Rabbi Meir ben Gedalia, the Maharam of Lublin, was born in Lublin in 1558. His father, Rabbi Gedalia, was the son of the kabbalist Rabbi Asher of Kraków. Already famous as a child prodigy, he went to study at the Kraków yeshiva, where he married Esther, daughter of the rosh yeshiva and av beit din, Rabbi Yitzchak HaKohen Shapira, who was his main teacher.

In 1582, at 24, he moved to Lublin to found a yeshiva. In 1587 he returned to Kraków to succeed his father-in-law as rosh yeshiva and av beit din. He then became rabbi of Lemberg (Lviv), where he was involved in a famous dispute with Rabbi Yehoshua Falk over a bill of divorce, and later returned to Lublin, serving as its rabbi for the rest of his life. Of his many students who became rabbis and roshei yeshiva, the most famous is Rabbi Yeshaya Horowitz, the Shelah HaKadosh.

A master of pilpul, he weighed every word of Rashi and Tosafot. His Talmud novellae, Meir Einei Chachamim, are printed at the end of the Talmud volumes under the title "Maharam", alongside the Maharsha and the Maharshal. His responsa (She'elot uTeshuvot Maharam Lublin) are widely cited; in them he cautions against relying uncritically on the rulings of the Shulchan Aruch and the Rema.

He passed away in Lublin on 16 Iyar 5376 (1616).