Yehuda ha-Nasi

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Jehuda ha-Nasi ( Hebrew יהודה הנשיא), Yehuda I or Rabbenu ha Qadosch (רבנו הקדוש, "Our holy rabbi"), usually just called rabbi in the Talmud (born approx. 165 ; died 15. Kislew 217 in Sepphoris ), was an important patriarch and Jewish scholar of antiquity. His great merit is the final editing of the Mishnah . He thus closes the age of the Tannaites .

Life

Little is known about the historical person of Yehudah. The Mishnah and the Talmud themselves contain almost no information of a biographical character. At best, one can understand his life on the basis of the legends later formed about him, in which only the contours of the historical person are shown.

Childhood and youth

According to one such legend, Yehuda was born on the same day that Rabbi Akiba died as a martyr ( bKiduschin 29a ), i.e. around the end of the Bar Kochba uprising around the year 135 of the Christian era. According to traditional dating, he died at the age of 65, i.e. H. in the year 200. More recent historical research, however, is based on the approximate dates of life 150–220 AD.

The place of his birth is unknown, as is the place where his father Rabbi Shimon ben Gamaliel II stayed during the persecution by Hadrian after the unsuccessful uprising.

After the restoration of peace in Judea, his father held the office of nasi (and thus the highest political, religious and legal position among the Jews living at the time) in the city of Usha in Galilee , where Jehuda spent his youth and his studies.

It is very likely that he was also taught here in Greek ( Koine ), a language that is traditionally valued by him. The legends ascribe him the statement that the Jews who do not speak Hebrew should make Greek instead of Aramaic their main language. This would underscore Jehuda's connection with the Sadducees , to whom he was almost certainly one due to his aristocratic descent, and who did not accept Aramaic as the language of the Babylonian exile . Only Hebrew was spoken in his own home, the purity of which has become proverbial among the Jews.

Social functions

After his father's death, Yehuda moved to Bet She'arim , where he ran a synagogue and school. Thanks to good relations with the Roman administration, he was appointed Nasi around 190. His good relationship with Rome is also supported by the legends ( Antoninus and Rabbi ) about his relationship with the Roman emperor, probably Caracalla .

The scholar

The importance of Yehudah as a political nasi is dominated by his importance as a spiritual leader and scholar. During this time he managed to complete the editing of the Mishnah, in which he summarized the most important halachic statements. The prevailing practice of the exclusively oral transmission of the commentaries up to then was endangered by the formation of several small communities at all ends of the Roman Empire. It took several years of study to learn the amount of material that had been accumulated up to that point, which was constantly increasing. But there was a lack of educational centers and scholars who could carry out this work.

Rabbi Jehuda continued the work of his predecessors Rabbi Akiba and Rabbi Meir in this field and initiated the final editing for the collection and codification of the oral doctrines. This collection, the Mishnah, was intended as a codified “oral Torah ” to supplement and define more precisely the “written Torah ”. His particular merit can be seen in the fact that he not only collected the commentaries, but also systematized them and arranged them according to topics (the six "orders" that still exist today), which in turn were divided into treatises. His Mishnah, however, is not a dead code of law, nor is it a legal code in the true sense of the word. It documents the then prevailing opinions among the scholars in the academy and in the court in all their breadth and contradiction. The importance of his work is shown by the fact that the Mishnah in the form he handed down was essentially unchanged and became part of the Talmud, which, together with the Torah, formed the two cornerstones of Judaism in the following two millennia.

End of life

According to tradition, he spent the last 17 years of his life in Sepphoris , where he enjoyed a healthier climate. Yehuda ha-Nasi is said to have died at the age of 85; His great reputation was also expressed in the fact that even priests were allowed to attend his funeral, who otherwise contaminate their spiritual understanding with a corpse.

Works

  • Israel Konovitz: Rabbi Judah ha-Nasi (Rabbi). Collected sayings. Jerusalem 1965 (Hebrew).

Literature (selection)

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Michael Krupp: The Talmud. An introduction to the basic script of Judaism with selected texts. P. 47.
  2. ↑ Caracalla had visited Palestine in 199 and 215. Antoninus Pius , on the other hand, was long dead when Yehuda ha-Nasi was active.
personal data
SURNAME Yehuda ha-Nasi
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Rabbeinu HaKadosch
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Editor of the Mishnah, Jewish political leader
DATE OF BIRTH at 165
DATE OF DEATH 217
Place of death Sepphoris