בבא מציעא דף פו ע"א

ה"ג - The reading is: “Chakim ischeri, Rabbi la ischeri” (he will be called Chakim; he will not be called Rabbi).

[He will be called] “Chakim” (Sage), but he will not be called “Rabbi”; and the healing of Rebbi will come about through him.^[1]

ספרא דאדם הראשון - In which the Holy One, blessed be He, showed him each generation and its scribes, each generation and its expounders, each generation and its sages.

Rebbi and Rabbi Nasan are the end of the Mishnah.^[2]

רבי ורבי נתן סוף המשנה - All this is written there.

סוף המשנה - The end of the Tannaim. Until their days, each one stated his words in the beis midrash, and the students would learn each teaching by itself, and there were no arranged tractates. He arranged and gathered [them] in order; they included what had been said in the generations before them and arranged the tractates, and after them [others] would add only a little.

Rav Ashi and Ravina are the end of hora’ah (authoritative teaching).^[3]

סוף הוראה - The end of all the Amoraim. Until their days the Gemara was not in order; rather, when a question was asked in the beis midrash about the reasoning of a Mishnah, or a question about an actual case in monetary law or in matters of prohibition and permission, each one would state his reason. Rav Ashi and Ravina arranged the teachings of the Amoraim before them and set them according to the order of the tractates, each one beside the Mishnah that suits it and is taught with it. They and the Amoraim with them raised the questions that could be posed and the resolutions fit to answer them, and set everything in the Gemara — such as “he challenged him,” “they challenged,” “they contrasted,” “they asked” — and the answers to them, whatever those before them had left. And as for those who spoke before them, the questions and answers on them had not been set in the Gemara according to the order of the tractates and the Mishnah that Rebbi arranged; and Rav Ashi and Ravina came and set them.

And your mnemonic: (Tehillim 73:17) “Until I entered the sanctuaries of God; then I understood their end.”^[4]

וסימנך עד אבוא אל מקדשי אל - “My sanctuaries” is the sign of Rav Ashi; “I understood” is the sign of Ravina; “their end” is the sign of “the end of hora’ah.”

Rav Kahana said: Rav Chama, the son of Chasa’s daughter, related to me:

Rabbah bar Nachmani,^[5] because of persecution, died.

רבה בר נחמני - The disputant of Rav Yosef.

אגב שמדא נח נפשיה - He died out of fear of the government.

They informed against him at the king’s house. They said: There is one man among the Jews who keeps twelve thousand men of Israel from the king’s head-tax — a month in summer and a month in winter.^[6]

דקא מבטל וכו' - For they gather to him in Nissan and Tishrei to hear the derashos on Pesach and on the festivals, and when the king’s agents seek to collect the poll tax of each month, they are not found in their homes.

They sent a royal officer after him, but he did not find him.

פריסתקא - A messenger.

He fled and went from Pumbedisa to Akra, from Akra to Agma, from Agma to Shichin, from Shichin to Tzerifa, from Tzerifa to Eina D’Mayim, and from Eina D’Mayim to Pumbedisa.

In Pumbedisa he found him. The royal officer happened to come to that same inn where Rabbah was.

איקלע פריסתקא - To lodge at that same inn in which Rabbah was hiding.

They brought a table before him and gave him two cups to drink, and removed the table from before him. His face turned around backwards.

אשקיה תרין כסי ודליוה לתכא - For the demons appointed over pairs harm one who drinks in pairs,^[7] and the people of the house had not intended this.

They said to him (to Rabbah): What shall we do for him? He is the king’s man.

אמרו לו בני הפונדק לרבה - The people of the inn said to Rabbah: “What shall we do?”

He said to them: Bring the table before him, give him one cup to drink, and remove the table from before him, and he will be healed.

They did so for him, and he was healed.

He (the officer) said: I know for certain that the man I am seeking is here.

He searched after him and found him.

He said: I will go away from here. If they kill “that man” (myself), I will not reveal [where he is]; but if they torture him, I will reveal.

נגודי מנגדי לי - And if they torment me with afflictions, I will reveal.

They brought him before him; he brought him into an inner room and slammed the door in his face.

וטרקיה לבבא - He closed the door.

He (Rabbah) prayed for mercy; the wall burst open.

פרק אשיתא - The wall fell.

He fled and went to Agma.

He was sitting on the stump of a palm tree and learning.

אגירדא דדיקלא - On the trunk of a cut-down palm tree.

They were disputing in the Heavenly Academy:

If (Vayikra 13:2) the bahares (white spot) precedes the white hair — impure; and if the white hair precedes the bahares — pure.^[8]

אם בהרת קדמה לשער לבן טמא - For white hair that sprouted in it is a sign of impurity, as it is written (Vayikra 13): “and behold, the hair has turned white in the bahares.”

טהור - According to what is written in the Torah.

[In a case of] doubt — the Holy One, blessed be He, says: Pure; and the whole Heavenly Academy says: Impure.

And they said: Who will decide? Rabbah bar Nachmani will decide.

For Rabbah bar Nachmani said: I am unique in Negaim; I am unique in Ohalos.^[9]

They sent a messenger after him. The Angel of Death could not come near him,^[10] because his mouth did not stop from his learning.

Meanwhile a wind blew and rustled among the reeds.

He thought it was a troop of horsemen.

גונדא - A troop of horsemen searching for him.

He said: Let that man (myself) die, and not be handed over into the hands of the government.

As he was dying he said: “Pure, pure.”

A Heavenly voice came forth and said: Fortunate are you, Rabbah bar Nachmani, that your body is pure and your soul left you with [the word] “pure.”

A note fell from Heaven in Pumbedisa: Rabbah bar Nachmani has been summoned to the Yeshivah on High.

בפומבדיתא - And he was the head of the yeshivah there.

Abaye, Rava and all the Rabbis went out to attend to him.

They did not know his place.

They went to Agma and saw birds giving shade and standing still.

מטללי - Making shade with their wings.

They said: Learn from this that he is there.

They eulogized him three days and three nights.

A note fell: Whoever withdraws shall be under a ban.^[11]

They eulogized him seven days.

A note fell: Go to your homes in peace.

On the day he died, a storm lifted up an Arab merchant who was riding a camel on this side of the river Papa and cast him onto the other side.

דלי זעפא - A storm wind rose up.

He said: “What is this?”

They said to him: Rabbah bar Nachmani has died.

He said before Him: Master of the World, the whole world is Yours, and Rabbah bar Nachmani is Yours;

You are Rabbah’s, and Rabbah is Yours —

את דרבה - You are the One Who loves Rabbah.

why are You destroying the world?

The storm subsided.

Rabbi Shimon ben Chalafta was a corpulent man.^[12] One day he was hot; he went up and sat on a crag of a mountain.

רבי שמעון בן חלפתא כו' - Because the beginning of the aggadah spoke of corpulent men, it mentions this.

He said to his daughter: “My daughter, fan me with a fan, and I will give you bundles of nard.”

Meanwhile a wind blew.

He said: “How many bundles of nard [are owed] to the Master of this [wind]!”

ככרין דנרד - Bundles of nard, which is formed like ears of grain.

למרי דיכי - To the Owner of this wind.

Everything is according to the custom of the province, etc.^[13]

“Everything” — to include what?

To include a place where they are accustomed to eat bread and drink a cup (anpaka) [of wine before work]: if he said to them, “Start early, and I will bring [it] to you,” they may say to him, “That is not up to you.”

אנפקא - A vessel holding a revi’is.

It happened that Rabban Yochanan ben Masya said to his son: Go out and hire, etc.^[14]

A story to contradict [the ruling]?!

מעשה לסתור - Is it the way of people to bring a story about their words to contradict it? For it taught at the start, “everything is according to the custom of the province,” and then taught the story: “even if you make for them a feast like that of Shlomo,” etc.

[The Mishnah] is lacking [words],^[15] and this is what it teaches: And if he stipulated food for them

Tosfos

רבי שמעון בן חלפתא בעל בשר הוה - Because of Rabbi Elazar b’Rabbi Shimon, who was corpulent, [the Gemara] also mentioned this incident. And the reason it waited until here: because every matter [above] is attached to its fellow up to here.

דאי אמר להו קדימו ואייתי לכו אמרו ליה לא - Explanation: if he said, “Start early, from daybreak, so that I may bring you bread and a cup [of wine], and you will not be idle from your work,” they say to him: No; rather, at sunrise we will eat, and afterward we will do our work. And some books read: “if he said to them, ‘Start early, and I will come after you,’ they say to him: No.” And this is the explanation: the workers were to eat bread or a cup [of wine] in the employer’s house before they work; and if he said to them, “Do not be idle; go now to the field while the food is not ready, and there I will bring you bread and a cup,” they say to him: No, rather we will eat now in the house. And according to the first reading too, one can explain it this way.

Notes

1. 1. This continues from the previous amud (Bava Metzia 85b): Shmuel Yarchina’ah was Rebbi’s physician. Rebbi wished to grant him semichah, but it never came about. Shmuel told him not to be distressed, for he had seen in the book of Adam HaRishon that he would be called “Chakim” but not “Rabbi.” As Rashi explains, that book showed Adam every generation with its scribes, expounders and sages.
2. 2. Rebbi is Rabbi Yehudah HaNasi, who arranged the Mishnah; Rabbi Nasan was of his generation. They were the last of the Tannaim; after them begins the era of the Amoraim.
3. 3. Rav Ashi and Ravina were the last of the Amoraim. As Rashi explains, they arranged the teachings of the Amoraim before them according to the order of the tractates, each beside its Mishnah — the Babylonian Talmud as we have it.
4. 4. A siman is a mnemonic: a verse or phrase whose words help one remember a teaching. Here, as Rashi explains, words of the verse hint at Rav Ashi, at Ravina, and at “the end of hora’ah.”
5. 5. Rabbah bar Nachmani is the Rabbah cited throughout the Talmud. He headed the yeshivah in Pumbedisa (Rashi below), and his disputes with Rav Yosef run through the whole Gemara.
6. 6. Karga was the government’s head-tax, which Rashi says was collected month by month. Twice a year, in Nissan and Tishrei, thousands gathered to hear Rabbah’s derashos before the festivals, so the collectors could not find them at home.
7. 7. Zugos (pairs): the Gemara (Pesachim 109b–110a) warns that eating or drinking an even number, such as two cups, exposes a person to harm from demons. By giving the officer a third cup, Rabbah undid the pair, and he was cured.
8. 8. A bahares is a bright white spot of tzaraas. One sign of its impurity is white hair within it — but only if the spot came first and the hair turned white in it, as Rashi explains; if the white hair came first, it is pure. The Heavenly Academy disputed the case where it is uncertain which came first.
9. 9. Negaim (the laws of tzaraas) and Ohalos (the impurity a corpse conveys through a tent) are among the most intricate tractates of Seder Taharos. Because Rabbah was unique in Negaim, he was the one summoned to decide this question of tzaraas.
10. 10. Torah study protects a person from the Angel of Death; the Gemara tells the same of Dovid HaMelech (Shabbos 30b), whom the angel could not take while he was learning.
11. 11. Nidui is a ban: the person under it is kept at a distance from the community. Here the note from Heaven warned that anyone who left the eulogy would be under a ban.
12. 12. Rabbi Shimon ben Chalafta was a Tanna of Rebbi’s generation. As Rashi and Tosfos explain, the story is brought here because the aggadah above (83b–84a) told of the corpulence of Rabbi Elazar b’Rabbi Shimon and others.
13. 13. The Mishnah (Bava Metzia 83a): one who hires workers may not depart from the local custom about their hours and their meals — where it is not customary to start early or stay late, he cannot compel them, and where it is customary to feed them, he must. Everything follows the custom of the place.
14. 14. The Mishnah tells that Rabban Yochanan ben Masya’s son agreed to feed the workers he hired. His father told him that even a feast like Shlomo’s would not discharge his duty, since they are descendants of Avraham, Yitzchak and Yaakov; rather, before they begin, he should stipulate that they receive only bread and legumes.
15. 15. Chasurei mechasra: the Gemara reads the Mishnah as missing some words and supplies them, so that the story comes to support the ruling instead of contradicting it.