ר׳ מאיר בן גדליה מלובלין

ר׳ מאיר בן גדליה (1558–1616), the מהר״ם מלובלין, was one of the outstanding Polish Talmudists and halakhic decisors of the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. Born in Lublin to a learned family, he studied chiefly under his father-in-law, ר׳ יצחק הכהן שפירא of Kraków. Still in his twenties he headed the Lublin yeshiva, and in 1587 he was appointed dayan and head of the yeshiva in Kraków. From about 1595 until 1613 he served as rabbi of Lemberg, where his responsa record communal, commercial and family-law questions and a celebrated disagreement with ר׳ יהושע פלק כץ. He then returned to Lublin as rabbi and rosh yeshiva, dying there in 1616. His חידושי הלכות, conventionally known as מאיר עיני חכמים, became a standard aid to the Tosafot and to close analysis of the Babylonian Talmud; his responsa illuminate the social and economic life of early modern Polish Jewry. His pupils included ר׳ נתן נטע שפירא, and his analytical method helped shape the great Polish yeshiva tradition that followed.