The Rare Amora, Rav Chanina of Sura
My Jewish Link article for this week, Rav Chanina of Sura, has posted. See in flipbook format, HTML, or here on paywalled Substack. Or you can click on the image below to expand it.
A quick overview.
Sotah 25a involves a little-known Amora, Rav Chanina of Sura. After several Amoraim of earlier generations attempt (unsuccessfully) to prove a point from the Mishnah — that a woman violating Dat receives warning before losing her ketubah — he brings what seems to be obvious proof from the seifa.
Rav Hyman places him as a sixth-generation Amora, in the company of Ameimar and Rav Ashi. That could help explain the gemara’s question about why everyone prior didn’t give his position. How come fourth and fifth-generation Amoraim didn’t propose this.
He has an interesting background, where Ameimar and Mar Zutra disagreed as to what defines a moredet and who can be compelled to remain in marriage. Mar Zutra compelled Rav Chanina of Sura’s mother to remain, and he was the result. (But still this action isn’t looked favorably upon by the Talmudic Narrator.)
A survey of other the other rare times Rav Chanina of Sura appeared, and we might see parallels between the types of statements he said, either in terms of topic (Sotah, women being permitted to their husbands) or methodology of interpreting Mishnayot — ״מַה טַּעַם״ קָאָמַר.
He is different from Rav Chanina of Sura of Perat, who is a typo for Rav Chaviva.
Was he sixth-generation, or could he actually be fifth-generation? We can review his interactions, and see that fifth is possible. One interesting one is Niddah 67a, in a dispute between Mar Zutra and Rav Chanina of Sura about whether a woman may wash her hair at night and immerse that same night, where Rav Chanina miSura permits. A certain Rav Ada tells him of an incident involving fifth-generation Rav Nachman bar Yitzchak permitting the Exilarch’s wife. And if that Rav Ada is Rav Ada Sava (as appears in some manuscripts), then we might associate him with Kiddushin 65b, where Rav Ada Sava and Mar Zutra, brothers, sons of Rav Mari bar Issur, brought a halachic question before Rav Ashi about dividing their father’s estate. This places Rav Ada Sava in sixth-generation, and perhaps also Rav Chanina or Sura. But one can always kvetch the interpretation one way or another.
