Vilna Gaon - Methods of Study

Methods of Study

The Gaon applied to the Talmud and rabbinic literature proper philological methods. He made an attempt toward a critical examination of the text; thus, very often with a single reference to a parallel passage, or with a textual emendation, he overthrew tenuous decisions made by his rabbinic predecessors.

He devoted much time to the study of the Torah and Hebrew grammar, and was knowledgeable in the secular sciences, enriching the latter by his original contributions. His pupils and friends had to pursue the same plain and simple methods of study that he followed. He also exhorted them not to neglect the secular sciences, maintaining that Judaism could only gain by their studying them. The Gaon was also attracted to the study of Kabbalah; his controversy with Hasidic Judaism thus stems not from a rejection of mysticism per se, but from a profoundly different understanding of its teachings, in particular regarding its relationship to halakhah and the Ashkenazic minhag.

The Vilna Gaon was modest; he declined to accept the office of rabbi, though it was often offered to him on the most flattering terms. In his later years he also refused to give approbations, though this was the privilege of great rabbis; he thought too humbly of himself to assume such authority. He led a retiring life, only lecturing from time to time to a few chosen pupils.

In 1755, when the Gaon was thirty-five, Rabbi Jonathan Eybeschütz, then sixty-five years old, applied to him for an examination of and decision concerning his amulets, which were a subject of discord between himself and Rabbi Jacob Emden. The Vilna Gaon, in a letter to Eybeschütz, stated that, while in full sympathy with him, he did not believe that words coming from a stranger like himself, who had not even the advantage of old age, would be of any weight with the contending parties.