ר׳ מאיר ליבוש בן יחיאל מיכל וייזר (המלבי״ם)

ר׳ מאיר ליבוש בן יחיאל מיכל וייזר (1809–1879), universally known by the acronym המלבי״ם, was a rabbi, halakhist, Hebrew grammarian, preacher and one of the nineteenth century’s most systematic Jewish biblical commentators. Born in Volochysk, Volhynia, he was orphaned young and educated by his father, his stepfather ר׳ לייב מוולוצ'יסק and ר׳ משה הלוי הורוויץ; he later studied in Warsaw and with ר׳ צבי הירש אייכנשטיין מזידיטשוב. After promoting his first halakhic work across Europe, he served communities in Wreschen and Kempen and became known as the Kempener Maggid. As chief rabbi of Bucharest he strengthened kashrut, education, Hebrew printing and the eruv, but his opposition to religious reform and conflicts with communal elites led to arrest and expulsion in 1864. Thereafter he moved through Ruse, Istanbul, Paris, Łęczyca, Kherson, Mogilev and Königsberg, repeatedly encountering political or communal opposition. His התורה והמצוה argued through detailed linguistic rules that rabbinic halakhic interpretation is rooted precisely in the biblical text; מקראי קודש applied his distinction between verbal explanation and contextual interpretation across most of the Prophets and Writings. While traveling to accept the Kremenchuk rabbinate, he became ill and died in Kyiv on Rosh Hashanah 5640.