficult, a recalcitrant comment of the Gaon? It is reported that one of the late Rabbi Aharon Kotler’s students challenged him vigorously after Rabbi Kotler offered a reading of a comment of the Vilna Gaon. This was Rabbi Kotler’s response: It took me 24 years to figure out this comment of the Gaon! (i.e., don’t bother me with your instantaneous wisdom).
With some comments, the Gaon revolutionizes perspectives on Jewish law. He wrote, for example, 25 words on the laws of mikveh that have exercised the most brilliant students of Torah ever since, generating scores of pages of intricate analysis. Again — all this intellectual creativity based on a short, penetrating observation of the Vilna Gaon.
Who else, in any field, wrote 25 words some 250 years ago that the best intellects are still discussing?
Einstein’s mathematical symbol, E=mc2, is five characters. It revolutionized physics. The Vilna Gaon thought and wrote in code. Since he lived, no commentary on Jewish law can fail to take him into account.
The Vilna Gaon remains a paragon of piety and scholarship. We might term his abilities superhuman — if it weren’t for the fact that he was, in fact, human. If we do not strive to be like him, we will not even be what we are.
© IJN 2026