As a complement to our study of the Malbim's introduction to Tanach, it is fitting to provide a brief overview of his life: who the Malbim was, the era in which he lived, and the trials he underwent.
"Malbim" is an acronym for Meir Leibush ben Yechiel Michel. Rabbi Meir Leibush called himself by this acronym in honor of his father, and this title became the name by which he was known throughout all of Klal Yisrael.
The Malbim became renowned as one of the greatest commentators on Tanach, and his commentary can be found in virtually every Jewish home. He was a towering genius in all areas of the holy Torah, and already at the age of twenty he was dubbed "Sar HaTorah" (the Prince of Torah). All the leading Torah giants of the generation revered him with immense admiration.
It is related that Rabbi Chaim HaLevi Soloveitchik, the Rav of Brisk, enumerated four Torah luminaries of whom he said that they were "akin to the Rishonim." This referred to four who lived in Europe (while in Sephardic and Eastern lands there were surely others as well): the Maharil Diskin; Rav Chaim of Brisk's father - Rabbi Yosef Dov Soloveitchik; the Malbim; and Rabbi Yisrael Salanter. We see that the Malbim was counted among those considered akin to the early authorities.
Rabbi Yosef Dov Soloveitchik, the Rav of Brisk and author of the Beis HaLevi, said of the Malbim's commentary on the verses, "When I take the appointed time, I will judge with equity; the earth and all its inhabitants are melting" (which we will examine when learning the Malbim on Tehillim, bli neder), that it is impossible for a person to compose such an explanation unless Ruach HaKodesh rested upon him. Indeed, other great Torah leaders likewise stated that whoever studies the Malbim's commentary sees beyond any doubt that the author possessed divine inspiration.
It is told that when the Malbim's commentary on Tanach was brought before Rabbi Eizel Charif, he remarked: "It is stolen with him." Those present assumed he meant that the explanations were unoriginal and had been lifted from other books, and they asked him what he meant. He replied: "These words were stolen by him from Mount Sinai." That is to say, as it were, this explanation descended directly from Mount Sinai, and he brought it from there.
Rabbi Meir Simcha HaKohen of Dvinsk, the author of the Ohr Somayach, was an astounding genius of staggering proportions. He authored a monumental work on the Rambam, yet he wrote no commentary on Hilchot De'ot. When asked why he skipped Hilchot De'ot, he replied: "The Malbim already composed a treatise on this entitled Aleh LiTerufah, and after what the Malbim wrote, I have nothing to add." These words speak for themselves: the author of the Ohr Somayach, whose commentary on the Rambam is among the most widely studied in the yeshivah world, testified that once the Malbim addressed this subject, he had nothing left to add.
Rabbi Meir Leibush (Leibush is Yiddish for Yehudah) was born on the 19th of Adar II 5569 (1809), roughly two hundred years ago, in the town of Volochisk in the Volhynia region of Poland. He was orphaned of his father as a young boy, and his stepfather, who served as the Rav of Volochisk, raised him in his home and taught him Torah. His stepfather chose the Gaon Rabbi Moshe HaLevi Horowitz, author of Emek HaSiddim, to be his primary teacher. Already from his youth, his exceptional brilliance became renowned, and by the age of thirteen he had begun composing treatises and commentaries on Tanach and the Talmud.
In the introduction to his work Artzot HaChaim, a work he began writing on the Shulchan Aruch, he writes about himself: "When I was thirteen years old, like a lone bird upon the nest of wisdom by myself" (meaning, an unfortunate orphan), "my soul was stirred by every harp of longing for study, playing sweetly to my ears" - the studies, as it were, made sweet melody in his ears and drew him in - "the soul of the Torah as well, which had walked within my ancestors from of old, awakened my spirit as fire arouses from its sleep; it awoke, and behold, a pen was in my hand, and the quill of a ready scribe was in my right hand. I wrote, developed novellae, expounded, and interpreted, and the hand of Hashem was strong upon me."
Gedolei Yisrael who saw *Artzot HaChayim* remarked that it was a tremendous loss for the Jewish people that he did not continue writing on the Shulchan Aruch. One of the leading sages asked him: Why are you not continuing? It is known that the Malbim composed his commentary on Tanach as a battle against the Maskilim (the Enlightenment movement), who claimed that Tanach was not written with precision and introduced extraneous ideas into it; he felt an urgent need to demonstrate how every single word is written with supreme precision. He replied: The need of the generation is to write the commentary on Tanach that I have been engaged in for years. If you will take upon yourselves the commentary on Tanach, I will continue writing in-depth elucidations of Halachah and everything I was occupied with previously. But who could take upon himself what he had undertaken? He possessed an astounding genius to know every word, root, and verb - its meaning, origin, grammatical foundation, and inflection. Such genius belonged uniquely to the Malbim, and therefore no one else could possibly undertake it.
At the age of fourteen, his stepfather married him off to a daughter of one of the wealthy men of Woloczysk. It is well known that many Gedolei Yisrael refused to marry daughters of the wealthy. The Chafetz Chaim himself married his stepfather's daughter because his mother asked him to do so and it was a matter of *shalom bayit*, since the stepfather recognized the young Chafetz Chaim as a tremendous genius endowed with exceptional character traits and wanted him as a son-in-law for his daughter. The Chafetz Chaim later said: Far more prestigious matches were proposed to me - daughters of the wealthy, prominent families, men of means, and great Torah scholars - but for the sake of peace in my mother's home, I married my stepfather's daughter, and I do not regret it. Many of my peers married daughters of the rich, and wealthy daughters were accustomed to a golden spoon in their mouths and could not endure a life of frugality and poverty. How long would her father support her? The custom was to grant *kest* (room and board) for ten years, supporting him at his table, and afterward leaving him to manage on his own. But I wanted to dedicate my life entirely to Torah, and I underwent many upheavals, trials, and hardships, which a wealthy girl would not have been able to endure with me. Only because Hashem provided me with someone who was not raised in such luxury was I able, Baruch Hashem, to succeed.
As for the Malbim, his match was with a daughter of wealth, and she could not endure his intense diligence, piety, and fear of Heaven. Ultimately, this match was not successful; the Malbim divorced her and left his town.
From there he arrived in Warsaw, where he became acquainted with the leading Torah luminaries and was known as "the *Illui* (prodigy) of Volhynia," gaining widespread fame. Among the Torah figures he met was the Rebbe, Reb Tzvi, the Rebbe of Zidichov, who was a stupendous genius in Kabbalah, and studied the wisdom of Kabbalah with him. It is related that within a short time the Malbim mastered all the writings of the Ari, z"l - material that people spend thirty or forty years studying, he completed in just a few months.
When he was eighteen years old, he composed the *sefer* *Artzot HaChayim*. To obtain approbations (*haskamot*), he approached Gedolei Yisrael. All the Torah giants who reviewed his work extolled and praised it, proclaiming that he was destined for greatness and glory. And when speaking of Torah giants, these were the titans of the generation, including the Chatam Sofer, at the mention of whose name the entire Torah world trembled.
An astonishing and little-known story was recounted by the Gaon Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik, the Rav of Boston. In the later years of the Malbim's life, people observed that every Motza'ei Shabbat he would enter a private room, lock himself inside, and remain in secluded contemplation for a long time. When he emerged, his eyes would be red from weeping, enveloped entirely in sorrow. No one knew the reason for this weeping or what caused his grief. Some speculated that perhaps he was meriting a revelation of Eliyahu HaNavi or revelations from the upper worlds. In time, a rabbi from Lithuania arrived, heard what people were saying, and decided to approach the Malbim directly to ask.
The Malbim said to him: I will tell you what happened. When I published my first work, *Artzot HaChayim*, I traveled among Gedolei Yisrael to obtain an approbation, and I arrived in Pressburg, the city of the Chatam Sofer. The Gaon Chatam Sofer accorded me royal honor and invited me to deliver words of Torah at the three Shabbat meals. On Motza'ei Shabbat, as was typical in those days, it was pitch dark; there were no Shabbat timers to switch on electric lights. The meal concluded in the dark, people walked to the synagogue in the dark, and only after the *Shemoneh Esreh* and *Atah Chonantanu* were the lights kindled. When I entered the synagogue, no one accompanied me closely. The Chatam Sofer had already honored me at the beginning of Shabbat by seating me along the eastern wall (*mizrach*), so I walked to my place in the east and sat down. After the lights were lit, to my dismay I discovered that I had sat down in the seat of the Chatam Sofer! Of all the seats on the eastern wall, I had sat in his very place.
I immediately approached the Chatam Sofer, begged his forgiveness, and apologized for having sat in the place of the *mara de'atra* (the rabbi of the city), explaining that it was completely unintentional. The Chatam Sofer said to me: "The people wanted to move you, but I did not let them; I told them, 'Let him sit where he sits' - that is, leave him where he is sitting." The Malbim continued: Although the Chatam Sofer meant the physical seat, I feel that from that incident onward, I made no further advancement in spirituality or in Torah. "Let him sit where he sits" - as though I were halted spiritually in place. It is over this that I weep every Motza'ei Shabbat, conducting a soul-searching reckoning and praying to Hashem to help me break free from that "blessing" of the Chatam Sofer. Consider: after everything he composed, he still felt he had remained in the same place! Behold such greatness.
By virtue of his Torah greatness and his pleasant manner of speech - for he was a magnificent orator - he was accepted as rabbi in the town of Wreschen. He served there for seven years and instituted many enactments to strengthen religious observance. Following the passing of Rabbi Akiva Eiger, they sought to appoint him as rabbi in Posen, Rabbi Akiva Eiger's city. Just imagine: Rabbi Akiva Eiger, whose very name evokes awe, whose question in the yeshivah world is like a bombshell that is not easily dismantled, and most often remains unresolved with "tzarich iyun" or "tzarich iyun gadol." The Netziv said of him: A single line of reasoning from Rabbi Akiva Eiger is worth more to me than two hundred Acharonim. That is to say, even if two hundred Acharonim were to say the opposite, we ask what Rabbi Akiva Eiger says, and if he differs from them, his reasoning is preferable to me. Consider what astonishing depth of analysis he possessed! And they wished to appoint the Malbim as his successor, meaning they saw him as someone worthy of carrying on the legacy of Rabbi Akiva Eiger. However, the community of Wreschen was not willing to give him up so easily, and in the end he remained there.
He served in several positions and held many rabbinates: in the city of Kempen in Germany, in Bucharest in Romania, in Königsberg, and in Mogilev. During that era in Europe, the innovators, reformers, and Maskilim were emerging, and they persecuted him relentlessly. The Malbim fought fierce battles against them, fearing no man. Wherever a reform was necessary to uphold Torah practice, he stood his ground unyieldingly, acting with immense firmness.
It is related that when he was first appointed in Bucharest, he said to the members of the community: A kohen is entitled to the foreleg, the cheeks, and the abomasum (zero'a, lechayayim, and keivah), and I ask no more of you than this: just give me the foreleg, the cheeks, and the stomach. They were alarmed: Is everyone who slaughters an animal supposed to bring the rabbi the foreleg, cheeks, and stomach? He explained to them: The foreleg (zero'a) means that you must be meticulous in laying tefillin, which are placed on the arm (zero'a). The cheeks (lechayayim) mean that you must not shave with a razor. And the stomach (keivah) means that you must be careful to eat only kosher food. That is all I ask of you; let us begin there. This incident illustrates the low spiritual state of affairs that he had to address two hundred years ago.
Everywhere he went, the Maskilim fought him and subjected him to terrible denunciations to the authorities. The despicable fabrications they invented against him held not a grain of truth. In many instances the authorities did not accept the charges, but the modus operandi of the Maskilim - and of left-wing elements to this day - has always been denunciation: turning people over to the secular authorities. Even then, without the New Israel Fund, they denounced the Malbim right and left, and he was forced to wander from place to place.
He also waged battle over shechitah (kosher slaughter), which had deteriorated severely at the time, with terrible abuses taking place. He instituted an enactment that no slaughtering could be performed without first presenting the slaughtering knife to the rabbi for inspection. These enactments gave him no peace, and as a result, he acquired many enemies and was relentlessly persecuted by them.
The Chofetz Chaim once visited the Malbim, and he owned a sefer written by the Malbim inside which he inscribed: "I purchased this sefer for full price directly from the hand of the Rav, the Malbim" - from the author himself - so deeply did he revere and cherish the sefer and the study of it. It is related that the Malbim said to him: "How long must I be persecuted?" For the persecutions were dreadful, and he was driven from place to place and from community to community, especially because they knew his writings completely uprooted their ideology. They sought to prove that the author of the Sacred Scriptures was clumsy in language, that he wrote inaccurate or imprecise statements, and suddenly the Malbim arrived and showed them: You do not even know how to read; come, let us teach you the alef-beit. The Chofetz Chaim told him: Know that although you are persecuted now, a time will come when not a single one of their names will be remembered and no one will know who they were, whereas your commentary will be on everyone's lips, and there will not be a Jewish home without the works of the Malbim.
And how prophetic the words of the Chofetz Chaim turned out to be! Today there is not a single library, or even a synagogue, that does not possess the Chumash with the commentary of the Malbim, while as for those Maskilim - who knows who they were, and who has ever heard of them?
The Chofetz Chaim himself was targeted by the Haskalah in his youth. The man's name was Adam HaKohen - and who even knows who Adam HaKohen was? Were it not for a street named after him, no one would know who he was, and may the name of the wicked rot. That same Adam HaKohen wanted to bring him to his library. The Chofetz Chaim recalled: I was close to going; an orphan boy of twelve, I was intensely curious to see his library - which was not a library of secular books, but a Torah library - yet at the very last moment, I stopped myself. They were always seeking to draw in the geniuses and the brilliant minds. From then on, whenever he mentioned Adam HaKohen, he would say: "Adam HaKohen, may his name and memory be blotted out, who sought to ruin me in both worlds." And this was the Chofetz Chaim, the preeminent figure of the generation in guarding against lashon hara! Yet whenever he mentioned that man's name, he attached to it "may his name and memory be blotted out," because he nearly destroyed the Chofetz Chaim for us. From this you can understand what fierce and dreadful battles were being waged against the Maskilim at that time.
Once, one of the maskilim in his city sent him mishloach manot. And what could one possibly expect from a maskil? The Malbim opened the cover - this was before cellophane existed - and saw a large challah shaped like a pig; he had sent him a pig's head. It is related that the Malbim was undeterred. He prepared a handsome plate of mishloach manot and sent it back to him. The maskil lifted the cover and saw a portrait of the Malbim, with an inscription below: "You sent me your portrait, so I am sending you mine."
On another occasion, on Shabbat after the morning Shacharit prayer, he passed by the house of a wealthy man. The Malbim also fought against the rich who closed their fists and refused to give tzedakah. He spoke frequently about this duty to support the poor and help the needy, which was another reason the wealthy resented him. That wealthy man, who was among the maskilim and an outspoken opponent of the Rav, looked down from his balcony and called out: "May our master teach us, what is the weekly Torah portion?" The Malbim decided to answer a fool according to his folly and said to him: "Your honor knows that my eyesight has grown weak, and I can barely read what is written in the Chumash anymore. But I looked up - meaning at the header printed at the top of the Chumash page - and when I looked up, I saw Korach." A clever play on words: the man was sitting up on the balcony; "I looked up and saw Korach."
And once, he was in the synagogue and noticed that people kissed the Sefer Torah with their hand - touching it and kissing their hand - yet when a poor man came and outstretched his hand asking for charity, they said to him: "We suffice with the pledges we make during the aliyah to the Torah; when we are called up and pledge 'in consideration of which he donates' twenty shekels, that is enough for us." The Malbim stood up during his derashah and said: "I see an inverted world. A Sefer Torah, which should be kissed with the mouth, as it is written, 'Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth,' they kiss with the hand. And charity, which must be distributed with the hand, they distribute with the mouth: 'We already promised, we already promised' - talking and pledging, yet doing nothing in practice. He does with his mouth what ought to be given with his hand."
He authored many works, and we will not enumerate them all, but his flagship masterpiece, his most distinctive work, is his commentary on Tanach. There he proved that there is no noun, no verb, and no word devoid of supreme intention, and that there is no such concept as mere repetition of an idea in different words. If Tanach repeats something, it signifies that the author intends to convey an additional insight. Through this approach, he produced an elucidation of almost the entire Tanach, a commentary that casts a brand-new light on the Scriptures, as we have explained at length.
He also authored a commentary on the Torah, including an exposition in the introduction to Sefer Vayikra containing 613 rules - a veritable lexicon that required immense genius to compose: the 613 principles of Lashon HaKodesh. What it means if it is phrased one way, and what it means if phrased another way; what it means when it says shenayim versus sheni; what a word signifies with a prefix vav and what it signifies without a vav; and what a construct state (semichut) comes to teach. Six hundred and thirteen principles, which provide the keys to make studying Tanach vastly clearer. Everything we study in our shiurim on the Prophets is grounded in the principles he formulated there. He does not repeat them in every book, but rather teaches that his definition of a word here follows what he explained in its primary source, directing the reader to consult his work Ayelet HaShachar, the treatise outlining all the principles of Lashon HaKodesh.
In the year 5639 (1879), he received a rabbinic appointment from the city of Kremenchug in Russia, and set out to serve as its rav. On his way, he passed through Brisk in Lithuania, where the Gaon Rabbi Yosef Dov Soloveitchik, the author of the Beit HaLevi, received him with great splendor and honor, greeting him in broad daylight with torches, as is done for a foremost Torah luminary of Israel. Along the journey, before he could reach Kremenchug to assume the rabbinate, he fell ill. On the first day of Rosh Hashanah in the year 5640, at eight o'clock in the morning, his soul departed to its Creator.
Rabbi Meir Leibush ben Yechiel Michel, the Malbim, was born in 5569 (1809). An orphan raised in the home of his stepfather, he was already writing original Torah novellae by age thirteen, and by age twenty was hailed as a "prince of Torah." The luminaries of his generation regarded him as akin to the Rishonim, saying that Ruach HaKodesh rested upon his commentary. Throughout his life, he was persecuted by the maskilim, wandered from one rabbinic post to another, and feared no man in waging the battles of Hashem. He directed his immense prowess toward expounding Tanach, demonstrating that there is neither a redundant word nor mere poetic repetition in the Holy Scriptures, formulating the 613 principles of Lashon HaKodesh in Ayelet HaShachar. And as the Chafetz Chaim foresaw, the names of his persecutors have been forgotten, while his monumental work is celebrated on every tongue and found in every Jewish home. May his merit serve as a shield and buckler for us, and may Hashem grant us the privilege to study all his works on the Torah and Tanach. May his merit protect us and all of His nation Israel, Amen and Amen.