linguistic:paraphrasing, quality:correction
Youth and education

The Vilna Gaon was born in Sialiec, Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth on April 23, 1720, as Elijah Ben Solomon Zalman to a well known rabbinical family.

According to legend he had committed the Tanakh to memory by the age of four, and aged seven he was taught Talmud by Moses Margalit, future rabbi of Kėdainiai and the author of a commentary to the Jerusalem Talmud, entitled Pnei Moshe ("The Face of Moses"). He possessed a photographic memory. By eight, he was studying astronomy during his free time. From the age of ten he continued his studies without the aid of a teacher, and by the age of eleven he had committed the entire Talmud to memory.

Later he decided to go into "exile" and he wandered in various parts of Europe including Poland and Germany. By the time he was twenty years old, rabbis were submitting their most difficult halakhic problems to him. He returned to his native city in 1748, having by then acquired considerable renown.