Rabbi Shmuel Heller was born in Uchanie near Lublin, around 1785 according to some, around 1803 according to others. A descendant of Rabbi Yom Tov Lipman Heller, author of Tosafot Yom Tov, he met the Seer of Lublin as a child, his grandfather being one of the Seer's circle, and the encounter left a deep mark on him. Around 1813 his family, part of a group of Chassidim moved by love of the Land of Israel, settled in Safed and Tiberias.

He was a disciple of Rabbi Avraham Dov of Ovruch, author of Bat Ayin, and succeeded him as rabbi of Safed. For more than forty years he led Safed's Ashkenazi community through terrible ordeals, including the earthquake of 1837, in which his hand was badly injured and he had to give up his work as a shochet. He managed to raise Safed from its ruins and to preserve its role as the centre of Chassidism in the Land of Israel in the nineteenth century.

He was also renowned as a healer, versed in the medicinal plants of the land, and was respected by Jews and Arabs alike. His great-grandson, Rabbi Avraham Zeida Heller, was Safed's spiritual leader in the 1940s and 1950s, and the Breslov Chassid Rabbi Shmuel Horowitz was also among his descendants.

He passed away in 1884 and rests in the old cemetery of Safed, near the tombs of the Arizal and Rabbi Moshe Cordovero.