Rabbi Yochanan
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- For other rabbis Yochanan, see Rabbi Yochanan (disambiguation).
Rabbi Yochanan was a rabbi in the era of the Talmud. He was also known as Rabbi Yochanan bar Nafcha (Rabbi Yochanan the son of the blacksmith).
He was born in Tzippori. His father, a blacksmith, had already died prior to his birth, and his mother died soon after; he was raised by his grandfather in Tzippori. Rabbi Yehuda Hanasi took the boy under his wing and taught him Torah. Due to the disparity in ages, though — Yochanan was only fifteen years old when Rabbi Yehuda died — Yochanan was not one of Rabbi Yehuda's prime students; rather, he studied more under Rabbi Yehuda's students. He studied Torah diligently all his life, even selling what he had inherited from his parents in order to be able to devoite his time to study; after that was spent, he lived a life of poverty.
When the time came to start teaching Torah, Rabbi Yochanan decided to move from Tzippori to Tiberias, so as not to show disrespect to great rabbis in Tzippori who had not their own centers of Torah study. He was considered, however, the greatest rabbi in Eretz Yisrael, and was even esteemed in the other center of Torah Jewry, Babylonia — so much so that after the deaths of Rav and Shmuel in Babylonia, Rabbi Yochanan was considered by Babylonian Jews the greatest rabbi of the generation. He was the rosh yeshiva in Tiberias for about sixty years, and was succeeded after his death by Rabbi Elazar b. Pedas.
Rabbi Yochanan compiled the Jerusalem Talmud from the collected wisdom of the Talmudic sages of Eretz Yisrael.
Rabbi Yochanan's method in deciding halacha was to establish broad rules that apply in many cases; for example, he held that the halacha always follows a s'tam mishna (mishna with no dispute or authorship attribution in it), and he had rules for which tanna to follow in cases of dispute.
He is believed never to have left Eretz Yisrael in his life, a rare feat for rabbis in those days, who frequently visited Babylonia.
Rabbi Yochanan was also known for his beauty. He lived more than one hundred years and died ca. AD 279.
References
- Margaliyot, Mordekhai, ed. Entziklopedya l'chachme haTalmud v'hag'onim (2d ed., vol. 1). Jerusalem, 1945 or 1946.
- Gross, Moses David. Avos hadoros: monografyot al avos haMishna v'haTalmud (5th ed.). Tel Aviv: Yavneh, 1966.he:יוחנן בר נפחא