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Rabbi Elijah Kramer, known as the Gaon of Vilna, was a genius of unprecedented comparison. He knew the entire Torah backwards and forwards, literally, and his erudition was such that it influenced everyone in a generation. A century of scholarship was dimmed by the light of his genius, and everyone else was overshadowed by it. He held no official position. He was not the rabbi of a congregation or of a community, he was not a judge or a dayan, and he was not a member of the beit din. Nevertheless, he was the force that, to this day, influences not only Ashkenazi Jewry but the whole Jewish world as well. He was therefore a remarkable figure: a person who was basically a recluse, yet the most influential person of his generation.
The customs of the Gaon, his understanding of Torah, his understanding of the need for Jewish education in a newer form, so to speak, his loyalty to the Land of Israel, and his attempt to restore the ethical balance in Jewish life all become part of the Jewish story of the 18th and 19th centuries.
Thank you for watching. I'm Barl Wine. For more on Jewish history, go to jewishhistorydotorg.