Vilna Gaon

The Vilna Gaon monument at the site of the Great Synagogue of Vilna

Talmudist, halakhist, kabbalist, and the foremost leader of misnagdic (non-hasidic) Jewry of the past few centuries.

- Vilna Gaon

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Misnagdim

Religious movement among the Jews of Eastern Europe which resisted the rise of Hasidism in the 18th and 19th centuries.

An anathema against the Hasidim, signed by the Gaon of Vilna and other community officials. August 1781.

The movement's leaders, like the Gaon of Vilna and Chaim of Volozhin, were deeply immersed in kabbalah.

Yeshiva

Traditional Jewish educational institution focused on the study of Rabbinic literature, primarily the Talmud and halacha (Jewish law), while Torah and Jewish philosophy are studied in parallel.

A typical bet midrash – Yeshivas Ner Yisroel, Baltimore

Chavrusas in study – Yeshiva Gedola of Carteret

Morning seder, Or-Yisrael - a yeshiva founded by the Chazon Ish

Shiur in memory of Rav Aharon Lichtenstein at Yeshivat Har Etzion, a Hesder yeshiva

A depiction of Sura (from Beit Hatefutsot)

Volozhin yeshiva, “mother of the yeshivas”

Chachmei Lublin Yeshiva, now a national monument

The Breslov Yeshiva in Mea Shearim, Jerusalem.

Beth Medrash Govoha, Lakewood, New Jersey – largest yeshiva outside Israel.

"Cheder"-class in Talmud, Tel Aviv, 1946.

Gemara, the first page of tractate Rosh Hashanah

Chavrusas learning beki'ut, recording their summary of each sugya alongside its Mishnah

Cover of the first edition of Mesillat Yesharim.

Organised Torah study was revolutionised by Chaim Volozhin, an influential 18th-century Lithuanian leader of Judaism and disciple of the Vilna Gaon.

Shulchan Aruch

Most widely consulted of the various legal codes in Judaism.

A wealth of later works include commentary and exposition by such halachic authorities as the Ketzoth ha-Choshen and Avnei Millu'im, Netivoth ha-Mishpat, the Vilna Gaon, Rabbi Yechezkel Landau (Dagul Mervavah), Rabbis Akiva Eger, Moses Sofer, and Chaim Joseph David Azulai (Birkei Yosef) whose works are widely recognized and cited extensively in later halachic literature.

Torah study

Study of the Torah, Hebrew Bible, Talmud, responsa, rabbinic literature and similar works, all of which are Judaism's religious texts.

A historic painting of Jews studying Torah

Students in the Mir Yeshiva, Jerusalem studying Talmud as a chavrusa

Rabbis engaged in Talmud study, early 20th century

A Shiur being given by the Rosh Yeshiva at Yeshivat Har Etzion

Rabbi and his students in Moscow, Russia

The Zilberman Method, pioneered in the mid-20th century by Yitzhak Shlomo Zilberman, draws upon traditional teaching methods as outlined by Chazal and championed by the Judah Loew ben Bezalel and Vilna Gaon.

Kollel

Institute for full-time, advanced study of the Talmud and rabbinic literature.

The first examples were Kolel Perushim (students of the Vilna Gaon who established the first Ashkenazi Jewish settlement in Jerusalem) and Colel Chabad for the Russian Hasidim.

Shneur Zalman of Liadi

Influential rabbi and the founder and first Rebbe of Chabad, a branch of Hasidic Judaism, then based in Liadi in the Russian Empire.

Writing sample from the Brockhaus and Efron Jewish Encyclopedia (1906–1913)

Kozienice Synagogue in Poland. Some Polish Hasidic leaders supported Napoleon

Petropavlovski fortress in St. Petersburg

The Tanya, a classic text of Hasidic philosophy

1875 edition of the Shulchan Aruch HaRav

Shneur Zalman and a fellow Hasidic leader, Menachem Mendel of Vitebsk (or, according to the tradition in the Soloveitchik family, Levi Yitzchok of Berditchev), attempted to persuade the leader of Lithuanian Jewry, the Vilna Gaon, of the legitimacy of Hasidic practices.

Lithuanian Jews

Lithuanian Jews or Litvaks are Jews with roots in the territory of the former Grand Duchy of Lithuania (covering present-day Lithuania, Belarus, Latvia, the northeastern Suwałki and Białystok regions of Poland, as well as adjacent areas of modern-day Russia and Ukraine).

Map showing percentage of Jews in the Pale of Settlement in the Russian Empire c. 1905.

LITVISH. An Atlas of Northeastern Yiddish by Dovid Katz. Cartography by Giedre Beconyte

No other famous Jew is more closely linked to a specifically Lithuanian city than Vilna Gaon (in Yiddish, "the genius of Vilna").