Rav Meir Auerbach

Early years

Rav Meir Auerbach zt"l, known as the Imrei Binah after his sefer, was born in 1815 in Kovel, a town close to Kalish, a major city of central Poland. His family had given Klal Yisroel great rabbonim over many centuries. Among his ancestors was Rav Shlomo Zalman of Poznan, who lived in the later sixteenth century; he wrote many scholarly works, and his contemporaries regarded him as a holy man.

His father, Rav Yitzchok Isaac Auerbach, served as rav of Polotzk and Luntshitz and wrote the sefer Divrei Chaim. He died in 1846.

Torah and leadership in Poland

Rav Meir was a towering gaon in Gemara. He became rav of Kovel in 1840, when he was only twenty-five years old. In 1846 he was named president of the beis din in Kolo and held that post for nine years. After that he was Chief Rabbi of Kalish for four years, and during that time he was also involved in business.

From the pulpit he urged his congregants to settle in Eretz Yisroel and so “begin the process of redemption.” In 1860 he passed the Kalish rabbinate to Rav Chaim Elozor Wax, traveled to Eretz Yisroel and made his home in Yerushalayim.

Building Yerushalayim

Rav Shmuel Salant, the Chief Rabbi of Yerushalayim, was then preparing for a long trip to Europe to raise help for the poor communities of Eretz Yisroel, and he named Rav Meir to serve in his place while he was away. When Rav Shmuel came back some months later, Rav Meir was willing to return the post to him.

Rav Shmuel recognized how much the city stood to gain from Rav Meir's continued involvement. He explained that a sole Chief Rabbi would be consumed by keeping the community financially afloat and would have little time left for his rabbinic duties, and so he persuaded Rav Meir to stay on as assistant Chief Rabbi of Yerushalayim. Rav Meir shared with Rav Shmuel the work of caring for the city's spiritual and material needs, and he was a leading figure in the communal affairs of the whole country.

Rav Meir also sat on the rabbinical board of directors of the Rav Meir Baal Haness charity, which Rav Shmuel Salant founded in 1860, and the charity's archive preserves hundreds of letters sent to him from around the world in that role. Before moving to Eretz Yisroel he had put money into several profitable businesses in Poland and lived comfortably, so he would accept no salary for his rabbinic work. Instead he gave generously to institutions and to individuals, particularly widows and orphans.

When he arrived in Yerushalayim he found numerous kollelim, each serving only its own community, with no central body to deal with shared needs such as paying the salaries of the rabbonim, the Turkish military taxes and relations with Turkish officials. Then, in 1866, a cholera epidemic struck the city and brought great suffering, and the Ashkenazic groups were in disarray. Rav Shmuel Salant and Rav Meir understood that they had to join forces, and together they set up an umbrella body that brought the factions together. This was the Vaad HaKlali, which became the central institution handling all the city's financial and spiritual affairs. It represented all the Ashkenazim, while the Sephardim ran their own affairs under the Chacham Bashi of Yerushalayim.

The foreign diplomats posted in Eretz Yisroel held Rav Meir in great respect, above all the Russian consul. It is told that when the crown prince of Russia fell ill, the Emperor turned to him for prayers, an event described below.

He cared deeply about the growing population of Yerushalayim and worked to open new neighborhoods where it could expand. With Rav Shmuel Salant he supported Rav Yosef Rivlin and Rav Yoel Moshe Salomon in building Nachalas Shiva, the first Jewish neighborhood built outside the walls of the Old City in modern times. Its cornerstone was laid on Lag BaOmer, 18 Iyar 5629 (1869), and about fifty Jewish families lived there by 1875. He also had a central role in the founding of Meah Shearim.

Every part of the community loved him, and he was named Honorary President of Yeshivas Etz Chaim, of Bikur Cholim Hospital and of the Churvah shul, Beis Yaakov.

Teachings and seforim

Rav Meir's major work on the Shulchan Aruch, Imrei Binah, shows his greatness in Torah. In it he recorded the wedding custom called Minhag Yerushalayim: within Yerushalayim itself no musical instruments are played at weddings, as a sign of mourning over the ruined Beis HaMikdash, though percussion instruments are permitted. Rav Yosef Chaim Sonnenfeld, Rav Yehoshua Leib Diskin and the later rabbonim of Yerushalayim all accepted his ruling.

Most Ashkenazic and chassidic weddings in Yerushalayim today keep this custom. Some rabbonim, among them Rav Chaim Pinchas Scheinberg, are lenient and permit instruments, and Sephardim and certain chassidic groups, Ger for example, do not follow it.

Rav Meir and Rav Shmuel Salant held that the most kosher esrog is the balady citron, which is grown at Umm el-Fahm, an Arab village.

Later years and passing

Rav Meir passed away on 5 Iyar 5638 (1878), at the age of sixty-three, which was young. Rav Shmuel Salant was left once more to lead the Jews of Yerushalayim alone.