The Malbim מלבי"ם
Rabbi Meir Leibush ben Yechiel Michel, commentator on the Tanakh, a communal rabbi driven from post to post
The Malbim set himself a task no one had pressed so consistently before him: to prove that the Written and the Oral Torah are one, and that every deviation in the language of a verse means something. His commentary rests on a rule—there are no synonyms in the Tanakh. Where a translation sees repetition for beauty, the Malbim looks for a distinction, and in Ayelet ha-Shachar he sets out those distinctions as rules, like a grammar.
His life ran otherwise. Rabbi in Wreschen, then in Kempen, and from 5619 chief rabbi of Bucharest. There he met a wealthy community that wanted reform; his opponents had him imprisoned. He was freed through the intervention of Sir Moses Montefiore, on condition that he leave Romania. Then came Lunschitz, Kherson, Mogilev, Königsberg; he was called to Kremenchuk and died on the way, in Kyiv, on the very first day of the year—Rosh Hashanah 5640.
On the timeline
Related
Sources
Acharonim and later rabbinic literature
- “HaTorah vehaMitzvah” — his commentary on the Chumash, binding the Written and the Oral together
- “Mikraei Kodesh” — his commentary on the Prophets and the Writings
- “Ayelet haShachar” — his rule-book: why the Tanakh has no two words of one meaning
- “Artzot haChaim” — his first work, on the Shulchan Aruch, written at twenty-five
Basis: documents and evidence.