Rabbi Meir ben Samuel of Ramerupt רבי מאיר בן שמואל מרמרו
Rashi's son-in-law and the father of three Tosafists
He studied under Rabbi Yitzchak ben Asher ha-Levi and Rabbi Elazar ben Yitzchak of Mainz—that is, he brought the Rhineland training into Champagne. Almost no books stand in his name: with his son Shmuel he wrote a commentary in Rashi's manner on parts of tractate Menachot, and a penitential hymn is ascribed to him.
One act of his is remembered by everyone: he altered the opening of Kol Nidrei, turning the vows from the past tense into the future—from this Day of Atonement to the next. The argument over it ran for centuries, and both readings have survived into our prayer books.
The sources give no year of death; he is known to have been alive after 1135. The window is set by that.
On the timeline
Places
Related
Sources
Rishonim
- Tosafot, passim — his words in the school's disputes
Scholarship
- The Jewish Encyclopedia (1906) — the kinship, the teachers and the emendation of Kol Nidrei
Basis: documents and evidence.