מאיר דן פלוצקי

Rav Meir Dan Plotzky (5626/1866–6 Nisan 5688/1928), the author of the Kli Chemdah, was among the great rabbanim of Polish Jewry — a founder of Agudat Yisrael in Poland, a member of the Moetzet Gedolei HaTorah, and head of the Mesivta of Warsaw. Born to poor parents, chassidim of Rav Chanoch Henich of Alexander, he was sent at nine to learn under Rav Chaim Elazar Wax, the Nefesh Chayah, in Kalisz, and afterward under Rav Yisrael Yehoshua of Kutno. The drashah he delivered at his bar mitzvah reached the Avnei Nezer, the Sochatchover Rebbe, who drew the boy into his beit midrash and remained his rebbe muvhak for life; he was likewise a devoted chassid of Ger, of the Sfas Emes and the Imrei Emes. He married in 5642/1882 in Dvart, where his wife’s parents supported his learning for ten years, and in 5651/1891, at about twenty-five, he became rav of the town — declining a call to the great city of Lodz.

In 5663/1903 he published Chemdat Yisrael, on the Rambam’s Sefer HaMitzvot, and in 5666/1906 the first volume of his life’s work, the Kli Chemdah on the Torah — halachic clarifications drawn from the pesukim, following the order of the parshiyot, its name from the mishnah “chavivin Yisrael, shenitan lahem kli chemdah.” In 5670/1910 he printed Sh’eilu Shlom Yerushalayim, which exposed the forgery of a “Yerushalmi on Seder Kodashim” that Shlomo Friedlander claimed to have discovered; the fraud came undone in no small measure through his labor.

In 5678/1918 he became rav of Ostrow Mazowiecka. Chosen chairman of the Agudat HaRabbanim of Poland, he headed a delegation of rabbanim in 5681/1921 to England, Belgium, and America to found branches of Agudat Yisrael, and after the World War he toiled in the release of agunot. In 5686/1926 he traveled again to America on behalf of the Mesivta of Warsaw, and on his return left the rabbanut to stand at its head under the patronage of the Gerrer Rebbe — fifteen yeshivot with some three thousand four hundred talmidim under his nesiut.

He was niftar on 6 Nisan 5688/1928, about sixty-two, and brought to kevurah in Warsaw before a vast levayah, Rav Menachem Zemba among the maspidim. His son Rav Yisrael Natan, dayan in Ostrow, and his son-in-law and successor there, Rav Yaakov Shraga Zinger, were murdered with their families in the Holocaust. It is told that on Rav Kook’s table at seudah shlishit lay three sefarim: the Likutei Torah, the Sfas Emes — and the Kli Chemdah.