Rav Nachman bar Yaakov and Rav Ashi

In today’s daf (Menachot 102) we seem to have an interaction between Rav Ashi and Rav Nachman, and Tosafot, based on biographical information, argues that this is impossible.



Tosafot write:

 אמר רב אשי אמריתה לשמעתא קמיה דרב כהנא גרסינן. והוא רב כהנא אחרון שהיה בימי רב אשי כדאשכחן בכמה דוכתי אבל רב נחמן לא גרסינן דרבו של רבא היה ונפטר מקמי רבא כדאיתא במועד קטן (דף כח.) וביום שמת רבא נולד רב אשי(קידושין דף עב:) ואי גרסי' רב נחמן בר יצחק ניחא: 

That is, they change the text to Rav Kahana, and specifically the last Rav Kahana (meaning IV), who lived in Rav Ashi’s time, as we find in many places. Meanwhile, we should not read Rav Nachman in the text, for he was the teacher of Rava, and died in Rava’s lifetime, as we see in Moed Katan (28a); and the day that Rava died, Rav Ashi was born. Thus, they did not live at the same time. They also suggest that we could read Rav Nachman bar Yitzchak in its place.

To flesh this out a bit further, here are some of the rabbis in today’s daf. Rav Nachman without the patronymic is generally taken as Rav Nachman bar Yaakov:




Rav Ashi is A6, an Amora of the sixth generation. Exploring the student / teacher graph, we can find a path, as Rav Ashi -> Rav Pappa -> Rava -> Rav Nachman bar Yaakov. But we would not expect a direct relation, across all these generations, even if we did not have the explicit biographical information.

On the other hand, we do detect one instance of Rav Nachman speaking to Rav Ashi, in Kiddushin 6b:




This isn’t compelling counter-evidence, since the gemara there explicitly has an alternate girsa (Rav Chanin from Chozaah) which is more complicated than the common Rav Nachman, and which can easily be switched for Rav Nachman, due to orthographic similarities.

Alternatively, and not just as a girsa switch as Tosafot suggest, it is not obvious that every unadorned Rav Nachman is bar Yaakov, rather than bar Yitzchak. I have encountered some clear counter-examples, but these are instances in which first the gemara gives the full patronymic of bar Yitzchak.

If we say it is Rav Kahana IV, this also makes sense (though might cause some difficulties on the next amud, in terms of harmonizing with Rav Ashi and Rav Kahana’s conversation there). We have some work we need to do, to fix up the process in mi vami, to tag the right Rav Kahana among the ambiguous choices, but here is their relevant relationship. Rav Kahana IV is one of Rav Ashi’s teachers:

Chullin is up! And some of Rabbi Yishmael’s students...

I am pleased to announce that we know have Mi vaMi up on masechet Chullin. We rely on Sefaria’s text as a base for our processing, and they follow the Daf Yomi cycle. As Chullin fast approaches, they put the tractate up, and so we updated our data as well.

Today’s daf (Menachot 90b) contains a brayta with a dispute between Rabbi Yoshiah and Rabbi Yonatan. These fifth-generation Tannaim are students of Rabbi Yishmael. We more often see other fifth-generation Tannaim, Rabbi Meir, Rabbi Yehuda, Rabbi Shimon, and Rabbi Eleazar, who were students of Rabbi Akiva. Rabbi Yishmael and Rabbi Akiva work within different frameworks of halachic exegesis.

Two students of Rabbi Yishmael

Indeed, on the next daf, we will see the gemara analyze this brayta in terms of klal ufrat, which is within Rabbi Yishmael’s framework, rather than ribbuy miut, which is that of Rabbi Akiva.

Menachot 79: Once again, ruling like one’s father

A few thoughts on today’s daf (Menachot 79a).

First, we have two accounts of the dispute between Rabbi Eliezer ben Hyrcanus and Rabbi Yehoshua ben Chananiah, both 3rd generation Tannaim. One account of the dispute was from Rabbi Meir, and the other was from Rabbi Yehuda. These were both fifth generation Tannaim, looking back two generations at a (fuzzily?) known dispute:



It is quite strange to me that Rabbi Yehuda records an elaborate back-and-forth between Rabbi Yehoshua and Rabbi Eliezer about their respective reasonings. This would be no fuzzily known dispute, but a rather clear, definite tradition. It seems far more likely that Rabbi Meir and Rabbi Yehuda were fuzzy about, and therefore argued, about what that 3rd generation dispute was about, either baal mum or piggul chutz limekomo. If so, it would be Rabbi Yehuda (or else the setam of the berayta) filling in the respective arguments, based on assumed reasoning. If so, Rabbi Eliezer’s “silence” at the end should not necessarily be taken as a retraction, as the gemara takes it.

Next, according to the first lashon of the gemara, it seems extremely strange to have Rava (or perhaps Rabba, depending on girsa), retract, since Rabbi Eliezer retracted. What in the world?! The brayta predated Rabba and Rava, and if they truly based themselves on the aforementioned authorities, Rava should never have taken the position in the first place. Surely he knew about the retraction!

Next, it is interesting how the girsa is changed, flipping Rabba and Rava. Presumably this is so that the earlier authority, Rabba, should be listed first. See the Rosh’s position about changing Rava to Rabba if he is listed prior to Abaye.

Finally, this seems to be a trend I am noticing more in Menachot than elsewhere in Shas. Once again, the gemara assumes that Rabbi Eleazar beRabbi Shimon would hold like his father.

ורבי אלעזר ברבי שמעון סבר לה כוותיה דאבוה דאמר כל העומד לזרוק כזרוק דמי

And then the gemara asks whether Rabbi Shimon really holds position X, under the assumption that the son’s taking this position commits the father. I will keep an eye for it in other masechtot, to see if it is advanced elsewhere.

Menachot 72: Ruling like one’s teacher

Today’s daf (Menachot 72) provides a great argument in favor of the Mi vaMi approach, that knowing someone’s teachers and grand-teachers will help us understand their position.

It starts with a statement by Rabbi Yochanan, that Rabbi Eleazar, son of Rabbi Shimon, bases himself on the position of his father’s teacher:

אמר רבה בר בר חנה אמר רבי יוחנן רבי אלעזר ברבי שמעון בשיטת רבי עקיבא רבו של אביו אמרה

”With regard to the opinion of Rabbi Elazar, son of Rabbi Shimon , that barley for the omer offering that is reaped by day is unfit, Rabba bar bar Ḥana says that Rabbi Yoḥanan says : Rabbi Elazar, son of Rabbi Shimon , said his statement in accordance with the opinion of Rabbi Akiva , the teacher of his father. “

It goes on to explain exactly what position of Rabbi Akiva it is. But there is a focus on the familial (father-son) and scholastic (student-teacher) relationship.

Of course, Rabbi Yochanan’s statement proceeds with an additional prong, that Rabbi Eleazar beRabbi Shimon is also based on an opinion of Rabbi Yishmael (who would be Rabbi Akiva’s disputant.)

The setama degemara carries on this assumption, that you can figure out a rabbi’s position based on the position of his father or teacher. So, for instance, it points out that Rabbi Yehuda HaNasi, a 6th generation contemporary who takes a different position than Rabbi Eleazar here, also was a student of the same Rabbi Shimon (who in turn was the student of Rabbi Akiva)!

 ורבי לאו תלמידיה דרבי שמעון הוא ?

And tries resolving it by saying that there is a different position of Rabbi Shimon that Rabbi is basing himself upon. But then, the gemara asks:

ורבי אלעזר ברבי שמעון לא שמיע ליה

So, throughout this particular sugya, this assumption holds, that halachic position should more or less follow the scholastic relationship. Which, in turn, recommends the Mi VaMi approach.

Is this really the case, though? There are many, many instances in which a student does not rule like his teacher. Artscroll refers us to Chidushei HaRashba, which we can read here, who enumerates a number of conditions for this assumption to hold.

Why doesn’t Rabbi speak up?

In yesterday’s Mishna (Menachot 13b) we see a dispute between Rabbi Yose ben Chalafta and the (contemporary) Sages.

שחט שני כבשים לאכול אחת מן החלות למחר הקטיר שני בזיכין לאכול אחד מן הסדרים למחר 

רבי יוסי אומר אותו החלה ואותו הסדר שחישב עליו פיגול וחייבין עליו כרת והשני פסול ואין בו כרת

וחכמים אומרים זה וזה פיגול וחייבין עליו כרת: 

And then, in today’s daf (Menachot 14a) there is a brayta which records Rabbi Yehuda HaNasi’s opinion:

הא מני רבי היא

דתניא השוחט את הכבש לאכול חצי זית מחלה זו וכן חבירו לאכול חצי זית מחלה זו

רבי אומר אומר אני שזה כשר 

If Rabbi has an opinion, how come he does not speak up in the Mishna he redacted? (Certainly if he differs with both. But also, if he will hold like either the Sages or like Rabbi Meir, shouldn’t he express this.)

One answer might be that he is trying to have a light touch on the Mishna, either as an earlier extant text before him, or because he wants to primarily present the dispute among the Tannaim of the previous generation, rather than the Mishna being an expression of his own views.

Rabbi as a 6th generation student of Rabbi Yose

We see from the graph that Rabbi Yose was a 5th generation Tanna, while Rabbi Yehuda HaNasi was of the subsequent generation. The Sages would be of the same generation, meaning fifth generation Tannaim.

Further, maybe this is why Rabbi often uses the expression omer ani, as he does here in the brayta. This would not just be humility. He wants to distinguish between the corpus of recorded previous-generation disputes and his own view of the matter.

(As an aside, it seems possible that Rav Huna, by saying that the brayta brought by Rav Nachman in objection was the opinion of Rabbi, is to say that Rabbi has his own opinion, which is neither that of Rabbi Yose nor of the Sages. But the setama degemara assumes that it must be in accordance with Rabbi Yose or the Sages, and asks this, despite the words omer ani.)

A few steps forward...

A few weeks ago, I wrote about the refactoring of the mivami process. (This was so that building the graph could happen in about twenty minutes instead of several hours, and so that the building would happen in stages, with the ability to inspect the output at each stage.) That resulted in a few of the nicer features (such as the local and global interaction graphs) temporarily disappearing.

We have further developed the code since then. Now, not only are the two interaction graphs back online, there are two new exciting developments.

Here is a global relationship graph from today’s daf (Menachot 9a) to illustrate:

Global relationship graph, Menachot 9a

#1: We carry over the generational information from the student/teacher graph. Thus, we see Rabbi Yehoshua ben Chananya (rather than plain Rabbi Yehoshua, which is what appears in the text), together with the generation tag of T3 (third generation Tanna). Because we have these generation tags, nodes are no longer randomly colored, but are colored by generation, as per the legend.

#2: Where there is more that one relationship between rabbi1 and rabbi2, the labels for the edges no longer overlap, as they did in the past. Instead, they appear as a comma-separated list.

More to hopefully come soon!