Aaron Hyman, Toldot Tannaim ve-Amoraim, Letter Yod (vol. II, pp. 236–255)

R' Yoḥanan

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← R' Yoḥanan (Tanna)  |  R' Yoḥanan, brother of Mar son of Ravina →

1. The man and his place in history

This is the R' Yoḥanan who in his youth still saw R' Yehuda HaNasi and all his Tannaitic colleagues. This is the R' Yoḥanan who received from all the great disciples of R' Yehuda HaNasi. This is the R' Yoḥanan who saw, after the death of R' Yehuda Nesiah, how the glory of the patriarchate declined from what it had been. This is the R' Yoḥanan who founded his great academy in Tiberias, which was almost the only academy in all Eretz Yisrael. This is the R' Yoḥanan who was granted long life, so that even the great men of the fourth generation of Amoraim still served in his great academy. And this is the R' Yoḥanan whose great academy studied the Jerusalem Talmud in the form we have today; it never received a general redaction like the Babylonian Talmud. That is why our early authorities had a reliable tradition that R' Yoḥanan arranged the Yerushalmi.

As if sent from heaven, at the very time that R' Yehuda HaNasi gave Israel his ordered Mishnah, this genius was born, who passed on to us the explanation of the Mishnah. Just as R' Yehuda HaNasi was the head of his whole generation, so R' Yoḥanan in his time was the head of his whole generation. Nearly all the halakhot of the Amoraim in the Jerusalem Talmud are what they received from their great master. And not only the Yerushalmi: the Bavli also overflows with the teaching of our great master. After the deaths of Rav and Shmuel he was the head of the whole generation, and the sages of Babylonia held his words to be like the words of the Urim [ve-Tummim].

2. Family and the name "bar Nappaḥa"

We do not know who the ancestors or the family of this outstanding man were. He is called "bar Nappaḥa," as in Bava Metzia 85b and in Sanhedrin 96a, where Resh Lakish calls him bar Nappaḥa. (Rashi explains: "My teacher thinks that R' Yoḥanan's father was a smith [nappaḥa], and therefore he is called bar Nappaḥa. Others explain 'bar Nappaḥa' as a reference to his beauty.") Other places:

"א״ר יונתן: ראה לשון שלימדנו בן הנפח."

"R' Yonatan said: See the expression that the smith's son has taught us."

Yerushalmi Rosh Hashanah 2:5

"א״ל: שמעית מילי דבר נפחא."

"He said to him: You heard the words of bar Nappaḥa."

Ketubot 25b — when Resh Lakish was angry with R' Elazar

"א״ר חנינא פתוראה: עילא מינאי הוה קאי בר נפחא."

"R' Ḥanina of Petora said: Bar Nappaḥa used to stand above me."

Ḥullin 54b

None of these passages makes clear whether his father's name was Nappaḥa, or his father was a smith, or he was called this because of his beauty.

3. Birth in Sepphoris

This much we do know: he was born in Sepphoris, at the time when R' Yehuda HaNasi lived there. As I said, R' Yoḥanan was young when Rabbi died, and I will explain this at length. It is known that Rabbi lived in Sepphoris for 17 years, so without doubt R' Yoḥanan was born in Sepphoris. This is what we find:

"ההיא עוברא דארחה (אשה מעוברת הריחה ריח מאכל ביום הכפורים), אתו לקמיה דרבי. א״ל: זילו לחושו לה דיומא דכיפורי הוא. לחושו לה, ואילחישא. קרי עליה: 'בטרם אצרך בבטן ידעתיך.' ונפיק מינה ר׳ יוחנן."

"A certain pregnant woman smelled (a pregnant woman smelled the smell of food on Yom Kippur); they came before Rabbi. He said to them: Go, whisper to her that it is Yom Kippur. They whispered to her, and she was calmed. He applied to her [the verse]: 'Before I formed you in the womb I knew you.' And R' Yoḥanan came forth from her."

Yoma 82b

In the Yerushalmi there (8:4) the story is told about R' Tarfon; see there. According to Tosafot, Eruvin 91a, s.v. Mi, this is why they called him "R' Yoḥanan melaḥashekh" [a play on the "whispering" in this story].

4. An orphan, raised by his grandfather

But R' Yoḥanan never saw his dear parents. As stated in Kiddushin 31b, his father died when his mother conceived him, and his mother died when she bore him. His only consolation was that he was exempt from a grave commandment, honoring father and mother, which no one can fulfil properly. He said: "Happy is the one who never saw them." He knew only the women who were present at his birth (Yerushalmi Ketubot 5:6).

His father's father or his mother's father took him as a son, and he grew up in his home, as stated in the Yerushalmi:

"אר״י: רכיב הוינא על כתפי דסבי, ושמעית קליה דר׳ שמעון בן אלעזר יתיב מתני."

"R' Yoḥanan said: I was riding on the shoulders of my grandfather, and I heard the voice of R' Shimon ben Elazar sitting and teaching."

Yerushalmi Ma'asrot 1:2

5. The youngest student in R' Yehuda HaNasi's academy

It was the way of R' Yehuda HaNasi to look after orphans, as we find in Bava Metzia 85a with the son of R' Elazar son of R' Shimon, and with the son of R' Tarfon's daughter. So, it seems, Rabbi heard that the woman who smelled the food, about whom he had prophesied "Before I formed you in the womb I knew you," left a son who was an orphan of father and mother. When R' Yoḥanan grew up and Rabbi saw that he was blessed with talent, he gave him a place among his disciples in his great academy. Once he had the privilege of sitting before Rabbi:

"הנהו תרי תלמידי דהוו יתבי קמי רבי, וחד מינייהו ר׳ יוחנן. חד אמר: מפני מה בוצרים בטהרה... אמר (רבי): מובטח אני בזה שמורה הוראה בישראל."

"Two disciples were sitting before Rabbi, and one of them was R' Yoḥanan. One said: Why do they harvest grapes in purity… (Rabbi) said: I am sure that this one will issue rulings in Israel."

Pesaḥim 3b

But because he was still young, he was not yet counted among Rabbi's disciples, as R' Yoḥanan himself said:

"דכירנא כד הוי יתיבנא אחר י״ז שורן אחורי דרבי, ונפקי זיקוקין דנורא מפומיה דרב לפומיה דרבי — ולית אנא ידע מה הן אמרין."

"I remember when I sat seventeen rows behind Rabbi, and sparks of fire went out from the mouth of Rav to the mouth of Rabbi — and I did not know what they were saying."

Ḥullin 137b

And there (54a) he said to Resh Lakish:

"כל אותן שנים ששימש אותו תלמיד (רב לרבי) בישיבה, אני שמשתי בעמידה."

"All those years that that disciple (Rav, for Rabbi) served sitting, I served standing."

Ḥullin 54a

(Rashi: "He sat and I stood, because he was more important than I." One can also explain it by the rule that difficult material is learned sitting and easy material standing, as in Megillah 21a.)

"ר׳ יוחנן ור״ל תרוייהון אמרין: אנן לא זכינן לאורייתא אלא בגין דחמינן אצבעתיה דרבי מן גולגיקין דידיה."

"R' Yoḥanan and Resh Lakish both said: We merited Torah only because we saw Rabbi's finger coming out of his sleeve."

Yerushalmi Beitzah 5:2

Without doubt this is a figure of speech, meaning that he served him only a little. That is why we do not find R' Yoḥanan stating a halakhah in the name of Rabbi, except in Menaḥot 88b, and in Sotah 30b according to the reading of the Ein Ya'akov. And in Yerushalmi Avodah Zarah ch. 4, R' Yoḥanan said: "Rabbi taught me well." The reason is that he had not yet reached the level at which he could receive the teaching of R' Yehuda HaNasi from his own mouth. He received it later through Rabbi's disciples R' Ḥanina, R' Oshaya and R' Yannai.

How right our master Maimonides was in his introduction to the Yad ha-Ḥazakah. He counts R' Yoḥanan among Rabbi's disciples, and says explicitly that R' Yoḥanan was the youngest of his disciples and afterward was a disciple of R' Yannai. Maimonides did not mean that he was a [full] disciple of Rabbi, as Rabad understood him, and for that reason objected. He meant only that R' Yoḥanan was in Rabbi's academy. This is true, as explained above.

6. Date of birth

We have now shown that without doubt he was born in Sepphoris (because Rabbi spent the last 17 years of his life in Sepphoris), and that at the death of R' Yehuda HaNasi he was about 15 years old. We have already explained that Rabbi died in 505 of the Seleucid era [≈ 194 CE]. So R' Yoḥanan was born in about 490 SE [≈ 179 CE].

7. Tiberias, and the estates he sold for Torah

It seems that his grandfather lived in the city of Tiberias, as R' Yoḥanan relates:

"נהירנא כד הוו קיימין ד׳ סאין בסלע, והוו נפישי נפיחי כפן בטבריא מדלית איסר."

"I remember when four se'ahs sold for a sela, and many were swollen with hunger in Tiberias because they did not have an issar."

Bava Batra 91b

All his sayings there show that he is telling what happened in his childhood, as we find in Bava Batra 7b that Rabbi opened the storehouses in years of drought.

His family left him many estates, fields and vineyards between Tiberias and Sepphoris, but he sold everything so that he could study Torah:

"ר׳ יוחנן הוה מטייל וסליק מטבריא לציפורין, והוה רחב״א סמך ליה. מטון חד בית חקלא. אר״י: הדין בית חקלא הוה דידי, וזבינתיה בגין מלעי באורייתא. מטון חד בית זיתא, ואמר כמו כן; מטון חד בית כרם, [ואמר כמו כן]. והתחיל רחב״א לבכות. א״ל: בכי אנא דלא שבקית לסבותיך כלום. א״ל: חייא בני, ונקלה זו בעיניך מה שעשיתי, שמכרתי דבר שניתן לששה ימים — אבל התורה ניתנה לארבעים יום."

"R' Yoḥanan was walking up from Tiberias to Sepphoris, and R' Ḥiyya bar Abba was supporting him. They came to a field. R' Yoḥanan said: This field was mine, and I sold it in order to toil in Torah. They came to an olive grove, and he said the same; they came to a vineyard, [and he said the same]. R' Ḥiyya bar Abba began to weep. He said to him: I weep because you have left nothing for your old age. He said to him: Ḥiyya my son, is what I did so slight in your eyes, that I sold a thing that was given in six days — but the Torah was given in forty days."

Song of Songs Rabbah 8:7

His toil in Torah was so great that they said:

"ר׳ יוחנן הוה יתיב קרי קומי כנישתא דבבל בציפורין. עבר ארכונא (שר) ולא קם מקמיה, ובעי (עבדי השר) להכותו. אמר להם: הרפו ממנו, בנימוסיא דבוראו הוא עסיק."

"R' Yoḥanan was sitting and reading in front of the Babylonian synagogue in Sepphoris. An archon (an official) passed by, and he did not rise before him, and (the official's servants) wanted to strike him. He said to them: Leave him alone; he is occupied with the law of his Creator."

Yerushalmi Berakhot 5:1

8. His teachers

8.1 Early contacts: R' Ḥiyya, Rav, and Shmuel's father

When he was in Rabbi's academy he got to know R' Ḥiyya, as in Ḥullin 54. In Yerushalmi Sanhedrin 1:1, R' Yoḥanan went to study before R' Ḥiyya the Great, who seated him next to a certain disciple. Beitzah 40a: "R' Yoḥanan said, R' Ḥiyya said."

He also received from Rav, as in Berakhot 45b, where the Gemara says that they heard it from Rav before he went down to Babylonia. In Yerushalmi Sanhedrin 3:6, Rav went out to [buy] hides for R' Ḥiyya the Great in a certain place and found R' Yoḥanan sitting and raising questions, etc. Therefore, even when R' Yoḥanan was already the great man of the generation, he wrote to Rav: "To our master in Babylonia" (Ḥullin 95b).

He also saw the father of Shmuel. In Yerushalmi Pesaḥim ch. 5 (end of halakhah 2), R' Yoḥanan said: "Abba bar Abba told me this."

8.2 R' Oshaya

But his principal teachers, from whom he received most of his Torah, are these. First, R' Oshaya, the great disciple of R' Ḥiyya:

"אר״י: י״ח ימים גידלתי אצל ר׳ אושעיא בריבי... כשהיינו למדין תורה אצל ר׳ אושעיא, היינו יושבין ארבעה ארבעה באמה."

"R' Yoḥanan said: I spent eighteen days with R' Oshaya Berabbi… When we studied Torah with R' Oshaya, we sat four to a cubit."

Eruvin 53a

R' Yoḥanan said of him that he was like R' Meir in his generation: his colleagues could not fathom the depth of his mind, and his heart was as wide as the doorway of the Temple hall. In Ḥagigah 7a, R' Yoḥanan said: "Until R' Oshaya Berabbi came and taught." In Pesaḥim 81a he asked R' Oshaya. In Yevamot 57a he asked R' Oshaya, who was silent; afterward Resh Lakish came and asked him, and he answered him. R' Yehuda Nesiah said to R' Oshaya: "Is R' Yoḥanan not a great man?" This is also cited in Yerushalmi Yevamot ch. 8 (end of halakhah 2). From this we see that even when R' Yoḥanan and Resh Lakish were already the great men of the generation, he still studied with R' Oshaya. In Nazir 15b he raised a difficulty to R' Oshaya.

Even after R' Yoḥanan founded his academy in Tiberias and was one of the great men of the generation, he still went to R' Oshaya to settle his doubts:

"ר׳ יוחנן בשם ר׳ הושעיא: מוסיפין... תלת עשר שנין עביד עליל קומי רביה, דלא צריך ליה."

"R' Yoḥanan in the name of R' Hoshaya: One adds… For thirteen years he used to go in before his teacher, though he did not need him."

Yerushalmi Eruvin, beginning of ch. 5

"אמר ר׳ אימי בשם ר׳ יוחנן: על דבר זה הלכתי אצל ר׳ הושעיא רבה לקיסרין, וא״ל, וכו׳."

"R' Immi said in the name of R' Yoḥanan: About this matter I went to R' Hoshaya Rabbah in Caesarea, and he told me, etc."

Yerushalmi Ḥallah ch. 1 (end of halakhah 4)

In Yerushalmi Terumot ch. 10 (beginning of halakhah 2), R' Yoḥanan said: "When we used to go to R' Hoshaya Rabbah in Caesarea to study Torah." In Ta'anit 9a, Resh Lakish's young son said to R' Yoḥanan: "I did not need you, or R' Hoshaya your teacher." Their disputes: Ḥagigah 9a; Zevaḥim 113a.

8.3 R' Yannai

Next, his great teacher R' Yannai. Ḥullin 137b says explicitly that he was his teacher.

"א״ל ר׳ יוחנן: רבי! לא משנתינו היא זו?"

"R' Yoḥanan said to him: Master! Is this not our Mishnah?"

Yevamot 92a

"אר״ז: אם יכפור ר׳ יוחנן בר״א תלמידו, יכפור בר׳ ינאי רבו?"

"R' Zeira said: Even if R' Yoḥanan would deny R' Elazar his disciple, would he deny R' Yannai his teacher?"

Bava Batra 154b

In Yerushalmi Ketubot ch. 9 (end of halakhah 2) and Kiddushin 1:4 it says explicitly that he was his disciple. In Kilayim 8:1, Sotah 2:5 and Yevamot 1:2, R' Yannai applied to R' Yoḥanan the verse "My son, let them not depart from your eyes."

Bava Metzia 85b says that R' Yoḥanan sits (in the heavenly academy) beside R' Yannai. And in Avodah Zarah 36a, R' Zeira said: "I took great pains with R' Assi, and R' Assi with R' Yoḥanan, and R' Yoḥanan with R' Yannai."

8.4 Ḥizkiyah son of R' Ḥiyya

Ḥizkiyah, the son of R' Ḥiyya, was also his teacher, as in Shabbat 102b and Eruvin 24a:

"א״ל ר׳ יוחנן לחזקיה: רבי! שנית לנו 'סנדל' — ואמרינן לך: מ״ש? — ואמרת לן עליה..."

"R' Yoḥanan said to Ḥizkiyah: Master! You taught us 'sandal' — and we asked you: What is the difference? — and you told us about it…"

Shabbat 102b; Eruvin 24a

Ḥizkiyah said of him: "This is no [ordinary] human being," or [in another version]: "This is what a human being should be." Tosafot (Gittin 84b, Bava Kamma 117b, Menaḥot 23b) hold that as long as his teacher Ḥizkiyah was alive, R' Yoḥanan was not head of an academy.

Their disputes: Eruvin 3a; Mo'ed Katan 10a, 13b; Ḥagigah 8a, 9a; Gittin 53a, 84b; Sanhedrin 86a; Avodah Zarah 38b; Zevaḥim 56a; Menaḥot 104b; Ḥullin 130a; Niddah 4a.

8.5 R' Ḥanina bar Ḥama

He also received from R' Ḥanina bar Ḥama. In Yerushalmi Horayot 3:4 it is told that R' Yoḥanan once expounded in the study house of R' Bena'i in Sepphoris. R' Ḥanina, leaning on R' Ḥiyya bar Abba, saw that everyone was running to hear R' Yoḥanan's discourses:

"א״ר חנינא: בריך רחמנא דחמא לי פירין עד דאנא בחיים. וכל אגדה פשטית ליה, חוץ ממשלי וקהלת."

"R' Ḥanina said: Blessed is the Merciful One, who has shown me fruit while I am still alive. And I explained all the aggadah to him, except Proverbs and Ecclesiastes."

Yerushalmi Horayot 3:4

In Yerushalmi Bava Metzia, end of ch. 2, they are unsure whether R' Ḥanina was his principal teacher or not. In Rosh Hashanah 2:5, R' Ḥanina opened (the discourse), and R' Yoḥanan and Resh Lakish concluded it. In Niddah 26b R' Yoḥanan said: "The wisdom of R' Ḥanina caused it for me…" (on his practice of not examining blood stains). In Shabbat 47a: "R' Yoḥanan said, R' Ḥanina said." Both said it together: Ketubot 48a. He raised a difficulty to R' Ḥanina: Gittin 51a.

Their disputes: Shabbat 156a; Yoma 4b; Gittin 3a; Sotah 6a; Menaḥot 26b, 94b.

Berakhot 5b tells that once R' Yoḥanan fell ill, and R' Ḥanina went in to visit him:

"א״ל: חביבין עליך יסורין? א״ל: לא הן ולא שכרן. יהיב ליה ידיה, ואוקמיה."

"He said to him: Is your suffering dear to you? He said: Neither it nor its reward. He gave him his hand and raised him up."

Berakhot 5b

8.6 Why R' Yoḥanan left Sepphoris for Tiberias

Yerushalmi Beitzah 1:1 tells that R' Yoḥanan went down from Sepphoris to Tiberias because of two things. R' Ḥanina (in Shevi'it, beginning of ch. 9, the reading is "R' Ḥunya of Ḥavrin") ruled for the people of Sepphoris on the aftergrowth of mustard and on the egg according to R' Yehudah. They asked R' Yoḥanan, and he expounded for them according to the Sages:

"אמר: מה אתיתון לי ההן סבא, דאנא שרי והוא אסר?"

"He said: Why have you brought me that old man, so that I permit and he forbids?"

Yerushalmi Beitzah 1:1

The commentators there explain that R' Yoḥanan said this about R' Ḥanina. The wording does seem to fit their explanation. But how is it possible that R' Yoḥanan would say such things about his teacher, especially since R' Ḥanina was then very old? Dorot ha-Rishonim, part 3, ch. 16, says that R' Ḥanina said this about R' Yoḥanan. This too is impossible, because R' Yoḥanan was not yet an old man then: the event took place before he founded his academy in Tiberias. We explained above that R' Yoḥanan was born in about 490 SE [≈ 179 CE]. His teacher R' Oshaya died a little before the year 4000 [AM], which is 552 SE [≈ 240 CE], and R' Yoḥanan founded his academy 13 years before the death of his teacher [the printed text reads "Rabbi"], as cited above. So R' Yoḥanan was then only about 49 years old. How then could R' Ḥanina call him "that old man"?

But I have already explained in the entry on R' Ḥanina that this is R' Ḥanina bar Sisi, who was then a judge in Sepphoris. It is about him that R' Yoḥanan said "Why have you brought me that old man," and because of him R' Yoḥanan went to Tiberias and founded his great academy there. The learned Dr. W. Bacher also erred on this point (Amoraim part, p. 6). And I. H. Weiss (vol. 3, p. 67) found in this story an opening to attack R' Yoḥanan for arrogance, and made a great mistake. On the contrary: here we see his great humility. He left R' Ḥanina (bar Sisi) in his place and went somewhere else.

8.7 The death of R' Ḥanina

"א״ל לר״י: נח נפשיה דר׳ חנינא. קרע עליה י״ג אצטלי דמילתא, ואמר: אזל גברא דהוה מסתפינא מיניה."

"They said to R' Yoḥanan: R' Ḥanina has died. He tore over him thirteen robes of fine wool, and said: The man whom I feared is gone."

Mo'ed Katan 24a

In the Yerushalmi there (3:8): R' Yoḥanan heard that R' Ḥanina was ill and went up to visit him. On the way he heard that he had died, and he tore his good garments over him.

8.8 R' Bena'ah, R' Yehoshua ben Levi, and others

He also received from R' Bena'ah. He asked him a question in Bava Batra 57b. He said things in his name in Yevamot 71b, Gittin 60a, Bava Batra 57b, Avodah Zarah 5b, and in the Yerushalmi: Pe'ah 1 (beginning, halakhah 2), Shabbat 10:6, and Pesaḥim, beginning of ch. 10.

He also received from R' Yehoshua ben Levi:

"א״ל ר״י: לא כן אלפן רבי?"

"R' Yoḥanan said to him: Is this not what my master taught us?"

Yerushalmi Bikkurim 2:2

In Yerushalmi Avodah Zarah 2:7–8, R' Yoḥanan said about R' Yehoshua ben Levi (not in his presence): "My master taught me well." "R' Yoḥanan said, R' Yehoshua ben Levi said": Sukkah 32a.

Their disputes: Sukkah 44a; Yoma 60b; Megillah 27a; Yevamot 39a, 65b; Gittin 5b; Bava Batra 96a, 116a; Menaḥot 26b, 95a.

Further sages from whom R' Yoḥanan received or in whose name he spoke [Hyman gives these as a running list; the table format is the translator's]: