Abraham ben Elijah of Vilna was a Jewish Talmudist who lived in Lithuania.

There is some
debate as to when he was born. Some place his birth as early as 1749, but more recent
scholarship suggests he was actually born in 1766. He was born in Vilna and died there on
December 14, 1808. He was the son of Elijah, the Vilna Gaon, the most famous Talmudist of
modern times. He was educated under the supervision of his father, who was famous both
for his opposition to both the Hasidic movement, and the dry scholasticism which dominated
the rabbinic leadership of Poland at that time. According to the custom of the time, he
married at the age of twelve, but continued his studies in the Talmudic colleges in other
cities, and after a few years returned home, where he completed his studies under his father.
Like his father, he never officiated as rabbi, but was a highly respected member of the
Jewish community of Vilna, in which he held various offices.
Contents
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1Works
2Secular knowledge
3Bibliography
4References

Works[edit]
It was due to his father's influence that he developed a literary activity of a far more scientific
character than was usually found at that age or in that country. Especially interested in the
history of the old homiletical literature, he edited the Midrash Agadat Bereshit with a number
of other mostly pseudepigraphic works of similar character (Vilna, 1802), adding valuable
notes. In the preface of this edition he makes the first known attempt to give a complete
history of the midrashic literature. A plagiarist, Jacob ben Naphtali Herz of Brody, reprinted
this edition with the preface (Zolkiev, 1804), but was careful to omit the name of Elijah Gaon
wherever the son had mentioned him. He omitted, also, on the title-page the mention of
Abraham of Vilna's edition, referring only to the one which had been printed in Venice in
1618.
This introduction was only part of his greater work, Rav Po'alim (Of Many Works, published
by Simon Chones, Warsaw, 1894). This book is an alphabetical index of all midrashimknown
to the author. It seems that Abraham of Vilna believed literally in the statement that the eighty
concubines of King Solomon (Shir ha-Shirim Rabbah 6:8) meant eightymidrashim. This is at
least testified to by Samuel Luria in a letter to Simon Chones (Rab Po'alim, p. 9). The book,
however, contains over one hundred and twenty midrashic works. While Abraham of Vilna
shows greater interest in literature and literary questions than is found among his
contemporaries, he has no idea of the meaning of literary criticism. He ascribes

the Zohar to Shimon bar Yochai, in spite of the many proofs against its authenticity produced
by various writers since the time of Abraham Zacuto. He makes, however, the admission that
the book was preserved for several generations by oral tradition. So he considered the Pirke
R. Eliezer (a Midrash written about the middle of the ninth century) to be written by R. Eliezer
ben Hyrcanus about 100 CE. The book is a very valuable one (even after Leopold Zunz has
treated the same subject in his methodical manner), because the author has collected many
valuable references from rabbinical literature.

Secular knowledge[edit]
Abraham's interest in secular knowledge, quite rare in his environment, is also manifest in
the writing of a Hebrew geography, Gebulot Erez , published anonymously (Berlin, 1801). The
book is, in fact, a translation of parts of George-Louis Leclerc de Buffon's Histoire Naturelle.
[1]

He edited Menahem Mendel's index to the Zohar, Tamim Yah daw, to which he added an

introduction and notes (Vilna, 1808). Of his numerous manuscripts which contained glosses
to the Talmud, Midrash, Shulkan 'Aruk, and explanatory notes to his father's works, a
commentary on the introduction to the Tikkune Zohar (Vilna, 1867), a commentary on
Psalms I-C ( Warsaw, 1887), Sa'arat Eliyahu, exegetical notes and biographical
data about his father (Jerusalem, 1889), and Targum Abraham, notes on Targum
Onkelos (Jerusalem, 1896), have been published.
The last-mentioned were edited by his great-grandson Elijah, who calls himself Landau.

Bibliography[edit]

Fuenn, iryah Neemanah, pp. 207 et seq., Vilna, 1860;

idem, eneset Yisrael, p. 21, Warsaw, 1880;

Simon Chones's introduction to Rab Po'alim, Warsaw, 1894.

I Idelson-Shein, "Their Eyes Shall Behold Strange Things": Abraham Ben Elijah of
Vilna Encounters the Spirit of Mr. Buffon," AJS Review, Vol. 36, Issue 2 (2012), pp. 295322.

References[edit]
1.

Jump up^ I Idelson-Shein, "Their Eyes Shall Behold Strange Things": Abraham Ben
Elijah of Vilna Encounters the Spirit of Mr. Buffon," AJS Review, Vol. 36, Issue 2 (2012), pp.
295-322

This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Singer, Isidore; et
al., eds. (19011906). "Abraham ben Elijah of Wilna". Jewish Encyclopedia. New York: Funk &
Wagnalls Company.
This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh,
ed. (1911). "article name needed". Encyclopdia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press.