For Rav Meir Mazuz, every struggle was about the sanctity of the Jewish nation

Photos: Matis Goldberg, Yaakov Cohen, Mishpacha archives

While Rav Meir Mazuz was esteemed for his Torah scholarship, innovative teachings, and the vast network of religious educational institutions he founded, among the broader Israeli society, this spiritual leader of Tunisian Jewry was better known for his relationship with far-right politicians and unwavering ideology. But for Rav Mazuz, who was the torchbearer for his holy ancestors, it was all about maintaining the sanctity of the Jewish nation

When Rav Meir Nissim Mazuz, rosh yeshivah of Kisei Rachamim in Bnei Brak and head of its affiliated institutions, passed away on Motzaei Shevii shel Pesach in Eretz Yisrael, it was more than the loss of a great talmid chacham for the Torah world. While Rav Mazuz might not have been so well-known in some American yeshivish circles, he was the undisputed rebbe of Tunisian Jewry worldwide, with tens of thousands having passed through his yeshivah and Torah mosdos.

Born in Tunis in 1945 as the bechor of Rav Matzliach Mazuz Hy”d, a dayan and founder of the Kisei Rachamim yeshivah in Tunis, Rav Meir Mazuz and his brothers Rav Tzemach and Rav Rachamim moved to Eretz Yisrael after the brutal and shocking murder of Rav Matzliach in 1971. Later that year, the brothers founded Kisei Rachamim in Bnei Brak, which became an educational empire including daycare centers, preschools, chadarim, girls’ schools, a high school, mesivtas, yeshivos, and kollelim in Bnei Brak, Jerusalem, Elad, Emmanuel, Bat Yam, Akko, and other cities.

In the realm of chinuch, Rav Mazuz was best known for the method of Gemara study carried over from centuries of Tunisian chachamim, as well as his trademark devotion to dikduk and to the smallest nuances of syntax and grammar. He spent decades correcting texts and folios that became corrupted over time, editing tefillah texts with precision, and passing on to his students the importance of speaking according to the strict rules of Lashon Kodesh. He penned close to two dozen seforim on subjects ranging from a peirush on Chumash to responsa on obscure halachic queries to a commentary on the Rambam.

And he made sure to keep Gemara study relevant even to today’s youth, who have it all at their fingertips with the push of a button.

“Let the students read for themselves, explain, pay attention to every nuance — let them be moved by the sugya and by their own understanding,” Rav Mazuz related to Mishpacha’s Hebrew editor Aryeh Ehrlich in an exclusive interview in 2018. “Then they’ll taste the light of Torah. There’s nothing like learning Rashi. A student recently told me, ‘Why do I need Rashi? I have the Schottenstein edition.’ But then he misses the indescribable sweetness of understanding through the effort.”

He also encouraged the study of Tanach, and would often lament the decline in Biblical literacy, even within the yeshivah world.

Yet Rav Mazuz was more than a talented rosh yeshivah and marbitz Torah. He was outspoken in his beliefs as well, when politics intersected with the sanctity and integrity of the Holy Land and the safety of the Jewish People dwelling in its cities, towns, and outposts. While in the chareidi world Rav Mazuz was esteemed for his innovative teachings and the vast network of religious educational institutions he founded, among the broader Israeli society, he was better known for his relationship with far-right politicians and unwavering ideology.