The Overlooked Teachings of Eastern Europe’s Great Anti-Hasidic Rabbi

Because the ḥasidic movement is rooted in its own particular understanding of Jewish mysticism, it is sometimes assumed that its opponents, the Mitnaggedim, were uninterested or even dismissive of kabbalah. But nothing could be further from the truth. The greatest of the Mitnaggedim, the Gaon of Vilna (Elijah ben Solomon Zalman, 1720-1797), diligently studied kabbalistic texts and wrote commentaries on them. Likewise his most famous disciple, Ḥayyim of Volozhin—perhaps the most influential East European rabbinic thinker of his day—focused much of his attention on mystical subjects.