Meir Ben Samuel

Background

His father was an eminent scholar.

Career

Meïr married Rashi"s second daughter, Jochebed, by whom he had three sons, Samuel ben Meïr (RaSHBaM), Isaac ben Meïr (RIBaM), and Jacob ben Meïr (Rabbenu Tam), all of them well-known scholars. According to Gross, Meïr had also a fourth son, Solomon. Simhah ben Samuel of Vitry"s son Samuel, father of the tosafist Isaac the Elder, was Meïr"s son-in-law.

Meïr"s son Isaac, the often-quoted tosafist, died in the prime of life, leaving seven children.

This loss distressed the father to such an extent that he felt indisposed to answer a halakic question addressed to him by his friend Eleazar ben Nathan of Mainz. Meïr was one of the founders of the school of tosafists in northern France.

lieutenant was Meïr ben Samuel who changed the text of the Kol Nidre formula. Meïr composed also a seliḥah beginning "Abo lefaneka," which has been translated into German by Zunz, but which has no considerable poetic value.

Achievements

• Meïr attained a very great age, and is sometimes designated as "the old" (ha-yashish).