1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910828679703321

Autore

Etkes I

Titolo

The Gaon of Vilna : the man and his image / / Immanuel Etkes ; translated by Jeffrey M. Green

Pubbl/distr/stampa

Berkeley : , : University of California Press, , 2002

©2002

ISBN

9786612356537

1-282-35653-4

0-520-92507-6

1-59734-627-6

Edizione

[1st ed.]

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (viii, 299 pages)

Collana

The S. Mark Taper Foundation imprint in Jewish studies

Altri autori (Persone)

GreenYaacov Jeffrey

Disciplina

296.8/32/092

B

Soggetti

Rabbis - Lithuania - Vilnius

Hasidism - History - 18th century

Vilnius (Lithuania) Biography

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Note generali

Description based upon print version of record.

Nota di bibliografia

Includes bibliographical references (p. 281-294) and index.

Nota di contenuto

Ha-Gaon He-Hasid : in his own time and for succeeding generations -- The Vilna Gaon and Haskalah -- The Vilna Gaon and the beginning of the struggle against Hasidism -- The Vilna Gaon and the Mitnagdim as seen by the Hasidim -- Rabbi Hayyim of Volozhin's response to Hasidism -- Talmudic scholarship and the rabbinate in Lithuanian Jewry during the nineteenth century -- Torah and yira in the thought and practice of the Vilna Gaon.

Sommario/riassunto

A legendary figure in his own lifetime, Rabbi Eliahu ben Shlomo Zalman (1720-1797) was known as the "Gaon of Vilna." He was the acknowledged master of Talmudic studies in the vibrant intellectual center of Vilna, revered throughout Eastern Europe for his learning and his ability to traverse with ease seemingly opposed domains of thought and activity. After his death, the myth that had been woven around him became even more powerful and was expressed in various public images. The formation of these images was influenced as much by the needs and wishes of those who clung to and depended on them as by



the actual figure of the Gaon. In this penetrating study, Immanuel Etkes sheds light on aspects of the Vilna Gaon's "real" character and traces several public images of him as they have developed and spread from the early nineteenth century until the present.