Rabbi Meir of Premishlan רבי מאיר מפרמישלאן
the rebbe of Premishlan, wonder-worker and giver; grandson of a disciple of the Baal Shem Tov
Grandson of Rabbi Meir the Great of Premishlan, a disciple of the Baal Shem Tov, and son of Rabbi Aharon Leib. The sources give the year of birth as 1780 or 1783. He learned under Rabbi Mordechai of Kremenets; from 1813 he kept a court in Premishlan in Galicia, and spent part of his life in Lipkany in Bessarabia and in Nikolayev.
He entered the memory of Chassidism not by teaching but by image: the rebbe who lives in poverty and gives away all he receives—money came to him by the sack and left the same evening. More stories are told of him than of anyone in his generation, and in them he always speaks of himself in the third person: "Meir will not take it."
He left no books. His words were gathered in Divrei Meir and Or HaMeir. He died on 29 Iyar 1850.
On the timeline
Related
Sources
Acharonim and later rabbinic literature
- Divrei Meir and Or HaMeir—his words as recorded — his sayings and the tales about him
Scholarship
- Encyclopaedia Judaica, “Peremyshlyany, Meir ben Aaron Leib” — the lineage, the teacher, Premishlan from 1813, death 1850; birth “1780?”
Basis: documents and evidence.