Rav Chisda and Rabbi Yochanan Redux
Are you my rebbe?
My recent Jewish Link Expanded Edition article covered two separate topics.
The first was centered on this diagram, and how the gemara structured the derashot of Rabbi Yishmael’s academy vs. the derashot of Rava.
The column was falling behind Daf Yomi, so I gave a shortened version. A picture is, after all, worth 1000 words. And sometimes a short presentation is easier to process than a long one. But, if you want to see the long presentation, I had posted it on this Substack here:
The other half of the article is concerned with a statement attributed to Rav Chisda ve`iteima Rabbi Yochanan, that an individual expert can nullify vows. Interestingly, when the statement appears in parallel sugyot, the attribution is Rav Chisda amar Rabbi Yochanan, that he is citing Rabbi Yochanan.
Would we say there is citation at play? That is at odds with the somewhat disrespectful challenge that Rav Chisda uttered to Rabba, “who heeds you or your teacher Rabbi Yochanan.” I discussed that utterance here:
and concluded that this didn’t mean that Rabba bar Nachmani actually traveled to Israel and studied from Rabbi Yochanan, as his brothers did. Rather, this was his — or perhaps Rava’s — way of speaking, in particular when arguing against a common Rabbi Yochanan idea expressed by third parties — this attribute, where has it gone?
Despite this, I don’t think that Rav Chisda ever cited Rabbi Yochanan. Rather, there is orthographic similarity between R’ Yochanan and R’ Chisda, especially when the last letter (nun sofit or alef) is replaced with a diacritic over the penultimate letter. Also, there is bleed from Rabbi Yochanan statements before and after.
I also explore which of the two local sugot of Rav Chisda or alternatively Rabbi Yochanan is primary. Read it inside, since I’m not going to summarize here. I’ll just drop this image from Vatican 110 of the latter sugya, where the alternation doesn’t occur.
That would make me consider that Rav Chisda is the original reading.