Rabbi Eliyahu David Rabinowitz-Teomim, the Aderet, was born on Shavuot, 6 Sivan 5603 (1843), together with his twin brother (te'omim), Rabbi Tzvi Yehuda, in Pikeln, Lithuania. Orphaned of his mother at five, he and his brother were raised by their father, Rabbi Binyamin, his first teacher. Between thirteen and fifteen the twins wrote together a work on the rules of the Talmud, Shevet Achim; of his brother he wrote: "I loved him with an everlasting love, truly as my own soul."

After his marriage he studied at the Kloiz of Ponevezh, where he said he reviewed the whole Talmud in one sweep. In 1875 he became rabbi of Ponevezh, and in 1893 rabbi of Mir. In 1901 he was called to Jerusalem as deputy and designated successor of the Ashkenazi chief rabbi, Rabbi Shmuel Salant, leading the city's Ashkenazi community. He was renowned for his immense learning, especially in rabbinic history, and left a great many writings.

His daughter Batsheva married Rav Avraham Yitzchak Kook in 1886; after her early death he encouraged Rav Kook to marry his niece, his twin brother's daughter, and urged him to accept the rabbinate of Jaffa.

He passed away in Jerusalem on 3 Adar I 5665 (1905) and rests on the Mount of Olives.