Seder Tahorot

Eliyahu Rabbah is an 18th-century commentary on Seder Tahorot (Purity), the sixth and last order of the Mishnah. Consisting of the teachings of the renowned Lithuanian scholar known as the Vilna Gaon, the work was published posthumously by his students. There is some dispute whether the text should be attributed to Rabbi Meir of Vilna, whose introduction appears in the first (1802) edition of the work, or to another student, Rabbi Yaakov Kahana. The Gaon’s commentaries reflect willingness to sometimes diverge from talmudic explanations of the Mishnah, though in his legal works he accepts the Talmud’s conclusions as law.