Remember Me

R
av Meir was a huge talmid chacham, yarei Shamayim, and a tremendous Torah inspiration for his community in the south of Israel. Decades ago, his parents had left the Atlas Mountains of Morocco on foot and traveled to Casablanca in order to make it to Eretz Yisrael. And while their initial landing was a challenge, they’d raised a Torah-observant family in a sea of coerced assimilation before moving to Netivot to be with their rebbi, the Baba Sali ztz”l.

Rav Meir’s family had been dedicated to combating secularism in the Moroccan community, and while he was still a bochur, he gladly joined the fight.

The Rabbanit, sitting across from me, told me about her husband. “You have to understand — he used to walk into the secular schools and literally pull his cousins out by their shirts. He became a legend for rescuing these neshamot, and that’s why I married him. He remembered every single bochur he brought to yeshivah, danced at their weddings, sat as the sandek when their sons were born. Each and every one of them was a son to him.”

Rav Meir never let a fellow Jew forget his beautiful heritage. He dedicated his life to set up yeshivos and learning programs in and around Beer Sheva. His inspirational speeches always attracted a crowd — it was a fire that couldn’t be extinguished.