מכיר בן יהודה

Rabbi Machir ben Yehudah (מכיר בן יהודה) was a rishon of Ashkenaz who lived at the end of the tenth century and the start of the eleventh. He was born in Metz and was the brother of Rabbeinu Gershom Meor HaGolah. Little is known of his life.

He is known for his dictionary, Alfa Beta deRabbi Machir. The sefer has not survived, but Rashi, the Rashbam, Rabbi Eliezer ben Natan, Rabbeinu Tam and the Tosafot quote it many times. As its name shows, it was arranged by the order of the alef-bet, and from the quotations it seems to have explained hard words and passages in the Mishnah and the Talmud Bavli. Rashi brings it in his peirush on the Gemara, for example in Chullin 20b and Pesachim 50a, and also on the word botnim in Bereishit 43:11.

For the most part Rabbi Machir followed the explanations of his brother, who was the teacher of Rabbi Natan ben Yechiel of Rome, author of the Aruch. When Rabbi Natan differed with Rabbeinu Gershom on the meaning of a word, he usually took Rabbi Machir’s view, though he never names him in the Aruch.

His great-grandson Rabbi Menachem ben Machir and his brothers wrote the sefer Maaseh HaMachiri.

Biography © 2026 TorahSages · CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 · torahsages.com/sages/machir-ben-judah · Copyright & Licensing