Asceticism
The Vilna Gaon led an ascetic life. He interpreted literally the words of the Jewish sages, that the Torah can be acquired only by abandoning all pleasures and by cheerfully accepting suffering; and as he lived up to this principle, he was revered by his countrymen as a saint, being called by some of his contemporaries "the Hasid". This, of course, seems ironic, given his well known opposition to the Hasidic movement, though in fact the term is used in two different senses.
The Gaon once started on a trip to the Land of Israel, but for unknown reasons did not get beyond Germany. (In the early nineteenth century, three groups of his students, known as Perushim, did manage the trip, settling mostly in Tzfat and Jerusalem). While at Königsberg he wrote to his family a letter which was published under the title Alim li-Terufah, Minsk, 1836.
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