Vilna Gaon

Who was Vilna Gaon?

Elijah ben Shlomo Zalman Kremer, known as the Vilna Gaon or Elijah of Vilna, or by his Hebrew acronym Gra or Elijah Ben Solomon, was a Talmudist, halakhist, kabbalist, and the foremost leader of mitnagdic Jewry of the past few centuries. He is commonly referred to in Hebrew as ha-Gaon he-Chasid mi-Vilna, "the saintly genius from Vilnius".

Through his annotations and emendations of Talmudic and other texts he became one of the most familiar and influential names in rabbinic study since the Middle Ages, counted by many among the sages known as the Acharonim, and ranked by some with the even more revered Rishonim of the Middle Ages. Large groups of people, including many yeshivas, uphold the set of Jewish customs and rites, the "minhag ha-Gra", which is named for him, and which is also considered by many to be the prevailing Ashkenazi minhag in Jerusalem.

Born in Vilnius, capital city of Grand Duchy of Lithuania, the Gaon displayed extraordinary talent while still a child. By the time he was twenty years old, rabbis were submitting their most difficult halakhic problems to him for legal rulings.