Rabbi Yitzchak of Migdal (article preview)

Rabbi Yitzchak of Migdol (רִבִּי יִצחָק מִגְּדָּלָאה) is a real person! He was a first-generation Amora of the Land of Israel. In Shabbat 139a, Rabbi Mallai (or in Midrash Mishlei¹, second-generation Rabbi Simlai) cites him interpreting a verse, that Yosef didn’t taste wine from the time he left his brothers; Rabbi Yossi beRabbi Chanina adds that the brothers didn’t taste wine either. The gemara assumes they argue. In Niddah 27b, after Reish Lakish stakes out a position that X is like a deformed corpse and pure, Rabbi Yochanan asks where he knows a deformed corpse is pure. Is it based on second-generation Rabbi Shabtai citing Rabbi Yitzchak of Migdol (or, alternatively, the citation reversed)? In some versions of the parallel Yerushalmi Nidda 3:3, Reish Lakish objects from the same quote from Rabbi Yitzchak Migdala’a.

Rabbi Yitzchak Migdala’a will explain the Mishnah or brayta. He does so in our sugya, Bava Metzia 25a. The opening Mishnah of the second perek described scattered money as a find he can keep, and the second Mishnah described piles of coins which he must announce, three coins one atop the other. To this, Rabbi Yitzchak Migdala’a says that this is where they were arranged כְּמִגְדָּלִין, in well-ordered towers. A brayta teaches this as well, that if they were ordered like towers, he must announce, and that a well-ordered tower is three coins stacked atop one another. The Tosefta also defines gathered as like a tower. In the parallel Yerushalmi 2:4, second-generation Rav Yehuda says (like Rabbi Chinina in Bavli) that they should be of three kings’ minting, and Rabbi Eleazar ben Pedat (like the Talmudic Narrator in Bavli) explores how this interacts with the towers requirement. Thus, towers were well-established outside Rabbi Yitzchak Migdala’a’s statement.

Similarly, in Niddah 33a, the Mishnah said that Samaritan men are assumed impure because of intercourse with niddot, and Rabbi Yitzchak Migdala’a clarifies