Hebrew name: גר״א
Years: 1720–1797
Primary city: Vilna
Rabbi Eliyahu ben Shlomo Zalman, known as the Vilna Gaon, was the intellectual leader of the Mitnagdim who opposed the Chasidic movement. He authored commentaries on nearly the entire corpus of rabbinic literature, including Bi'ur HaGra on the Shulchan Aruch. Though he held no formal communal office, his teachings and methodology, disseminated by students like Rabbi Chaim of Volozhin, shaped the intellectual character of Lithuanian Jewry.