RYbRC and His Evil Twin
Again catching up after Purim, this was my Nazir-related article in the Jewish Link this last Shabbos. It is a further drill-down into Rabbi Yossi beRabbi Chanina (henceforth RYbRC), which I first discussed here, about my article “Ground Control to Rabbeinu Tam”.
In that earlier article, I had discussed Rabbeinu Tam’s general opposition to conjectural emendations, and examined a particular girsa, where RYbRC was taken replaced in a brayta by Rabbi Yossi beRabbi Yehuda, because RYbRC was too late. I also discussed Rabbeinu Tam’s suggestion that there were two Sages named RYbRC, because elsewhere he received semicha from Rabbi Yochanan (thus third-generation Amora) yet in the sugya under consideration, Reish Lakish was citing him. Annoyingly, because of that “difficulty”, several manuscripts and the printed texts obliterated the evidence, changing it to RYbRC citing Reish Lakish!
The new article is available here (flipbooks) and here (html).
Here is how I’d summarize the main points in this new article.
On Nazir 42a, Rav Acha bereih deRav Ikka makes a point, and RYbRC attacks it. This is difficult since Rav Acha is a fifth-generation Amora while both Sages named RYbRC are much earlier — either approximately first-generation, or third-generation Amoraim.
Rav Aharon Hyman addresses the difficulty, pointing to Tosafot, that RYbRC’s objection is really to the Mishnah, not to Rav Acha. Yet both Artscroll and Koren frame it as an attack on Rav Acha bereih deRav Ikka.There’s this recurring idea of some name referring to different Sages. Is it a cop-out to assert that he had an evil twin? I justify the idea, and point out just how common Yosef / Yossi and Chanina, and indeed, Y-names and Ch-names are in the overall list of about 3000 unique personalities. Of the three volumes in Toledot Tannaim vaAmoraim, the second volume is entirely Ch through Y (with only 37 tet entries).
Despite this, I would suggest that the evidence that there is RYbRC I and RYbRC II is weak. Perhaps Rabbi Yochanan ordained an earlier-generation gentleman, who somehow didn’t get ordained earlier. Indeed, here I’ll expand on the point by linking to a guest post by Daniel Klein on On the Main Line, about Shadal’s unusual ordination.
In his own memoirs Shadal writes that his primary teacher, Rabbi Eliezer Abraham Ha-levi of Trieste, informed him at age 15 that he could be on track to receive rabbinic ordination at age 20 if he chooses. Shadal, however, did not consider himself suited for the rabbinate, being shy on the one hand, and dramatic and harboring lofty visions of scholarship for its own sake, on the other. So he declined. To which his rabbi remarked: "Luzzatto wants to be a hakham, but not a rav."
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Although Isaia is not completely sure, he guesses that the reason this ordination was given to his 38 year old father was that the powers-that-be at the Rabbinical Seminary where Shadal taught considered it unseemly for him, one of its two teachers, to lack ordination, and instructed him to get it. This would make sense, as why else would he have gotten such an honorary degree, so to speak, from his friend's father? Perhaps the rabbi was the only one he didn't feel like a fool writing to ask for it. On the other hand, perhaps someone else (the younger Reggio himself, for example) was the one who asked for it. The latter interpretation might be inferred from Shadal's response to the semicha, also included here, in which he says it was "unexpected." Taken literally - it was unexpected.
Also, the ordination story was predicated on RYbRC bringing in some otherwise outside knowledge about a Tanna’s position! If the ordination is indeed the only reason to suspect a later generation, then I would simply say that there is only one, earlier, RYbRC. We need to go through all the sugyot to spot the interactions with others to see if any suggest that he is later.
And Nazir 42a is, of course, one such sugya. But we have the answer that the objection is to the Mishnah. And otherwise, we would need to conjecture that RYbRC II was extremely late, fifth-generation, which anyway wouldn’t work with second-generation Rabbi Yochanan’s ordination. We would need RYbRC III.Finally, there is the connection to Sanhedrin 17b, which employs the closed-canon approach and maps descriptive yet anonymous names to named personages:
נהרבלאי מתנו רמי בר ברבי אמרי בי רב רב הונא והאמר רב הונא אמרי בי רב אלא רב המנונא אמרי במערבא רבי ירמיה שלחו מתם ר' יוסי בר חנינא מחכו עלה במערבא ר' אלעזרIf it says: The Sages of Neharbela taught, this is referring to Rami bar Berabi, and the statement: They say in the school of Rav, is a reference to Rav Huna. The Gemara asks: But doesn’t Rav Huna sometimes say with regard to a given halakha: They say in the school of Rav? From this, it is apparent that a statement introduced by that formula cannot be made by Rav Huna himself, as Rav Huna quotes someone else with that introduction. The Gemara responds: Rather, the expression: They say in the school of Rav, must be referring to Rav Hamnuna. The formula: They say in the West, i.e., Eretz Yisrael, is referring to Rabbi Yirmeya; the expression: They sent a message from there, meaning from Eretz Yisrael, is referring to Rabbi Yosei bar Ḥanina; and the statement: They laughed at it in the West, means that Rabbi Elazar did not accept a particular opinion.
והא שלחו מתם לדברי רבי יוסי בר חנינא אלא איפוך שלחו מתם ר' אלעזר מחכו עלה במערבא רבי יוסי בר חנינא:
The Gemara asks: But in one instance it is reported that: They sent a message from there that began: According to the statement of Rabbi Yosei bar Ḥanina. This indicates that the expression: They sent from there, is not itself a reference to a statement of Rabbi Yosei bar Ḥanina. The Gemara answers: Rather, reverse the statements. The phrase: They sent from there, is a reference to Rabbi Elazar, and: They laughed at it in the West, means that Rabbi Yosei bar Ḥanina did not accept a particular opinion.
Note how the Stamma emends the text twice, once for Rav Huna → Rav Hamnuna, and once to flip names, between RYbRC and Rabbi Eleazar (ben Pedat), because of clashes. How can “They Sent From There” refer to RYbRC, if RYbRC’s position is discussed by “They Sent”? So flip!
Both Tosafot there and in Nazir 42a note the difficulty, that if RYbRC is “they laughed about it in the west”, then how can they laugh about RYbRC’s position in the west?
We could try arguing for an evil twin. :) But I’d add that since this is this clash was the result of a flip, which was the result of a clash. So Tosafot are right, and we shouldn’t flip. As for the original stratum which made the identification, I’d guess that the apparent clash is indeed the very source for the identification of RYbRC with “they sent from there”!