[Avodah] Ayil Meshulash

[Micha Berger]

On Thu, Feb 03, 2011 at 09:45:38AM -0500, Sheldon Krause wrote:
: I don't see any evidence for what Micha is saying at all. If you look at
: the shaar blatt it says that the manuscript was found "b'amtachat kitvei
: Hagaon Hachasid ....... Elyahu M'vilna ...."

Back a step... Bichlal, how much do we have from the Gra that is really
from the Gra? Some of the sefarim we attribute to the Gra were collected
notes. Most, like the peirush on Y-mi, are expansions of what was in
the notes. I think only the peirush on the SA is actually his, but I
can't swear to that. But here we have something different -- the Gra
actually asked this book to be written and provided a list of theorems
to cover. It wasn't a student posthumously trying to preserve the Gra's
notes. But it still wasn't the Gra himself, either.

The intro says that the book has 400 theorems that are found among the
notes of the Gra. Not that they /are/ the notes of the Gra. To begin
the quote earlier (and to translate, due to the unreadability of long
transliterations:
    Sefer
    Ayil Meshulash
    on the wisdom of triangles and engineering and in it are also some
    principles of techunah [no rigidly literal translation will work]
    and algebra. Altogether 400 principles which can be found [and here
    is RSK's quote] among the packages of writings of the Gaon, the
    Chassid...

No claim the Gra wrote the book, or even that the notes were pieced
together like a puzzle, literally his words.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             With the "Echad" of the Shema, the Jew crowns
micha at aishdas.org        G-d as King of the entire cosmos and all four
http://www.aishdas.org   corners of the world, but sometimes he forgets
Fax: (270) 514-1507      to include himself.     - Rav Yisrael Salanter