Rav Sechora (article summary)

Here’s a quick review, in bullet points, of my article from last Shabbat. You can read it at the Jewish Link (HTML, flipbooks), and as a paid post on this Substack. First, the full article as they printed it in the Jewish Link.

the article continues in the next two textual columns:

Here are the basic ideas, in short:

1. One opinion in a Mishnah is that one needs to prioritize, over an unlearned father, even a teacher who only elucidated one Mishnah for him.

2. Rava says: Just like Rav Sechora, who explained word X in Mishnah Y.

3. Tosafot pose a problem: There are lots of places where Rava quotes Rav Sechora who quotes Rav Huna. Doesn’t this mean that he’s a rebbe muvhak? How can Rava say that Rav Sechora only taught him this one thing?

4. Let us catalog all these instances of Rava → Rav Sechora → Rav Huna:

   1. Berachot 5a, about theodicy.

   2. Berachot 26a, clarifying the Mishnah’s rule about distancing from urine.

   3. Shabbat 24a, you don’t mention Chanukkah in betching.

   4. Eruvin 54b / Avodah Zarah 19a, building up learning gradually is a successful strategy.

   5. Yevamot 106a, judges can officiate a chalitza even though they don’t know the participants. Rava himself disagrees.

   6. Menachot 14b, attaching tzitzit on three corners, then making the fourth, is a problem of taaseh velo min ha’asuy.

   7. Today’s sugya in Sanhedrin 49b, that when the Sages teach via a list, the order matters.

   8. Finally, in the Munich 95 manuscript of Bava Kamma 21a, explaining why one might live in an unoccupied house without payment — an unoccupied house deteriorates and eventually collapses.

5. Tosafot in a subset of these sugyot, including Sanhedrin, offer different answers:

   1. Rav Sechora’s only innovation was in that Mishnah. The others were from Rav Huna.

   2. Yes, he taught other things from Rav Huna generally, but even if had only taught this one insight into the Mishnah, he would be considered a teacher.

   3. Timing. When Rava made this statement, Rav Sechora had not yet taught him all these other Rav Huna teachings.

   4. Rabba, not Rava, was the one who said this about Rav Sechora only teaching one thing.

6. I prefer answer (a), or a variant thereof. Meabwhile, surveying manuscripts, it is in the other sugyot that Rava sometimes turns to Rabba; nothing I can see in Sanhedrin.