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R. Meir ben Baruch of Rothenberg (Maharam), EJ 11:1247-1252.

Medieval W. Christendom
MEIR BEN BARUCH OF ROTHENBURG (c. 1215–1293), teacher, scholar, tosafist,
and supreme arbiter in ritual, legal, and community matters in Germany. He was born in
Worms into a family of scholars, many members of which were important leaders in the
communities of Germany. In his responsa he mentions two uncles and 12 other relatives
bearing the title Ha-Rav, a title reserved, in this period, for talmudic scholars of high
standing, mainly for heads of yeshivot. Meir often quotes their opinions and legal
decisions in order to bolster his own views; hence they must have been well-known and
highly esteemed scholars. Meir’s father Baruch was an outstanding member of this
scholarly family. He was credited with a wide knowledge of talmudic lore, was a member
of the bet dinof the community of Worms, and was often chosen to act as judge. He also
bore the honorific title Ha-Rav; several halakhic decisions were recorded in his name;
and his epitaph, preserved to this day, was written in highly laudatory terms. His teaching
and guidance contributed greatly to the intellectual growth of his son. At the age of 12
Meir joined the well-known school of R. Isaac b. Moses, the author of the Or Zaru’a, in
Wuerzburg, where he studied for about six years. While in that city Meir also studied
under R. Samuel b. Menahem, in whose name, in later years, he quoted important
decisions in law and ritual. Subsequently Meir moved to Mainz, where he studied under
his relative R. Judah b. Moses ha-Kohen. Finally, he went to France and studied under
the great tosafists Samuel b. Solomon
of Falaise, also known as Sir Morel of Falaise,
and Jehiel of Paris
, known as Sir Vivo. Meir was in France in 1240 when these two
teachers took part in the famous disputation with Nicolas Donin
over the Talmud. He
was still there two years later, in 1242, when he witnessed the public burning of the
Talmud, on which occasion he wrote his famous elegy Sha’ali Serufah ba-Esh, “Inquire,
oh thou who art burned by fire, about the welfare of those who mourn for thee…,” which
is included to this day in the Kinot of the Ninth of Av
according to the Ashkenazi rite.

After this occurrence Meir returned to Germany and within a few years settled in
Rothenburg, where he remained for more than 40 years, until 1286. Students flocked to
his school from all the communities of Germany and its neighboring countries.
Occasionally he would visit other towns for private or community business, but his home
and his famous school remained in Rothenburg. His fame as a great talmudic authority
spread rapidly even to other countries. In 1249, when a serious dispute arose between the
communities of Bohemia and those of Moravia regarding the payment of taxes by these
communities, the matter was referred to Meir for final settlement. Apparently at this early
period he was already reputed to be the greatest scholar of his generation. For nearly half
a century Meir acted as the supreme court of appeals for Germany and its surrounding
countries. Rabbis, judges, and members of courts of arbitration sent him their questions
regarding law and ritual. Individual complaints that the local courts decided contrary to
talmudic law were also sent to him. He was the arbiter between communities and their
members, between settlements and new settlers, and between various communities in
their mutual relationships. They turned to him during their greatest crises. About a
thousand of his responsa have survived, more than the combined number which have
been preserved from all the other tosafists. Meir is unique among the tosafists and other
great scholars of his time in his preserving a record of his responsa. The careful
preservation of legal decisions leaves little room for modification or debate. Meir was
motivated in this regard by the tumultuous times he lived in.

Meir sent his responsa to the communities of Germany, Austria, Bohemia, Italy, France,
and even to Solomon b. Abraham Adret of Spain. In his lucid style and terse language he
gave short, clear, and unequivocal answers to the inquirers. Sometimes he complains of
the large number of responsa he is forced to write, apologizes for abbreviating the
introductory greetings, is impatient with long and drawn-out questions, occasionally
displays genuine anger when a case is repeatedly brought up before him because of
persistent litigants, flares up in spirited temper when a litigant threatens to apply to the
secular courts, and allows his passion to rise to a crescendo when confronted with serious
crime. Sometimes he complained that those who addressed their queries to him
overestimated his prerogatives as a talmudic scholar, and asked him to decide matters
over which he had no jurisdiction. He was often unwilling to answer queries dealing with
taxation, since the laws of taxation depended principally on local custom and procedures.
He was very careful not to become involved in disputes and quarrels of the communities.
Nevertheless, his opinion was often earnestly sought in matters involving community
rights and taxes “in order to avoid the outbreak of a great quarrel.”

The type of question sent to Meir speaks eloquently of the position he held in the esteem
of his contemporaries. The great majority of Meir’s responsa deal with business
transactions, real estate, inheritance, marriage contracts, partnerships, agents, sureties,
trustees, community government, community property, settling rights, and taxation. The
preponderance of queries regarding civil cases and their abundance are eloquent proof of
his importance as a communal leader of the first rank. Nevertheless, the opinion of many
modern historians to the contrary notwithstanding, Meir held no official position as
judge, as head, or as chief rabbi, of German Jewry as a whole. He was neither elected to
such a position by the communities, nor was he appointed to it by the emperor. It is true
that during the last two decades of his life he often took a somewhat authoritative stand in
his relation to the communities. He once convoked a synod of the communities and
scholars, and urged them to adopt an ordinance to the effect that a rebellious wife when
divorced should forfeit her right to her ketubbah. On one occasion he wrote to the Jews of
Wuerzburg that they should change their customary procedure in the sale of real estate,
and the change was adopted in spite of the fact that some members of that community
were reluctant to abandon their ancient practice. In a responsum Meir wrote- “On many
occasions have individuals, whose wealth consisted of ready cash, desired to transfer the
burden of taxation to real estate owners, but we did not permit them to do so.” This seems
to imply that in such cases Meir exercised the authority of a chief rabbi, although a
thorough study of his responsa proves that he held no such official position.
Meir’s responsa reveal a great deal about the various hardships Jews of his time had to
endure. One particularly poignant question came from a Jew from Koblenz who admitted
to killing his entire family to prevent them from falling into the hands of a Christian mob.
Just before taking his own life, he was saved. His question was how he could do penance
for his horrendous act. Meir responded that many scholars had acted similarly during the
First Crusade. To require special penance would defame them and the permission they
granted their students to act in a similar manner.

It is very difficult to determine if Meir was strict or lenient overall in his legal decisions.
Whenever possible, he tried to combine the opposing sides of the argument into one
harmonious ruling. This did not mean compromise. Rather, both opinions were upheld
and merged. For example, there was a controversy surrounding the question as to whether
Rosh Ha-Shanah was two separate days or one “long” day. Meir ruled that the
sheheheyanu blessing should be recited on both nights according to the opinion that each
day of Rosh Ha-Shanah is separate and distinct. However, Meir required that a new
garment be worn or a new fruit be eaten on the second night, thus providing an
alternative reason for reciting the sheheheyanu blessing, in accordance with the opinion
that both days of Rosh Ha-Shanah are one.

As business became increasingly sophisticated in the Middle Ages, the primary Talmudic
precedents became less and less relevant. While Meir and his contemporaries continued
to rely on talmudic law and precedent for their rulings, Meir in particular realized that he
had to be flexible in his strict application of talmudic law if the Jews were going to
survive in the new economic environment. To do otherwise would have forced Jewish
business to separate their commercial lives from their religious and communal lives, with
potentially disastrous results.

Many of Meir’s responsa deal with the relations between Jews and Christians. These
rulings deal with a very wide range of subjects, including eating food cooked by a
gentile;yayin nesekh, wine produced by gentiles; the halakhic status of the Catholic
Church and Christian religious items; charging gentiles interest; relations with Jews who
converted to Christianity; and the problems of Jewish life in a Christian society, such as
business partnerships with gentiles. A good example of such responsa is the question of a
woman whose husband died leaving her in a situation normally requiring the halizah rite
necessary for the cancellation of a levirate marriage. The difficulty arose from the fact
that her brother-in-law was a devoted convert to Christianity. Meir released her from the
obligation of the halizah rite.

Meir was highly honored and in many cases his word was law. He enjoyed this authority,
however, on account of his scholarship; because many leaders of the German
communities had been his students who owed him respect and even obedience; and
because the Talmud was the “constitution” of community government, and Meir, the
greatest scholar of the land, was its best and most authoritative interpreter. His authority
was based on his knowledge of talmudic law and on his intellectual attainments, both of
which enabled him to arrive at a correct decision in questions of law or ritual. Thus he
once wrote to the leaders of the Rhine communities in high-spirited defiance- “You, the
aforementioned community leaders, probably delude yourselves with the idea that since
your permission is required before a person may divorce his wife, no scholar is permitted
to render decisions in ritual law unless he receives your authorization. No, this is not true,
for the Torah is free to anyone who is capable of arriving at a correct decision” (I.A.
Agus (ed.),Teshuvot Ba’alei ha-Tosafot (1954), 143). In the community of Rothenburg,
however, Meir probably did hold an official position as judge, cantor, and head of the
yeshivah. His house in Rothenburg was probably provided for him by the community
since it contained 21 rooms, including a bet midrash and rooms for his students. He did
not depend on his salary for a livelihood, engaging in business. The major part of his
time, however, was devoted to his studies, his students, and his correspondence with the
leaders of the communities.

Meir’s role in the final formulation and fixing of the law and the ritual of Ashkenazi
Jewry can hardly be overestimated. His numerous responsa – collected, copied, and
seriously studied for generations – greatly influenced the work of codifiers of the
subsequent centuries and thus helped standardize legal procedure and civil law. He
introduced certain modifications in the ritual of prayer and religious *minhag
in the
synagogue and at home, and instituted many customs which later became standard
practice throughout Germany and Eastern Europe. His impact on the life, the
organization, and the behavior ofsubsequent generations was exercised mainly through
the work of his students, who followed him everywhere – at home, in school, in the
synagogue, and even in prison. They studied his behavior, customs, and ceremonies, and
later recorded their observations in their halakhic works together with Meir’s decisions on
law and ritual. One student in particular, R. Samson b. Zadok,
was a veritable Boswell. In his Tashbez, he described in great detail Meir’s customs and
practices from the moment he rose in the morning until he went to bed at night, on
weekdays, Sabbaths, and festivals. This book became popular in Germany, Austria,
Bohemia, and Poland, and its details were eventually incorporated in the codes.
Meir’s influence, therefore, was exerted along three main channels-

(1) His students became the leaders of a number of communities in Germany, Austria,
and Bohemia, and imprinted his views upon the life of the members of these communities
and the surrounding territories;

(2) He had a profound influence on his most eminent student, Asher b. Jehiel, and on the
latter’s son Jacob, the author of the Arba’ah Turim, and thus directly affected the final
halakhah incorporated in the Shulhan Arukh;

(3) The Mordekhai, Agudah, Haggahot Maimuniyyot, Sha’arei Dura, and Tashbez,
classical works compiled by his students mainly on the basis of his decisions, responsa,
and customs, were thoroughly studied by the scholars of succeeding generations and thus
became the foundation for the work of R. Moses Isserles
, who incorporated the
Ashkenazi usage in the Shulhan Arukh. By far the greatest number of the views and
decisions of Isserles incorporated in the above-named code stem directly or indirectly
from the work and practices of Meir.

In the more than 80 of his responsa dealing with public law and community government,
Meir gave the clearest and most incisive expression and explanation of the ideas of
human freedom, government by consent, limitation of the power of the majority, and
group responsibility– that formed part of Jewish law on the highest level of
comprehension– of any other Jewish scholar before him or since. The principles of
Jewish public law that man is absolutely free, that the legitimacy of government is
derived solely from the free and uncoerced consent of the governed, and that the
legislative power of the majority is limited to certain areas only and cannot encroach
upon the private and inalienable rights of the individual were most forcefully and most
clearly explained in his responsa. He thus greatly strengthened the democratic form of
government of the communities – a form they derived traditionally from the forefathers
of Franco-German Jewry– and it was eventually copied by the municipal governments
and the guilds of the burgher class that arose in close contiguity with these Jewish
communities. Thus in the 15 th century, in the legislation intended for the benefit of the
whole group the principle “majority rules” was applied, while particular legislative acts
that encroached upon the rights and the immunities of the individual, such as taxes, did
not become law unless unanimous agreement by the membership of the group was
achieved (Otto v. Gierke, Das deutsche Genossenschaftsrecht, vol. 2, pp. 230–2, and
478–9). This division of legislation into two categories and the requirement of unanimity
in the second category, which paralleled inpractically every detail the form of
community legislation, so clearly described by Rabbi Meir, could only have been the
result of direct copying by the burghers and town communes of the community system of
government that antedated their own by several centuries. Meir’s peaceful life as a scholar
and teacher was rudely interrupted by the turbulent political events that followed the
termination of the interregnum and the election of Rudolph I of Hapsburg as emperor of
Germany. In order to reestablish the right of the emperor to tax the Jews, which during
the interregnum of 1254–73 had been claimed by the local dukes, Rudolph I began to
press the claim that the termservi camerae (“serfs of the treasury”) – which in the 13 th
century began to gain ascendancy as the legal description of the political status of the
Jews – really meant that the Jews were the slaves of the treasury of the empire, that their
persons and their possessions were therefore the property of the treasury of the empire,
and that the emperor therefore possessed the right to tax the Jews over and above the
taxes they paid to the local rulers; and in 1286 he did impose such a tax on them. As a
result thousands of Jews decided to leave Germany. Meir, especially outraged at this
attempt to enslave the Jews, became the leader of the widespread exodus. In the spring of
1286, he “set out to go across the sea together with his family, his daughters, and his
sons-in-law.” However, while he was waiting for his followers in Lombardy, he was
recognized byan apostate who informed against him, with the result that the ruler of that
town, Count Meinhardt of Goerz, arrested Meir and delivered him to Rudolph I. The
emperor put him in prison, first in Wasserburg and then in Ensisheim, until the day of his
death. His imprisonment was actually a singular form of house arrest. In jail, Meir had
access to his books and his students were frequent visitors. Indeed, he continued to issue
responsa while imprisoned, although he complained that he often did not have the
requisite texts at hand to fully research a particular issue. The Jews made great efforts to
effect the release of their beloved teacher – at one time agreeing to pay 23,000 pounds of
silver to the emperor, but stipulating that the money was a payment of ransom and not of
taxes – but without success. Rudolph I was determined to use the great devotion of the
Jews to their teacher to force them to admit the right of the emperor to tax them.

However, since a payment of taxes would be an admission that they were slaves, the Jews
found it impossible to agree. Meir, therefore, remained in prison, and even after his death
in 1293, his body was not delivered to the Jews until 1307 when it was redeemed by
Alexander b. Salomo Wimpfen for a large sum of money and buried in Worms.
Rabbi Meir, the last of the tosafists, wrote tosafotand novellae to 18 tractates of the
Talmud – the tosafotto Yoma, in the printed text of the Talmud, are from his pen;
commentaries to the two orders of the Mishnah Zera’im and Tohorot; compendia of laws
for special purposes, such as Hilkhot Eruvin, Halakhot Pesukot, Hilkhot Berakhot,
Hilkhot Semahot, Hilkhot Shehitah, Hilkhot Hatmanah; a collection of customs connected
with the marriage ceremony and with the wording of the ketubbah; and, most important,
nearly 1,000 responsa
found in the following collections which
differ to a great extent in content- Cremona, 1557; Prague, 1608 (reprinted in Sudilkov,
1835, and in Budapest, 1895); Lemberg, 1860; and Berlin, 1891–92; aside from those
incorporated in the works of his students. Some of his responsa were published from
manuscripts by I.Z. Kahana (Jerusalem, 1943) and by I.A. Agus (see bibl.). Meir also
composed liturgical poems (in addition to the above-mentioned “Inquire thou who art
burnt by fire…”) and a collection of masoretic explanations (in I.Z. Kahana’s Teshuvot,
Pesakim u-Minhagim, 1 (1957), 3–41).

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