W hen Maran Harav Chaim Kanievsky was informed by his grandson that Reb Meir had been taken from us he was greatly distressed. He said “I know his seforim. Chaval al d’avdin. He has many zechuyos.”

As the architect and dynamo behind what has been called the “ArtScroll Revolution” Meir was well-known. As the one who made it possible for many tens of thousands of people to learn Gemara for the first time ever or for the first time in many years as well for distinguished talmidei chachamim and roshei yeshivah who told us that the Schottenstein Talmud made it possible for them to learn daf yomi in the limited time allowed them by their many responsibilities. No less a Torah giant than Maran Harav Yosef Shalom Elyashiv referred to the notes in the ArtScroll Talmud in preparing his shiurim. It is well-known that the ArtScroll Siddur Machzor and Chumash are transforming lives and bringing the joy of new understanding to Jews near and far.

Not well-known however is Meir Zlotowitz the human being and the talmid chacham to whom ArtScroll/Mesorah was more of a mission than a business.

To Meir ArtScroll existed to foster yiras Shamayim. If a book contained even minimal content that could taint a reader’s fear of Hashem or put Klal Yisrael in a negative light he would reject it out of hand even though he knew the book would be a great commercial success. In ArtScroll’s earliest years we commissioned someone to write a commentary on a certain sefer. At one point he wrote that Rashi was mistaken. To Meir this was intolerable. How could someone dare say such a thing about Rashi? He paid the author and relieved him of the assignment. But we were committed to publish the sefer in time for a certain Yom Tov. So Meir undertook to write the commentary himself. He put in 18 hours a day; I couldn’t quite keep up with him (I never could) but together we met the deadline without sacrificing quality baruch Hashem.

He had unusually fine subtle judgment. Many hugely successful people including roshei yeshivah and rabbanim called him for advice. Sometimes he was asked to advise someone who was facing opposition from powerful influential opponents. Meir would spend hours and days guiding and helping him. Preventing a Jew from falling was as important to him as publishing a sefer. Both were avodas Hashem

The same applied to people who were left without a livelihood. Meir would make calls badgering and pressuring people to help them. I have no idea how many people are now gainfully employed — and no longer ashamed to face their families — thanks to him. An employee of ArtScroll said “He could have fired me a thousand times and he would have been right. But he knew I needed parnassah.”

We once hired a single young woman from a distant city who had no family in New York. Meir arranged for people to invite her for a Shabbos seudah so that she would not feel alone. When she became a kallah he went to the vort although it was not in the neighborhood because he wanted the guests to feel that she was respected and important (which to him she was).

He was not a wealthy man certainly not by today’s standards but his generosity was amazing to mosdos and especially to needy individuals whom he helped without fanfare.

He was the personification of ein davar omeid bifnei haratzon nothing stands in the way of a strong desire.

When he had a good idea for a project he saw it through to completion and motivated our writers and editors to work beyond their capacity. He would accept no less from himself.

When he had to offer constructive criticism he did not flinch; he made very clear what was lacking and sometimes did it very forcefully — but we all felt boundless affection and loyalty to him because we knew he loved and was loyal to us.

The world knew Rabbi Meir Zlotowitz z”l as the one who opened the Talmud and many other Torah classics not only to the masses but to talmidei chachamim; who published the Siddur Machzorim and Chumash that bring unprecedented inspiration and awareness to hundreds of thousands and that influence countless Jews to teshuvah; and who published the many hundreds of other ArtScroll works that are transforming Jewish life. Can we imagine the Tannaim and Amoraim and gedolei olam who greet him in Gan Eden as the one who preserved their Torah for new generations of acheinu Bnei Yisrael?

Today he is not here. And there is a vacuum. When the Sfas Emes became Gerrer Rebbe as a young man he said “None of us can replace my grandfather but if all of us are united we can do it.” May Hashem help us work together to fill the vacuum and preserve his legacy. (Originally featured in Mishpacha Issue 667)