Hebrew name: גר״א
Years: 1720–1797
Primary city: Vilna
Rabbi Eliyahu ben Shlomo Zalman, known as the Vilna Gaon, was the outstanding rabbinic authority for 18th-century Lithuanian Jewry and the spiritual leader of the non-Chassidic communities. He composed extensive commentaries and annotations on a vast range of foundational texts, including the Talmud, Shulchan Aruch, Midrash, and works of Kabbalah, nearly all of which were published posthumously by his students. Though he never held a formal rabbinic position, his unique methodology in Torah study was disseminated by his talmidim, most prominently by Rabbi Chaim of Volozhin, who founded the influential Volozhin Yeshiva.