The Wilna Gaon’s Life.
ELIJAH, son of Solomon, was born on Tuesday, the 15th of Nissan (April 24th), 1720 (1), in Wilna, the "Jerusalem of Lithuania." His father was a very poor but learned man, who occupied himself with nothing but the study of the Law, and who was supported from a fund which a relative, R. Moses Rivkes, had left for indigent scholars.
Elijah was very handsome and displayed great cleverness already as a child. At the age of six he was able to dispense with a teacher, and a few months thereafter he delivered an address in the "Grand Synagogue" of Wilna. This address was taught him by his father, to whom, perhaps, most of the credit is due. However, the very fact that he was permitted, as a mere child of six and a half years to speak from a pulpit which was usually reserved for great and famous scholars, shows that he must already have been held in high esteem. His lecture surpassed all expectation, so much so, in fact, that R. Hoeschel, who was rabbi at that time, invited him to "sholosh s'udoth" (afternoon meal on Saturday) at his home, where all the scholars of Wilna were assembled. His wonderful subtlety of mind and extensive knowledge astonished all present.
As though fearing that he might be misled by his contepmoraries, Elijah joined no Talmudical school, but studied alone.
(1) Elijah was born in 1720, and not as Graetz, Fuerst, and Steinschneider have it, in 1722. Their mistake is no doubt due to a mis-statement in the introduction to the Schulchan Aruch, where the date is given as 1722. That this is a mistake is evident, for in 1722 the 15th of Nissan fell on a Thursday and not on a Tuesday.
Only for six months did he go to Keidan to study under R. Moses Margolith. During his short stay in that town, one of the most prominent Jews in the place, R. Judah Loeb, engaged his daughter Treine to him.
After his return from Keidan, he began to study with unequalled assiduity. His biographers (no doubt exaggerating somewhat) tell us that at the age of nine he was already versed in all the branches of Jewish lore, the Bible, Talmud, Midrash, and Code. The next six months he devoted to familiarizing himself with the Zohar. At the end of this period, in order to make up for his temporary neglect of Talmudical studies, he returned to them with increased zeal. When the eve of Simchath Torah came, he had still to go through two of the most difficult tractates, Zebachim and Menachoth, but he completed them in one night. When this became known he was examined in these tractates and was found to know them by heart. His natural endowments were so great that at the age of ten he had already the knowledge of a Talmudic scholar. When he was eleven he was not only a thorough Hebraist but had also unravelled the mysteries of the Kabbalah; and at the age of thirteen he was recognized by all Talmudists as a great and accomplished scholar. In addition to his native powers he possessed a real love for learning. He not only sought to acquire a thorough knowledge of the Babylonian and Palestinian Talmuds, the Toseptha, Mechilta, Siphri, and Siphro, the earlier and later Poskim, and grammar, which the other Talmudists of his time entirely neglected, but he also studied physics, mathematics, astronomy, metaphysics, music and medicine, as far as these branches were accessible to him. This love of study