Rabbi Elijah ben Solomon Zalman

Vilna Gaon at the age of three was able to recite the whole Hebrew Bible.

Vilna Gaon (1720-1797). Rabbi Elijah ben Solomon Zalman, also known as Ha-Gra, was the foremost scholar-sage of Lithuanian Jewry in the eighteenth-century.

                                                                          
  Born in Vilnius                                                                            Image via Wikipedia
 Vilna Gaon
Journey of the soul
Culmination of mystical experience
Closest to humanism

2

Vilna Goan’s ecstatic worship

No hair-splitting dialectic

No sophistry

Vilna Gaon slept only two hours a day

Interpreting Talmud

Strengthened him

3.

Child prodigy

 at 3, recites Hebrew Bible

at 11, entire Talmud

Saintly genius

Meditates upon Talmud

Near an oak tree

3

Vilna Gaon guides us

As the going gets tough

Portal of spiritual discovery

Unassailable icon

Vilinus shrine

Spiritual vessel

4.

Famous tzadik
A charisma in Torah literature
Abandoned all pleasures
Accepted sufferings

NOTES: "gaon" means genius; "tzadik" is a righteous person.

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Faith in the Almighty Lord creates love, peace, brotherhood, inner joy, patience, humbleness, righteousness, kindness, and self-restraint.These good qualities alone can protect our world "where ignorant armies clash by night".

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