Gra - Each of us has a unique way we are required to serve G-d

Gra (Mishlei 16:4): Every individual has a unique way that he is to serve G‑d. (Berachos 58a) : Just as no two people look the same, no two people have the same way of thinking. Therefore no two people have identical natures. When there were prophets, people went to the prophets to inquire of G‑d. The prophet would respond based on his prophetic understanding concerning the way that person should conduct himself according to the source of the person's soul and the nature of his body. When prophecy ceased to exist there was still the power of ruach hakodesh that is in each person and each person could use it to determine what he should do. …However this is only useful if the person is spiritually refined and is purely directed to serve G‑d. Otherwise his spiritual intuition is totally unreliable…. Therefore now that we lack the purity of spirit, we can not rely on spiritual intution and instead we can at most focus on doing mitzvos and Torah study for the sake of G‑d to the best of our ability…

R’ Wolbe (Alei Shor 1:167): There are three different historical eras [concerning the Gra’s idea of learning about one’s true self through prophecy.] 1) Originally the prophets ascertained for every individual his unique service of G‑d according to the source of his soul. 2) the nature of everyone’s service of G‑d was established through the lower level of ruach hakodesh – but this was associated with a great danger. That is because if his spiritual state was not pure he would end up establishing his path in service of G‑d according to his biases and subjective feelings. This could lead to him to determine his actions primarily for his own pleasure and desires – but he wouldn’t be aware of his error because he would think that he had ascertained everything entirely through ruach hakodesh. 3) The third era is that of our modern era. No one even tries to establish his unique path in serving G‑d and instead we concern ourselves entirely with whether our deeds are according to G‑d will. It is important to note that the Gra is not saying that now we don’t have the ability to go in the path of greatness and wonders and that therefore the entire concern with one’s unique service of G‑d is terminated. Rather the Gra’s intent seems to be that in our generation we can no longer determine our unique service of G‑d by means of ruach hakodesh according to the source of our soul and the physical nature of our bodies. The reason why use of ruach hakodesh is no longer done is because subjective biases and errors are common today. Therefore we are only left with the option of trying the best we can to act according to G‑d’s will. This determines our program and our goals. We learn which mitzvos are easy for us to fulfill and which ones are difficult. We ascertain which attributes to eliminate and which ones are desirable to acquire. We determine which approach makes it easy for us to accept much work and which approach we are grateful when we achieve even a little. Consequently it is through our interests in how to fulfill the mitzvos and to improve our personality – we are able to determine the nature of our unique service of G‑d. [Look at the introduction to this chapter concerning the Gra]. Therefore even in our generation each person is obligated to do his unique service of G‑d. A person concerned with spiritual growth can not be satisfied by simply observing the mitzvos. He is obligated to clarify and improve and perfect himself in the area of his personality and conduct. To the degree that he is focused on his genuine uniqueness to that degree he is praiseworthy.

Rav Chaim Shmuelevitz(Sichos Musar #33):[[ Everyone is required to thoroughly examine his deeds especially before Rosh HaShanna - the Day of Judgment. This obligation is not just to discover transgressions and lapses in observance of the commands. It also includes the evaluation whether one's path in serving G‑d is the correct one for him since everyone has a unique path. The issue of Avodas HaShem is such that a person could keep all the mitzvos yet have a completely false approach to serving G?d. The problem is compounded by the fact that he might have incorrectly assumed that what he was doing would be pleasing to G‑d. Nevertheless all his efforts would have been to accomplish a mistaken goal. Consequently if he has not carefully evaluated the correctness of his plan than all his efforts and sacrifices are wasted. Furthermore he is punished according to the degree of effort he made to accomplish this wrong plan? This can be seen from the fact that Rav Yochanon ben Zakkai who was not only the leading Torah scholar of his time but also had succeeded in saving Torah for all future generations was frightened before his death. He cried before his students and said "I see before me two paths - one to Gan Eden and the other to Gehinom and I don't know where they are taking me. Shouldn't I cry?" His fear was not because of failing to keep the whole Torah. His fear was solely because he might have failed to properly have done his Avodas HaShem. There is the additional problem with Avodas HaShem - that one simply can't repent for doing it incorrectly since it is easy to be mistaken and assume that you are doing the right thing.

Mishna Berura (Shaar HaTziyun 622:6): A person many times despairs of correcting his faults and concludes that if G‑d decrees that he dies because of his failure there is nothing he can do about it. However this is a mistaken attitude because in the end, G‑d will get the correction of the soul that He wants. The soul will be reincarnated over and over again into this world until the correction is achieved. Consequently why should the soul repeatedly suffer death and the anguish of the grave and other things? Proof of this is from Yonah whom G‑d wanted to prophesize for Nineveh and he tried to escape to the sea where prophesy does not occur. We see that he sunk into sea and was swallowed by the great fish and was in its belly many days where it seems that it was impossible to fulfill G‑d’s command. Nevertheless we see that at the end G‑d’s will was fulfilled and he went and prophesized. Thus it is with everyman according to his Divinely ordained task. Therefore as it says in Avos (4:22): Don’t view the grave as a refuge—because you were born against your will, you live against your will, you die against your will and against your will you will have to justify all your actions to the Heavenly court.

The Ger Tzedek and the Gra

RaP asserted that the fact that the Gra insisted on being buried next to the Ger Tzedek shows that he had a different attitude towards geirm than the Syrian Rabbinate.

Aside from RaP's continued insistence that he "knows" that they don't like geirm and yet he can not find a single significnat rabbi [at this point not even an insignificnt rabbi] willing to state this - there is a question of the validity of the assertion that the Gra insisted on being buried next to the Ger Tzedek. I am of course not questioning that the Gra valued geirim. I am simple not convinced that it is a historical fact that the Gra insisted on being buried next to the Ger Tzedek or even whether the story of the Ger Tzedek happened as described.

The burning of the Ger Tzedek is reported to have happened in 1749 in Vilna in a public execution. However the very first explicit mention of the event was in 1822 by an apostate who claimed that have heard about it from a rabbi.There is no mention of the Ger Tzedek in the Gra's writings or in that of any of his students. R' Eliach wrote a whole chapter on this his 3 volume set of the Gra - but he doesn't have any convincing evidence prior to 1822 nor does he offer a convincing justification for why this public event is not mentioned in any sources -public or private - until 70 years later! There is a similar pattern concerning the story of the Golem which the Maharal was supposed to have made. No mention of it until the early 1800's.

Let me provide links to some of the relevant discussions:

R Eliach, Prof. Magda Teter, Prof. Leiman.

Gra's Derech in Halacha II -R' Chaim Soloveitchik's view

Rabbi Dr. Chaim Soloveitchik wrote in Rupture and Reconstruction page 111-112:

(c) The contemporary shift to text authority explains the current prevalence in yeshivah circles of the rulings of the GRA. The GRA, while far from the first to subject the corpus of Jewish practice to textual scrutiny, did it on an unprecedented scale and with unprecedented rigor. No one before him (and quite possibly, no one since) has so often and relentlessly drawn the conclusion of jettisoning practices that did not square with the canonized texts. Great as was the GRA's influence upon the mode of Talmudic study, and awesome as was his reputation generally, nevertheless, very few of his radical rulings were accepted in nineteenth century Lithuania, even in the yeshiva world. (To give a simple example: the practice in the Yeshivah of Volozhin was to stand during the havdalali service as was customary, rather than to sit as the GRA had insisted.) See also Aryeh Leib Frornkin, Sefer Toldot Eliyahu (Wilno, 19(0), pp. 70-71. Seeking there to demonstrate, to an elite Lithuanian audience at the close of the nineteenth century, the uniqueness of his distinguished father and uncle, Fromkin points out that they were numbered among the very few who followed the rulings of the GRA. Most towns in Eastern Europe had traditions going back many centuries, and even the mightiest names could alter a practice here and there, but could effect no wholesale revision of common usage. Indeed, the GRA's writ rarely ran even in Vilna (Wilno), outside of his own kloyz; [the small synagogue where he had prayed]. (I have heard this point made by former residents of Vilna, See also Mishnah. Berurah, Biur Halakhah, 551:1, and note how rare such a comment is in that work.) Mark should be made of the striking absence of the GRA from the Arukh ha-Shulhan, Orak Hayyim, written by one who was a distinguished product of the Yeshivah of Volozhin and rabbi of that bastion of Lithuanian talmudism, Navahrdok (Novogrudok). Indeed, the first major work known to me that systematically reckons with the Biur ha-Gra is the Mishnah Berurah, and understandably so, as that work is one of the first to reflect the erosion of the traditional society (see, above, text and n, 6). With the further disappearance of the traditional orah hayyim in the twentieth century, the ritual of daily life had to be constructed anew from the texts; the GRA's work exemplified this process in its most intense and uncompromising form, and with the most comprehensive mastery of those texts. It is this consonance with the contemporary religious agenda and mode of decision making [pesak[ that has led to the widespread influence of the (GRA today in the yeshivah and haredi world. (See below n, 68.) (S. Z. Leiman pointed out to me that S. Z. Havlin arrived at similar conclusions as to the delayed influence of the GRA on pesak, and further corroborated them by a computer check of the Responsa Project of Bar-llan University. He presented his findings, in a still unpublished paper, at the Harvard Conference on Jewish Thought in the Eighteenth Century, April 1992.)

(1) I emphasize that my remarks are restricted to pesak and do not refer to modes of study. In the latter field, the GRA's impact was both swift and massive. (2) In light of my remarks above, I should take care to add that though the GRA is noticeably absent as an authority in the Arukh ha-Shulhan, that work is written in the spirit of the GRA, whereas the Mishnah Berurah, for all its deference to the GRA, is penned in a spirit antithetical to the one of the Gaon, The crux of the Gaon's approach both to Torah study and pesak was its independence of precedent. A problem was to be approached in terms of the text of the Talmud as mediated by the rishonim (and in the Gaon's case even that mediation was occasionally dispensed with). 'What subsequent commentators had to say about this issue, was, with few exceptions (e.g. Magen Avraham, Shakh), irrelevant. This approach is writ large on every page of the Biur ha-Gra, further embodied in the Hayyei Adam and the Arukh ha-Shulhan, and has continued on to our day in the works of such Lithuanian posekim, as the Hazan Ish and R. Mosheh Feinstein. The Mishnah. Berurah rejects de facto this approach and returns to the world of precedent and string citation, Decisions are arrived at only after elaborate calibration of and negotiation with multiple "aharonic" positions.