Wednesday, November 2, 2011

The Vilna Gaon on Talmud Shabbat 10a

B”H

Talmud Shabbat 10a teaches:

A person should not stop learning Torah in order to pray because his prayers are not effective.

The Vilna Gaon, Rabbi Eliyahu ben Shlomo Zalman Kremer (1720 – 1797), suggests the following interpretation of the Talmudic statement: 

If a person doesn’t want to listen to a Torah teaching because he has already heard it, so, too, G – d will not accept his prayers because He has already heard them. 

Once I was sitting next to a person at a Shabbat meal where a Rabbi just gave a Torah teaching. The person next to me said that he doesn’t need to listen, as he has already heard the same teaching before. When I told him the interpretation of the Vilna Gaon, the person immediately started to listen to the Rabbi.

1 comment:

  1. B'H

    Really nice post!

    As a Chosid, I never heard or read before that teaching of the Vilna Gaon.

    ReplyDelete