The Holy Gaon Rabbi Meir Avraham (d. 1829), Av Beis Din of Tchaba and author of Pri Tzaddik, was called by the Chasam Sofer “Ish Elokim.” Pious and holy, he gained a reputation as a miracle worker who possessed ruach hakodesh, and countless stories circulated throughout Hungary regarding his unparalleled sanctity and power to evoke miracles. For twenty years prior to his passing, he abstained from eating meat, learning Torah in seclusion in a cave throughout the day and night. The author of Be’er Shmuel of Unsdorf likewise praised him as “an angel in human form.”
In his approbation to Pri Tzaddik, the Yismach Moshe refers to the author four times as a “tzaddik.” When the Admor Harav Yoel of Satmar saw the approbation, he remarked that “this was not a word commonly used in the past, and certainly not four times!”
Harav Meir Avraham studied under the Machatzis Hashekel and Chozeh of Lublin. His grandson Harav Shlomo Zalman Freidman, Av Beis Din of Tanka, related that it was the Chozeh who sent his grandfather to Hungary in order to spread the light of Chassidus to the masses there.
Prior to his passing, Harav Meir Avraham delivered a surprising order to bury him in nearby Mishkoltz. Only years later did his motive become clear when the local authorities ordered the cemetery in Tchaba razed in order to lay the tracks for the new train. Numbering among his descendants are many gedolei Torah and the most illustrious families in Hungary, among them the famous Gaon the Maharsha”g.
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