The three major points of the Gra were to learn Torah, to have trust in God (without effort), and the fact that he put his signature on the letter of excommunication.[note 1]
The founding of institutions to learn Torah was definitely not his "thing." And the time for that seems to have passed. [I am not the first person to notice this.] [note 2]
But the first three things seem to me to be vastly important.
[note 1] I think the Ran from Breslov is not to be considered in the category of the excommunication from the reading of the actual documents and letter that the Gra signed.
[note 2] There is a question if the Gra ever agreed with Reb Haim of Voloshin about this issue. And even though at that time it was "the need of the hour", nowadays the situation is different. It is hard to put my finger on the exact nature of the problem. My learning partner however put this issue succinctly: "They are private country clubs." [That is to say the whole thing is usually "purchase by mistake." One is not getting what he paid for. In a מקח טעות buying something that turns out to be not what you expected it is not needed that the seller openly makes claims about his product as you can see in Bava Batra 92. It is enough that the buyer is known what he is buying for, If what he gets is different, then the deal is off, an he gets his money back. Some say also the money that is equal to the time and effort he spent. That is later on in the Gemara on around page 94.]
[In any case, to me the whole thing seems to be a subset of the general kind of thinking that was going on in Western Europe at the time. That more or less started with the Revolution in France and then extended out to intellectual revolutions. The idea was to make movements and institutions all based on some new fashionable idea. The overthrow of old systems got to be the "in thing."]
The founding of institutions to learn Torah was definitely not his "thing." And the time for that seems to have passed. [I am not the first person to notice this.] [note 2]
But the first three things seem to me to be vastly important.
[note 1] I think the Ran from Breslov is not to be considered in the category of the excommunication from the reading of the actual documents and letter that the Gra signed.
[note 2] There is a question if the Gra ever agreed with Reb Haim of Voloshin about this issue. And even though at that time it was "the need of the hour", nowadays the situation is different. It is hard to put my finger on the exact nature of the problem. My learning partner however put this issue succinctly: "They are private country clubs." [That is to say the whole thing is usually "purchase by mistake." One is not getting what he paid for. In a מקח טעות buying something that turns out to be not what you expected it is not needed that the seller openly makes claims about his product as you can see in Bava Batra 92. It is enough that the buyer is known what he is buying for, If what he gets is different, then the deal is off, an he gets his money back. Some say also the money that is equal to the time and effort he spent. That is later on in the Gemara on around page 94.]
[In any case, to me the whole thing seems to be a subset of the general kind of thinking that was going on in Western Europe at the time. That more or less started with the Revolution in France and then extended out to intellectual revolutions. The idea was to make movements and institutions all based on some new fashionable idea. The overthrow of old systems got to be the "in thing."]
