The Gaon was the greatest luminary, not only among the many Talmudical scholars of the 17^th and 18^th centuries (and five centuries before that), but also for many generations to come. He was the spiritual head of the whole of the Lithuanian and Russian Jewry, and later that of all the Jewish communities in Eastern and Central Europe. He hasbeen described as a “genius of the first order” and as “the last great theologian of classical Rabbinism.” He is a symbol of about 700 years Jewish presence in Lithuania.