Elijah ben Solomon Zalman was born in 1720, in a small town of Sialiec in nowadays Belarus. Both of his parents were from families with well-known Rabbis, and his own father, Shloma Zalman was constantly studying Talmud. All household chores and financial stability of the Zalman family with seven children were on the shoulders of Elijah`s mother Traine. She owned a small shop in Sialec. So it is no surprise, the later in his life, the talented Elijah created the family of the same traditional structure and his wife was responsible for keeping the family alive. Elijah`s extraordinary talents were discovered when a seven-year-old visited Vilnius with his father. This brave boy gave a sermon in the Great Synagogue, which was surprisingly mature and startled the local community. Vilna Rabbi at that time, Joshua Herszel, was ascertained, that Elijah is no ordinary boy and called him iluj – the talented one. Elijah was suggested to come to Kėdainiai and continue his Talmudic studies with the supervision of Rabbi David Kacenelenbogen. After his bar mitzva Elijah married the daughter of Kėdainiai merchant – Chana – and for the first years of his marriage, he lived alone in a wooden house on the outskirts of town. There is a legend that this place was so secluded that only his wife Chana knew how to get there. In 1745 already famous for its wisdom Elijah with his family (wife and children) moved to Vilnius, and thus it began an inseparable story of Jewish Vilna and Vilna Gaon. Although he was offered various positions in the community, Elijah did not want to limit his possibilities of working on the sacred scriptures, so he refused each one. However, Vilna Jewish community was proud to have such a prominent scholar in the community, so they aimed to help Elijah – for instance, they gave him a scholarship, and assisted his family with daily life struggles.  In a way, the phenomenon of Vilna Gaon was enabled by the local Vilna Jewish community, which understood the importance of his persistent intellectual work. People from various places in Eastern Europe came to hear him speak – they went home inspired and spread the word about this genius in Vilnius.