יצחק בן מאיר

Rav Yitzchak ben Meir, known as the Rivam, was a grandson of Rashi and one of the early baalei Tosafot of France. He was born in Ramerupt to Rav Meir ben Shmuel, called “avi harabbanim,” and Yocheved, Rashi’s daughter, and stood among the gedolim of his generation beside his brothers — the Rashbam, Rabbeinu Tam, and Rav Shlomo. Among those who learned under him was his young nephew Rav Yitzchak, who would later be known as the Ri HaZaken and become the gadol hador in France.

The Rivam wrote tosafot to many masechtot, and he is quoted many times in the Tosafot printed on the Shas. Like his brother Rabbeinu Tam he also turned his hand to piyut, and several of his selichot survive, among them “Yisrael Amcha Techinah Orchim.”

He was niftar at an early age, in the lifetime of his father and mother, leaving seven sons, and Rabbeinu Tam mourned his brother in a kinah. His widow married Rav Yehuda ben Rav Yom Tov of Falaise, a grandson of the Rivan; her daughter from that marriage later married the Ri HaZaken, so that the widow of the Rivam became the mother-in-law of the Ri — who would ask her about the conduct of his rebbe, her first husband: “And now I asked the lady my mother-in-law, the widow of my uncle Rav Yitzchak, who knows the deeds of that house, how the women conduct themselves in this matter… and it is clear in her hands that my teacher Rav Yitzchak her husband did not require it.”