Commentators:R. Meir Leibush Weiser (Malbim)/0

R. Meir Leibush Weiser (Malbim)

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Malbim

Name	R. Meir Leibush b. Yechiel Michel Weiser, Malbim ר' מאיר ליבוש בן יחיאל מיכל וייזר, מלבי"ם
Dates	1809-1879
Location	Russia / Romania
Works	Commentary on most of Tanakh, Yair Or, Eretz Chemdah, Artzot HaShalom, Artzot HaChayyim
Exegetical Characteristics
Influenced by
Impacted on

Background¹

Life

• Name – 
  • Hebrew name – רבי מאיר לייבוש בן יחיאל מיכל וייזר, known by the acronym מלבי"ם
  • _ name – 
• Dates – 1809-1879
• Location – Malbim was born in Volochysk, Volhynia, and lived in Wreschen (Posen), Breslau, Kempen, Bucharest, Paris, Lencziza (Russian Poland), Kherson, Moghilef, and Konigsberg. He also traveled widely throughout Europe.
• Occupation – 
• Malbim served in rabbinic positions in many locations throughout Europe.²
• During his nineteen year tenure in Kempen,³ Malbim learned German and began studying the sciences, logic, philosophy (with a special interest in Kant), history, and geography.⁴
• While serving in Bucharest, Malbim’s efforts to set halakhic standards and encourage his congregants to become more observant, and his fervent opposition to Reform Judaism, raised the ire of wealthy community leaders. These leaders made false accusations leading to Malbim’s imprisonment and then expulsion from Romania.
• Similar acrimonious disputes occurred in other locations where Malbim served as rabbi, as Malbim continued to stand on principle, defend Orthodoxy, and oppose Reform through his communal leadership and literary activity.
• Family – Malbim’s father died when he was six years old, and his mother remarried to R. Yehudah Leib of Volochysk. Malbim married at the age of 14, and fathered a son and daughter, but divorced soon after. In 1838, he married the daughter of R. Hayyim Auerbach of Leczyca. His son, Aharon, tragically died in 1862.
• Teachers – R. Yehudah Leib of Volochysk, R. Moshe Halevi Horowitz,⁵ R. Aryeh Leib Tzintz, R. Tzvi Hirsch Eichenstein of Zhydachiv.⁶
• Contemporaries – Malbim’s life and career (mostly in Eastern Europe) largely overlapped with those of R. Samson Raphael Hirsch in Germany, and R. Shemuel David Luzzatto (Shadal) in Italy. Other contemporaries include Chatam Sofer,⁷ and R. Shelomo Zalman Tiktin of Breslau.⁸
• Students – 
• Time period – Malbim’s rabbinic career spanned a period when Reform and Haskalah, after having become dominant in Western Europe, began making serious inroads into Eastern Europe. Malbim was living in Breslau in 1838 when the community split into Reform and Orthodox factions, with Abraham Geiger leading the reformers.⁹
  

Works

• Biblical commentaries – Malbim authored commentaries on the entire Bible except for Eikhah and Kohelet.¹⁰ He also authored the work Ayyelet HaShachar, laying out the principles of linguistic usage and the interpretation of verbs and synonyms underlying Rabbinic exegesis,¹¹ as well as a work devoted exclusively to interpretation of synonyms, Yair Or.¹² Eretz Chemdah¹³ and Artzot HaShalom¹⁴ are collections of sermons on the Torah.
• Rabbinics – 
  • Talmudic novellae – Yalkut Shelomo¹⁵
  • Halakhic codes – Artzot HaChayyim¹⁶
  • Responses to the works of others – 
  • Responsa – 
• Jewish thought – Mashal UMelitzah,¹⁷ Alim LeTerufah¹⁸
• Other works – Yesodei Chokhmat HaHiggayon,¹⁹ Autobiography²⁰
• Commonly misattributed to – 

Torah Commentary

Characteristics

• Verse by verse / Topical – 
• Genre – 
• Structure – 
• Language – 

Methods

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Themes

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Textual Issues

• Manuscripts – 
• Printings – 
• Textual layers – Most of the last third of Malbim's commentary on Devarim (from Devarim 22:22 ff.) was not written by Malbim himself, but was rather added to the commentary already in the first printing by R. Yosef HaLevi Yaavetz.

Sources

Significant Influences

• Earlier Sources – 
• Teachers – 
• Foils – 

Occasional Usage

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Possible Relationship

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Impact

Later exegetes

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Supercommentaries

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¹ This section incorporates information from M. Dell, “פרשנות אורתודוקסית לתורה בעידן של תמורות – הפולמוס בפירושיהם של רי"צ מקלנבורג ומלבים”, (Ph.D. diss.; Bar Ilan University, 2008), S. Z. Schaechter, “The Malbim, His Literary Work and Thought”[Hebrew] (Ph.D. diss.; Hebrew University, 1983), and N. H. Rosenbloom, Malbim: Exegesis, Philosophy, Science and Mysticism in the Writings of Rabbi Meir Lebush Malbim [Hebrew] (Jerusalem, 1988). An important source for biographical information is Malbim’s own introduction to his work Artzot HaChayyim.

² See above, Location.

³ Beginning in 1840.

⁴ See Schaechter, Malbim: 12.

⁵ Head of the Volochysk rabbinical court.

⁶ A prominent Hassidic rebbe, with whom Malbim studied Kabbalah.

⁷ From whom Malbim received an approbation for his work Artzot HaChayyim.

⁸ Who recommended Malbim to head the rabbinic court of Wreschen.

⁹ See Schaechter, Malbim: 8.

¹⁰ His commentary to Nevi’im and Ketuvim is published in some standard Mikraot Gedolot editions, while his commentary to Torah has been published in a new edition by ש.ל. מולו"ת ומסחר בספרים, Bnei Brak. His Torah commentary is named HaTorah VehaMitzvah, and takes on very different styles depending on whether the section is legal or narrative. In the legal sections, Malbim attempts to explain and defend Rabbinic exegesis (usually taking the form of a running commentary to the Midrash Halakhah) as being founded in the plain sense of the text, while in the narrative portions he generally has peshat-oriented commentaries that are more independent and that are introduced by a series of questions. In Nevi’im and Ketuvim, Malbim gave each of his commentaries names based on the particular book that is the focus of the commentary (while he named them collectively Mikra'ei Kodesh). These commentaries sometimes are divided into questions and explanations, and sometimes into brief word explanations and broader comments. Malbim’s introduction to his commentary on Vayikra sets out his anti-Reform agenda.

¹¹ This was published as a preface to his commentary on Vayikra.

¹² 1892.

¹³ Warsaw, 1882. This work also includes expositions of aggadot.

¹⁴ (Krotoschin, 1838). In a review of this work (by R. Tzvi Hirschfeld, published in (ציון, טבת-שבט תר"א (1841), Malbim is criticized for his content being irrelevant for the times (see, however, Shaechter, Malbim: 9, who sees the work as very relevant) and it is suggested that he work on a commentary more along the lines of HaKetav VeHaKabbalah of R. Y.Z. Mecklenburg. This review, in a periodical known to have a more modern outlook, indicates that Malbim’s work was being read by an audience much less traditional than Malbim himself. While it is unclear whether Malbim read this review, in the following period he redirected his efforts towards a biblical commentary relevant to contemporary issues (see Dell, פרשנות: 53). The fact that Malbim chose to start from the Prophets may have been because he saw his work as a continuation of the efforts of R. Mecklenburg in HaKetav VeHakabbalah (see Rosenbloom, Malbim: 41). See, however, Schaechter, Malbim: 12-13, who notes that Malbim’s first published volume, on Yeshayahu, was especially relevant for Malbim’s attempts to combat what he considered dangerous Reform views of prophecy.

¹⁵ 1938, 1966. A collection of Talmudic novellae edited by Solomon Drillich.

¹⁶ Commentary and novellae on the first twenty-four chapters of Shulchan Arukh Orach Chayyim (Breslau, 1837). S. Z. Schaechter (in Schaechter, Malbim: 6) sees this work as an effort to bridge between Halakhah and science, on the one hand, and Halakhah and Kabbalah, on the other.

¹⁷ Paris, 1867. A four-act allegorical play, in verse, criticizing the contemporary Maskilim as undervaluing yirat Shamayim while being overly materialistic. It is responding, in particular, to the Maskil value system expressed in the work Emet VeEmunah by Abraham Dob Bär Lebensohn.

¹⁸ 1904. A commentary to the fourth chapter of Hilkhot Deiot in Mishneh Torah.

¹⁹ Published in 1900, a textbook on the principles of logic.

²⁰ Published in serial form in HaLevanon (vol. 2, 1865).