“I recall a Tosafos in Maseches Bava Metzia that I studied for a full hour, my face turned to the wall, until I understood it on my own—even though my father, zt”l, tried once and then again to explain it to me. The pleasure I derived from finally grasping it hasn’t left me to this day, even though more than 52 years have passed.”
This story, shared by the renowned gaon Rav Meir Nissim Mazuz, zt”l, in the introduction to one of his sefarim, encapsulates both his deep love of Torah and the unique method of study he developed and refined in his institutions: rigorous diligence and independent understanding of Torah—what he referred to as the Iyun Tunisa’i—the Tunisian style of analysis.
With the conclusion of Pesach, the olam haTorah was shaken by the news of Rav Mazuz’s passing after an illness. At his levayah, his talmidim noted that his condition had already significantly deteriorated on the eve of the Seder night. “It seemed,” they said, “that the Rav, born on Erev Pesach, did not want to bring sorrow to the Jewish people during the Yom Tov and held on until its conclusion.”
His towering personality was expressed through the dozens of works he authored—responsa, commentaries on Tanach and Gemara, as well as essays on dikduk, variant nuscha’os in tefillah, and stories of gedolei Yisrael. “This is reflected in the wide diversity of his talmidim, who span the full spectrum of the frum community,” shared one of his talmidim. “Each one connected to a different facet of his greatness, and every talmid found some point of personal attachment to him.”
Rav Mazuz was born on 13 Nisan 5705 (1945), to Rav Matzliach Mazuz, who served as a dayan and rosh yeshivah in Tunis, the capital of Tunisia. From a young age, his brilliance and dedication to Torah study were evident. He and his brothers were raised under the direct tutelage of their father. “Even in childhood, his father lovingly called him ‘the Rambam—Rabbi Meir ben Matzliach,’” shared a family member. “While most children his age were playing with blocks or climbing poles in the street, Meir sat on his father’s lap learning the rules of dikduk and pronunciation from the sefer Lechem Habikkurim. Once he absorbed the foundations of dikduk, his father intensified his studies—teaching him how to lein with trop using a Tikkun Sofrim. The young Meir would read and be tested on precise pronunciation and trop. By the age of six and a half, he had memorized every parshah—complete with its trop and precise dikduk.”
Decades later, Rav Mazuz would recall those lessons and express his appreciation for them: “How grateful I am to my father for pressing me to learn the Torah reading with its proper taamei hamikra from a young age—now I don’t even need to prepare. I only regret that I didn’t learn two things back then: to remember the endpoints of aliyot and to differentiate between Tarsai and Telisha. Now I must check every time before I read. Had I learned this in my youth, it would have been ingrained in me for life—because what you learn young stays with you; at an older age, even with review, it’s harder to retain.”
When his father saw that his son had mastered the Chamishah Chumshei Torah, he decided it was time to teach him Gemara. He brought him to Or Torah—the only talmud Torah in Tunis at the time—and asked that he be placed in the advanced class that learned Gemara. The principal was skeptical, but upon seeing the boy recite entire portions of Chumash by heart, he admitted him into the class of 12-year-olds. However, the father stipulated that his son was not to learn any secular studies.
Rabbi Mazuz later recalled: “In my childhood, every one of Rashi’s comments on Chumash or Gemara was an experience. We would all look for ‘What was troubling Rashi?’ And especially when Rashi wrote ‘meaning’ (k’lomar). When learning Maharsha on a Tosafot, there is often a hidden question, and the Maharsha starts immediately with the answer, saying, ‘They mean to say….’ You had to delve deeply to understand the Maharsha—and even more so when studying Mishmeret Kehunah.”
At age seven and a half, his father pushed to place him in a higher class studying the difficult Perek Hazahav with Rashi and Tosafot. Though his peers were twice his age, his father urged him to surpass them in effort and understanding. “I toiled day and night over Rashi and Tosafot,” Rav Mazuz recounted, “because otherwise I wouldn’t have been able to follow the class. I remember that when learning nearly every Rashi, the teacher would ask: ‘What bothered Rashi?’ We’d strive and even jump on benches in friendly competition to answer, showing we found the difficulty that Rashi had addressed. The student who got it earned a smile and warm nod from the teacher—it was like striking gold.”
In Cheshvan 5714 (1953), at age nine, he began studying at the Chevrat Hatalmud yeshivah under Rav Yitzchak Bouchnach and Rav Yosef Sussu Hakohen, zt”l. Two years later, even the rabbanim in Yerushalayim took notice of him when he submitted a halachic essay titled Kilayim in Light of Halachah to a competition. The 11-year-old won a prize: a three-volume Shitah Mekubetzes on Bava Metzia.
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