משולם בן קלונימוס

Rav Meshullam ben Kalonymus (c. 4710/950–4770/1010), known also as Rabbeinu Meshullam and Meshullam ha-Gadol, was a posek of the era of the Geonim, a commentator, and a paytan. He was born in Lucca in Italy — or, some say, in Mainz — into the Kalonymus family, which had come from Lucca to Mainz and stood among the earliest chachamim of German Jewry. He preceded the first of the Ashkenazi poskim, some of whom lived in his day, among them Rabbeinu Gershom Meor HaGolah, and he is cited by Rashi and the Baalei HaTosafot.

A letter of Rav Shmuel ben Danan relates that as a boy of fourteen Meshullam was taken from his father by merchants to Bavel and sold to the Reish Galuta and rosh yeshiva there. Set at first over the kitchen, he would secretly correct the rosh yeshiva’s writings from what he had learned from his father, until he was found out and seated in the yeshiva; he refused the offer of the Reish Galuta’s daughter in marriage without his father’s consent, and returned to Mainz. His son Rav Todros headed the yeshiva of Mainz after him, and another son, Rav Kalonymus, is the one named in the account of Rav Amnon of Mainz and the tefillah given over in a dream.

Remnants of his Torah survive, many from the Cairo Geniza: responsa sent to him from across Ashkenaz on matters of monetary and communal law, twelve piyyutim — among them the kedushta Eimecha Nasati said in the Ashkenazi rite on the morning of Yom Kippur and the avodah Amitz Koach — and a commentary on Pirkei Avot, of which only small portions reached us. A well-known letter of his to the Jews of Constantinople takes up the confrontation with the Karaim. He was niftar in Mainz and buried in the old cemetery.