Rav Meir Yehuda Leibush Wisser

Early years

Rav Meir Yehuda Leibush Wisser zt"l, known throughout the Torah world as the Malbim, was born on March 7, 1809, in Volochysk in Volhynia, the son of Rav Yechiel Michel Wisser. The name Malbim is formed from the initials of his name, and he used it as his surname on all of his seforim. His father taught him Hebrew and Gemara, but he lost him at the age of six, and he was raised by Rav Yehuda Leib, Av Beis Din of Volochysk.

He learned under Rav Moshe Segal Horowitz, author of Emek HaSidim, and at thirteen went to learn in Warsaw, where he became known as the illui (prodigy) of Volhynia. From a young age he was a gifted orator and darshan, and his seforim show a wide knowledge of secular science and history. Later he received wisdom in Kabbalah from Rav Tzvi Hirsch of Zidatshuv and became a master of both the hidden and the revealed Torah.

He married a daughter of Rav Chaim Auerbach, Av Beis Din of Luntschitz and author of Divrei Mishpat on Choshen Mishpat. The marriage, which took place when he was fourteen, ended in divorce, and he threw himself into learning. In Luntschitz he worked night and day on his first halachic work, Artzos HaChaim, his commentary on the Shulchan Aruch.

Torah and leadership

In 1834 he traveled through Europe, visiting Pressburg, Trieste, Amsterdam and Breslau, to make Artzos HaChaim known, and he also called on other leading rabbanim of the day. Gaonim and gedolim gave the sefer great praise. In the late 1830s he took his first post, as rav of Wreschen near Posen. There he married Chayah, a young widow and the daughter of the wealthy Feivel Opochinsky of Luntschitz. The community of Posen offered him the post once held by Rav Akiva Eiger, but he declined and stayed in Wreschen, where in 1839 he published Artzos HaShalom, a collection of nine derashos, and wrote Shirei HaNefesh on Shir HaShirim.

He then became rav of the larger town of Kempen, where he served for many years and became known as the Maggid of Kempen. Since Wreschen and Kempen had been brought into Prussia, he learned German in order to qualify for Prussian citizenship. In Kempen he continued work on the second volume of Artzos HaChaim, which was printed in 1860, and in 1845 he published his first commentary on Tanach, on Megillas Esther.

In the late 1850s the community of Bucharest invited him to be chief rabbi of Romania. He remained there for five years and began work on HaTorah VeHamitzvah. In Bucharest he fought the maskilim, the opponents of true Torah, led by the educated upper class, among them Dr. Iuliu Barasch and some who were Austrian citizens. They wanted to bring changes in the spirit of modern European life, as some Reform congregations had done. The Malbim defended traditional Orthodox Judaism and its strict adherence to halachah. He rejected nearly every proposal to alter the siddur, to give up beards or to change observance in other ways.

He opposed the building of the great Choral Temple, with a choir and organ like the Great Synagogue of Leopoldstadt in Vienna, which he thought too Christian in style. He also condemned the first two elementary schools for Jewish children in Bucharest that taught a general curriculum. He withdrew funding from their schools, halted the construction of the Choral Temple and forbade kosher butchers to sell to anyone who did not keep Shabbos. Some of the religious personnel, the shochtim and dayanim, turned against him because of his insistence on halachah, and their frequent complaints almost put him in prison.

The reformers attacked him as a fanatic and went to the government with accusations: that he was blocking Jewish assimilation, that he held unpatriotic leanings and that his commentaries blasphemed Christianity. In 1862 the government revoked his title as chief rabbi and banned him from giving derashos. It also took away the Bucharest Jewish community's authority to raise taxes and manage its own affairs. The struggle continued until one Shabbos, in the middle of his derashah, he was arrested on false charges. He was imprisoned, and in 1864 he was expelled from Romania. Sir Moses Montefiore intervened, and he was freed on condition that he leave the country.

Unwilling to give in, the Malbim traveled to Constantinople to sue the Romanian government, demanding reinstatement and back pay. Sir Moses Montefiore supported him, and the Prussian consulate protested his treatment as a Prussian national. He also traveled to Paris to enlist the help of Adolphe Crémieux, president of the Alliance Israélite Universelle, who sent a protest letter to the ruler of Romania, Alexandru Cuza. The Malbim won reparations on condition that he officially resign as rav of Romania. After six months in Paris, where in 1865 he published HaLevanon, an autobiography describing his trials in Romania, he returned to Luntschitz, supported by an inheritance from his recently deceased father-in-law.

When the family business failed because of a dishonest partner, he returned to the rabbanus. He continued to clash with reformers and maskilim, and now also with chassidim who were suspicious of his philosophical bent. He served as rav in Kherson, in Ukraine, and in Luntschitz, but machlokes followed him, and he moved on to Mogilev (Mahilyow, in Belarus). There, too, he stood firmly for Torah and was resented by the wealthy, who denounced him as a political criminal. The governor forced him to leave, and the Russian government banned him from all its provinces.

He went to Königsberg (Kaliningrad), where he served as rav from 1875 to 1879, mainly among the Polish community, and he still clashed with Reform Jews there. In 1879 he visited Vilna, where the community wished to appoint him as rav, but the governor opposed it because he had been expelled from Mogilev as a political criminal. He also declined an offer to become chief rabbi of the Orthodox community of New York.

Teachings and seforim

The Malbim's greatest work is HaTorah VeHamitzvah, his commentary on the Torah and on the Sifra, which also includes Ayelet HaShachar, his guide to the differences between similar Hebrew terms. It is part of a larger work covering almost the whole of Tanach, with Mikra'ei Kodesh on Nevi'im and Kesuvim, and his commentaries appeared from 1845 to 1876. It rests on his principle that Tanach contains no true synonyms. Apparent repetitions are not repetitions, because each word introduces a distinct idea.

Building on the project begun in Rav Yaakov Mecklenburg's commentary on Chumash, he set out 613 grammatical rules to show the grounding of the halachic teachings of the Sifra and other Chazal in the plain words of the text. He applied his approach to the entire Tanach, and the result is one of the monumental Torah achievements of his era. It weaves together Hebrew language, philosophy and mysticism with ideas from science, psychology, logic and metaphysics. HaTorah VeHamitzvah is studied around the world to this day.

His other writings include Artzos HaChaim (Breslau, 1837), Artzos HaShalom (Krotoschin, 1839), HaLevanon (Paris, 1865) and Mashal UMelitzah, a poetic polemic in verse against hypocrisy (Paris, 1867).

Later years and passing

In September 1879 the Malbim was on his way to Kremenchug in Ukraine, where he had been invited to serve as rav, when he fell ill. He passed away on Rosh Hashanah, 1 Tishrei 5640, in Kiev.

Because of the fear of reprisals from his many opponents, he was buried in an unmarked grave, and a false matzeivah was placed over an empty grave to mislead anyone who might try to desecrate his resting place. The location of his kever remains unknown.