Studies in Judaism 14

Studies in Judaism 14

It must be said in praise of the Jews of Wilna that, notwithstanding their

petty behaviour towards their ecclesiastical chief, they willingly

submitted to the authority of the Gaon (who was devoid of all official

authority). They revered him as a saint. To converse with the Gaon was

considered as a happy event in the life of a Jew in Wilna, to be of any

use to him as the greatest distinction a man could attain on earth. But

what is remarkable is the readiness with which even scholars acknowledged

the authority of the Gaon. Scholars are usually more slow in recognising

greatness than simple mortals. Every new luminary does not only outshine

their minor lights and thus hurt their personal vanity, but it threatens

also sometimes to obscure certain traditions which they wish to keep

prominently in view. But the literary genius of the Gaon was too great to

be opposed with success, and his piety and devotion to religion far above

suspicion. Thus the Gaon was very soon recognised by his contemporaries as

their master and guide; not only in literary questions, but also in

matters of belief and conduct.

 

It would lead me too far to name here all the Gaon's disciples. It seems

as if all the great scholars in his country considered themselves to be

more or less his pupils. The Gaon used to give in the Beth Hammidrash,

which he founded, public lectures on various subjects, and the students

who attended these lectures also claimed the honour of being called his

pupils. I shall mention here only his greatest disciple, R. Chayim

Walosin, who, after the Gaon, influenced his countrymen more than any

other scholar of that time. This R. Chayim also did not occupy any

official post among his brethren. He was a cloth manufacturer by

profession, and was very prosperous in his business. But it did not

prevent him from being devoted to Hebrew literature, and he enjoyed a

wide-spread fame as a great scholar. But as soon as the fame of the Gaon

reached him, he left cloth manufactory and scholarship behind, and went to

Wilna to "learn Torah" from the mouth of the great master. It must be

noticed that even the giving up of his claim to scholarship was no little

sacrifice. All our learning, said some scholar in Wilna, disappeared as

soon as we crossed the threshold of the Gaon's house. He made every

disciple who came into close contact with him begin at the beginning. He

taught them Hebrew grammar, Bible, Mishnah, and many other subjects, which

were, as already mentioned, very often neglected by the Talmudists of that

time. R. Chayim had also to go through all this course. Some would have

considered such treatment a degradation. R. Chayim, however, became the

more attached to his master for it.

 

In such a way the life of the Gaon was spent, studying by himself or

teaching his pupils. It must be understood that to learn Torah meant for

the Gaon more than mere brain work for the purpose of gaining knowledge.

To him it was a kind of service to God. Contemporaries who watched him

when he was studying the Torah observed that the effect wrought on the

personality of the Gaon was the same as when he was praying. With every

word his countenance flushed with joy; with every line he was gaining

strength for proceeding further. Only by looking at matters from this

point of view shall we be able to understand the devotion and the love of

the Gaon for study.

 

There has been, no doubt, among the Russian Jews a strong tendency to

exaggerate the intellectual qualities of the Gaon. But one can readily

excuse such a tendency. He was gifted by nature with such a wonderful

memory that, having read a book once, he was able to recite it by heart

for the rest of his life. Not less admirable was his sure grasp. The most

complicated controversies in the Talmud, into which other scholars would

require whole days and weeks to find their way, the Gaon was able to read

by a glance at the pages. Already as a boy he is said to have gone through

in a single night the tractates _Zebachim_ and _Menachoth_,(57) containing

not less than two hundred and thirty pages, the contents of which are

sometimes so difficult as to make even an aged scholar despair of

understanding them. Again, he possessed so much common-sense that all the

intellectual tricks of the casuistic schools did not exist for him. And

nevertheless his biographers tell us that he was so much occupied by his

studies, that he could not spare more than one hour and a half for sleep

out of twenty-four hours. This is, no doubt, an exaggeration. But let us

say five hours a day. He had not time to take his meals regularly. He used

also, according to tradition, to repeat every chapter in the Bible, every

passage in the Talmud, hundreds of times, even if they presented no

difficulty at all. But it was, as already said, a matter of love for the

Gaon; of love, not of passing affection.

 

Nothing on earth could be more despicable to the Gaon than amateurs who

dabble with ancient literature. To understand a thing clearly made him

happy. He is said to have spent more than six months on a single Mishnah

in the tractate _Kilayim_,(58) and felt himself the happiest man when he

succeeded in grasping its real meaning. Not to be able to go into the

depth of a subject, to miss the truth embedded in a single passage, caused

him the most bitter grief. A story told by his pupil, R. Chayim, may

illustrate this fact. One Friday, narrates R. Chayim, the servant of the

Gaon came to him with the message that his master wanted to see him as

soon as possible. R. Chayim went instantly. When he came into the house,

he found the Gaon lying in bed with a bandage on his head and looking very

ill. The wife of the Gaon also reported to him that it was more than three

days since her husband had taken any food, and that he had hardly enjoyed

any sleep all this time. All this misery was caused by reason of not

having been able to understand some difficult passages in the Talmud of

Jerusalem. The Gaon now asked his disciples to resume with him their

researches. Heaven, he said, might have mercy upon them and open their

eyes, for it is written, "Two are better than one": and lo! Heaven did

have mercy on them; they succeeded in getting the true meaning of the

passage. The Gaon recovered instantly, and master and disciple had a very

joyful Sabbath.

 

He is also reported to have said on one occasion, he would not like to

have an angel for his teacher who would reveal to him all the mysteries of

the Torah. Such a condition is only befitting the world to come, but in

_this_ world only things which are acquired by hard labour and great

struggle are of any value. The German representative of truth expressed

the same thought in other words, which are well worth repeating here: "Did

the Almighty," says Lessing, "holding in His right hand Truth and in His

left Search after Truth, deign to tender me the one I might prefer, in all

humility and without hesitation I should select Search after Truth."

 

This absorption of all his being in the study of the Torah may also, I

think, account for the fact that his biographers have so little to say

about the family of the Gaon. Of his wife, we know only that she died in

the year 1783. Not much fuller is our knowledge about his children. The

biographers speak of them as of the family "which the Lord has blessed,"

referring to his two sons, Rabbi Aryeh Leb and Rabbi Abraham, who were

known as great scholars and very pious men. The latter one is best known

by his edition of a collection of smaller Midrashim. Mention is also made

of the Gaon's sons-in-law, especially one Rabbi Moses of Pinsk. But this

is all, and we are told nothing either about their lives or their

callings. From his famous letter which he sent to his family when on his

way to Palestine, we see that he was rather what one may call a severe

father. He bids his wife punish his children most severely for swearing,

scolding, and speaking untruth. He also advises her to live as retired a

life as possible. Retirement he considers as a condition _sine qua non_

for a religious life. He even advises his daughter to read her prayers at

home, for in the synagogue she may get envious of the finer dresses of her

friends, which is a most terrible sin. The only tender feature in this

letter is perhaps where he implores his wife to be kind to his mother on

account of her being a widow, and it were a great sin to cause her the

least annoyance. From other passages we may gather that his family had at

times to suffer hunger and cold by the excessive occupation of their

father with the study of the Torah and other religious works. In short,

the Gaon was a one-sided, severe ascetic, and would never have deserved

the title of a good father, a good husband, an amiable man or any other

appellation derived from those ordinary "household decencies" which, as

Macaulay informs us, half of the tombstones claim for those who lie behind

them. But I am very much afraid that many a great man who has made his

mark in history could never claim these household virtues as his own. I do

not want to enter here into the question whether Judaism be an ascetic

religion or not. But even those who think Judaism identical with what is

called "making the best of this life," will not dispute the fact that

Jewish literature contains within it enough ascetic elements to justify

the conduct of our greatest men whose lives were one long-continued self-

denial and privation. "The Torah," says the Talmud, "cannot be obtained

unless a man is prepared to give his life for it," or as the Talmud puts

it, in another place, "if it be thy desire not to die, cease to live

before thou diest." This was the principle by which the Gaon's life was

actuated. And as he did not spare himself, he could not spare others. We

could not expect him to act differently. The scriptures tell us: "Thou

shalt love thy neighbour as thyself." But how is it with the man who never

loved himself, who never gave a thought to himself, who never lived for

himself, but only for what he considered to be his duty and his mission

from God on earth? Such a man we cannot expect to spend his time on

coaxing and caressing us. As to the charge of one-sidedness at which I

have hinted, if the giving up of everything else for the purpose of

devoting oneself to a scholarly and saintly life is one-sidedness, the

Gaon must certainly bear this charge; but in a world where there are so

many on the other side, we ought, I think, to be only too grateful to

Providence for sending us from time to time great and strong one-sided

men, who, by their counterbalancing influence, bring God's spoilt world to

a certain equilibrium again. To appease my more tender readers, I should

like only to say that there is no occasion at all for pitying Mrs. Gaon.

It would be a miserable world indeed if a good digestion and stupidity

were, as a certain author maintained, the only conditions of happiness.

Saints are happy in their sufferings, and noble souls find their happiness

in sacrificing themselves for these sufferers.

 

Another severe feature in the life of the Gaon showed itself in his

dispute with the Chassidim. I regret not to be able to enter here even

into a brief account of the history of this struggle. I shall only take

leave to say that I am afraid each party was right, the Gaon as well as

the Chassidim; the latter, in attacking the Rabbis of their time, who

mostly belonged to the casuistic schools, and in their intellectual

pursuits almost entirely neglected the emotional side of religion; but

none the less was the Gaon right in opposing a system which, as I have

shown above, involved the danger of leading to a worship of men.

 

Excepting this incident, the Gaon never meddled with public affairs. He

lived in retirement, always occupied with his own education and that of

his disciples and friends. It is most remarkable that, in spite of his

hard work and the many privations he had to endure, he enjoyed good health

almost all his life. He never consulted a doctor. It was not until the

year 1791, in the seventieth year of his life, that he began to feel the

decline of his health. But he was not much interrupted by the failure of

his powers. As a means of recovery, he esteemed very highly the

conversation of the preacher Jacob of Dubna, better known as the Dubna

Maggid,(59) whose parables and sallies of wit the Gaon used to enjoy very

much. On the eve of the Day of Atonement in the year 1797, he fell very

ill and gave his blessing to his children. He died on the third day of the

Feast of Tabernacles, with the branch of the Lulab(60) in his hands. The

Feast of Joy, relates a contemporary, was turned into days of mourning. In

all the streets of Wilna were heard only lamenting and crying voices. The

funeral orations delivered on this occasion in Wilna, as well as in other

Jewish communities, would form a small library. His disciples wept for

their master, the people of Wilna for the ornament of their native town,

and the feeling of the Jews in general was that "the Ark of God was taken away."