page_title: Menachem Meiri
section_title: Beit HaBechirah
hierarchical_section_title: Menachem Meiri / Beit HaBechirah
caption_attribution_description: English: Menachem Meiri: Beit HaBechirah. Printed in Livorno 1795.
context_page_description: Menachem ben Solomon Meiri or Hameiri was a famous Catalan rabbi, Talmudist and Maimonidean.
context_section_description: His commentary, the Beit HaBechirah (literally "The Chosen House," a play on an alternate name for the Temple in Jerusalem, implying that the Meiri's work selects specific content from the Talmud, omitting the discursive elements), is one of the most monumental works written on the Talmud. This work is less a commentary and more of a digest of all of the comments in the Talmud, arranged in a manner similar to the Talmud—presenting first the mishnah and then laying out the discussions that are raised concerning it. Haym Soloveitchik describes it as follows:
  Meiri is the only medieval Talmudist (rishon) whose works can be read almost independently of the Talmudic text, upon which it ostensibly comments. The Beit ha-Behirah is not a running commentary on the Talmud. Meiri, in quasi-Maimonidean fashion, intentionally omits the give and take of the sugya, he focuses, rather, on the final upshot of the discussion and presents the differing views of that upshot and conclusion. Also, he alone, and again intentionally, provides the reader with background information. His writings are the closest thing to a secondary source in the library of rishonim.
  Unlike most rishonim, he frequently quotes the Jerusalem Talmud, including textual variants which are no longer extant in other sources.
  Beit HaBechirah cites many of the major Rishonim, referring to them not by name but rather by distinguished titles. Specifically:
  Gedolei harabbanim - Rashi
  Gedolei hamefarshim - Raavad (or Gedolei hamegihim when quoted as disputing Rambam or Rif)
  Gedolei haposkim - Isaac Alfasi
  Gedolei hamechabrim - Rambam
  Geonei Sefarad - Ri Migash
  Hachmei HaTzarfatim - Rashbam
caption: Title page of a 1795 edition of Beit HaBechirah
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