Category Archives: Religious Leaders

Spiritual and Religious Greats of the Jewish People

Jew of the Week: Rabbi Meir

The Miracle Worker

Tomb of Rabbi Meir in Tiberias, Israel

Rabbi Meir (2nd century CE) was born in what is today Turkey to a family of Roman converts to Judaism. He was descended from the Roman Emperor Nero. Rabbi Meir was one of the 24,000 students of the illustrious Rabbi Akiva. While nearly all of the students tragically perished during the Bar Kochva Revolt (132-136 CE), Rabbi Meir was one of five who survived, and the Talmud credits them with going on to revive Jewish life in the Holy Land and save Judaism from extinction. Rabbi Meir played a key role in the later production of the Mishnah, the earliest compilation of Jewish oral laws. In addition to being one of the most oft-cited voices in the Mishnah, every anonymous Mishnaic teaching is attributed to Rabbi Meir, too. During the war with the Romans, Rabbi Meir’s father-in-law, Rabbi Chananiah ben Teradion was killed, and his sister-in-law was taken captive. The Talmud relates that Rabbi Meir dressed up as a Roman officer and went past enemy lines to save her, managing to extricate her from a Roman brothel. After the war, he helped to re-establish the Sanhedrin, and was widely recognized as the greatest sage of his generation. He was also known to work miracles, and is often called Rabbi Meir Ba’al haNes, “the miracle-worker”, probably originating from the fact he was miraculously saved from numerous dangerous incidents. In fact, there is an old Jewish custom to invoke his name when in danger, saying Elokah d’Meir ‘aneni! (אֱלָקָא דְמֵאִיר עֲנֵנִי), “May the God of Meir answer me!” (Or “May God answer me like He answered Meir!”) The same phrase is recited when a person can’t find a lost object and needs help from Above. Some say “Meir” was only his nickname—because he was an “illuminator”—and his real name may have been Nehorai or Elazar. According to some sources, Rabbi Meir’s yahrzeit is today, the first of Tevet.

The New Antisemitism

Government Leaders Around the World Light Menorahs

Words of the Week

An Israeli soldier bears not only a duty to enlist in compulsory military service, but is granted the zechut, privilege, to fulfill a holy commandment, a mitzva, of guarding his fellow Jews.
– Rabbi Nathan Lopes Cardozo

Jews of the Week: Mohilever, Pinsker, and Lilienblum

Hovevei Zion, The “Lovers of Zion”

Moses Lilienblum

Shmuel Mohilever (1824-1898) was born in what is today Belarus to a deeply religious family. He studied at the famed Volozhin Yeshiva and became a rabbi. Violent pogroms against Jews in Russia in 1881, followed by the antisemitic May Laws of 1882, convinced Rabbi Mohilever that Jews would never be safe in the diaspora and must return to their ancestral home. In 1882, he took a trip to Paris to meet with Edmond James de Rothschild and convinced him to fund Jewish settlements in the Holy Land. While chief rabbi of the town of Bialystok, Rabbi Mohilever would inspire Jews in his community to make aliyah. In 1884, he joined a group of leaders in Katowice (then in Prussia, today in Poland) to formally establish Hovevei Zion, the “Lovers of Zion”, into an organized movement. At the meeting, he was elected president while Leon Yehuda Leib Pinsker (1821-1891) was elected secretary. Pinsker was born to a secular Russian-Jewish family in what is today Poland. He was one of the first Jews to attend Odessa University to study law. However, restrictions on Jews becoming lawyers made him switch to medicine and Pinsker became a physician. At first, Pinsker believed Jews must assimilate into European society and that this would end antisemitism. He soon saw that this was not working at all, and concluded that antisemitism is a misnomer; the proper term should be “Judeophobia”, since fear and hatred of Jews is irrational, deep-seated, and essentially incurable. He started writing articles to convince Jews to move to their homeland, since everywhere else they would inevitably be hated. He worked closely with Moshe Leib Lilienblum (1843-1910) who, like Rabbi Mohilever, was born to a deeply religious Russian-Jewish family. Lilienblum was a noted Jewish scholar from a young age, and soon founded and headed a yeshiva in Vilnius. With time, however, he saw that poverty and persecution in exile was destroying his people. He became a committed Zionist, recognizing that the only solution for the Jewish people is to return to Israel and establish their own independent state. Lilienblum wrote a great deal of early Zionist literature. When Rabbi Mohilever distanced himself from Hovevei Zion because it was becoming too secular, Lilienblum took over as president. Hovevei Zion went on to convince countless Jews around the world to take up the Zionist call, and founded the cities of Rishon LeZion, Hadera, and Rehovot in Israel. Rabbi Mohilever, meanwhile, set the stage for the Mizrachi religious Zionist movement. He made sure that Jewish settlement in Israel conformed to Jewish law. The town and kibbutz of Gan Shmuel in Israel was founded in his honour in 1895.

Photo from the 1884 Katowice Conference, with Rabbi Mohilever and Leo Pinsker seated at centre.

Video: The Hidden History of Zionism

Words of the Week

To the living, the Jew is a corpse; to the native, a foreigner; to the homesteader, a vagrant; to the proprietary, a beggar; to the poor, an exploiter and a millionaire; to the patriot, a man without a country; for all, a hated rival.
– Leon Pinsker

Jew of the Week: Meir Bar-Ilan

A Religious Zionist Pioneer

Meir Berlin (1880-1949) was born in Volozhin, near modern-day Minsk, Belarus. He was the youngest son of the “Netziv”, Rabbi Naftali Tzvi Yehuda Berlin, one of the greatest rabbis of the generation and head of the illustrious Volozhin Yeshiva. Young Meir studied at his father’s yeshiva, as well as other prestigious academies like Brisk and Telshe. He received his rabbinic ordination at the age of 22, then headed to the University of Berlin for secular studies. It is there that he became a staunch Zionist, and in 1905 joined the Mizrachi movement of religious Zionists (founded by Rabbi Yitzchak Yaakov Reines). Berlin represented Mizrachi at the Seventh Zionist Congress where he voted against the Uganda Proposal (creating a Jewish state in Uganda instead of the Holy Land). In 1911, he founded a religious Zionist newspaper, HaIvri, which would go on to feature great writers and thinkers like S.Y. Agnon and Eliezer Ben-Yehuda. Berlin moved to New York a few years later to establish and develop the American branch of the Mizrachi movement. In a short period of time, it grew to over 100 chapters. He served as president of Yeshiva University between 1920 and 1922. The following year, he finally fulfilled his dream of making aliyah and settled in Jerusalem. As did many others, Berlin would later Hebraize his last name to “Bar-Ilan”. Meanwhile, he founded a new newspaper, HaTzofeh, and started work on the Talmudical Encyclopedia (which would eventually be a massive 42-volume series). Bar-Ilan served on the boards of Mizrachi Bank and the Jewish National Fund. When the British limited Jewish immigration to the Holy Land, Bar-Ilan became their vocal opponent and began a campaign of peaceful protest and civil disobedience. In 1943, he went on a trip around the world to build support for establishing a Jewish state and met with numerous political leaders. He also criticized the American government for staying silent and doing little about the atrocities happening in Europe, and campaigned for more assistance to Jewish refugees. When the State of Israel was finally born, Rabbi Bar-Ilan presided over a committee to discuss how Jewish law can continue to be observed properly in the new country. He also championed the establishment of a university that would combine rigorous religious education with advanced secular studies and professional training. Though he did not live to see it, such a university did open its doors in Tel-Aviv in 1955, and was named after him: Bar-Ilan University. Today, Bar-Ilan University is Israel’s second-largest educational facility, with over 20,000 students. Moshav Beit Meir and the Meir Hills in Israel are named after Rabbi Bar-Ilan, too, along with numerous other streets, neighbourhoods, and schools.

Happy Jerusalem Day!

Bar-Ilan: Forgotten Pioneer of Jewish Activism

The Zohar Prophecy of the Six-Day War

Words of the Week

If horses were being slaughtered as are the Jews of Poland, there would by now be a loud demand for organized action against such cruelty to animals. Somehow, when it concerns Jews, everybody remains silent, including the intellectuals and humanitarians of free and enlightened America.
– Rabbi Meir Bar-Ilan