Occasionally we encounter Sumchos, a student of Rabbi Meir, citing his teacher. Here are the counts of Sumchos (including with Rabbi Meir):
and here is coupled with משום רבי מאיר:
The numbers are a bit off, because Sefaria double- or triple-counts. For instance, the Mishnah (4) really represents only two occurrences. This because there are two editions, one with vowels and one without:
Still, we get the sense of Sumchos both as a standalone person and channeling the Torah of his teacher, and how that differs in Mishnah, Talmud, and Tosefta.
His name is a good secular Greek name. To cite Wikipedia on the Italian surname Simmaco, Σύμμαχος, meaning "ally", or "trusted friend" / "confidante". He’s thus yet another religious Jewish person from Tannaitic times with a secular name, joining Theodorus and Theodotius:
This by way of introduction to my column for last Shabbos, Only Sumchos (flipdocs and html), on Nazir 49b-50a.
I make a few interesting points in the column (but click on the image to make it bigger, or follow the links).
I tell the story of Sumchos pushing his way into Rabbi Yehuda’s beit midrash after Rabbi Meir’s death. Rabbi Yehuda was worried about vexing students. When Sumchos related a seemingly redundant statement from Rabbi Meir, this aggravated Rabbi Yehuda. But Rabbi Yossi spoke up in Sumchos’ defense, showing how it was not extraneous.
The Talmudic Narrator attacks Rabbi Yossi’s answer, because it doesn’t cover another redundancy, about eiver, a single lib. Then answers “as Rabbi Yochanan said…” (And follows it up with “Rava said”, but in a girsa noted by the Rosh, “as Rava said”.) That sort of language implies that the Talmudic Narrator is channeling an answer they give elsewhere. Tosafot assume this refers to a similar Mishnah in Ohalot (though Rava’s answer doesn’t work on that Mishnah).
There are parallel sugyot, though, where Rabbi Yochanan’s answer is expressly understood to refer to the redundancy in the Mishnah in Nazir, rather than any Mishnah in Ohalot. Tosafot ad loc. address this by a conjectural emendation, making it “as Rabbi Yochanan said” instead of “Rabbi Yochanan said”.However, the simplest answer is that the “as Rabbi Yochanan said” (and “as Rabbi Rava said) in Nazir does indeed go on our Mishnah in Nazir.
What is happening in the sugya in Nazir is:Rabbi Yochanan and Rava initially commented on the redundancy in the Mishnah.
Rabbi Yehuda wasn’t upset with the Mishnah, but specifically with Sumchos’s citation of Rabbi Meir with a single redundancy (of kezayit).
Rabbi Yossi’s answer was fine for that single redundancy.
But the Talmudic Narrator objected to Rabbi Yossi’s answer, because it does not also answer an additional redundancy in the Mishnah (of limb).
The Talmudic Narrator therefore borrowed and channeled Rabbi Yochanan’s / Rava’s answer given for the Mishnah, and applied it to Sumchos’ statement.
With repetition of Rabbi Yochanan / Rava in the sugya, some scribe later omitted the original, leaving only the channeled version.
The primary sugya is thus in Nazir, but it was shadowed and then obliterated.
There’s a Yerushalmi parallel, where Rabbi Yochanan answers two redundancies, but the students of Rabbi Yossi ben Chalafta (that is, Rabbi Yossi) only answers one. With our story, we can understand why there would be only one answer — Sumchos only cited something with a single redundancy!
Finally, there is a parallel Bavli where Sumchos pushes his way into Rabbi Yehuda’s beit midrash to report a different halacha from Rabbi Meir, about betrothing a woman with a korban. This seems vexing, for how can a woman find herself in the Temple courtyard! Again Rabbi Yossi comes to the rescue, giving several explanations. The last is quite poetic, with the woman pushing herself into the courtyard, much as Sumchos pushed himself into the beit midrash!
The other day, I listened to Rabbi Aryeh Leibowitz’s daf yomi shiur on YUTorah. While overall, a fine presentation, I was a bit aggravated that he began as follows.
No, Sumchos was decidedly NOT presenting “Rabbi Meir’s version of the Mishnah” in Rabbi Yehuda’s beit midrash. He was citing Rabbi Meir directly, and that is how I resolved all the issues above. I can see how that (IMHO incorrect) reading works well with Tosafot’s assumptions, and allows for the Talmudic Narrator’s otherwise seemingly irrelevant question about eiver.