Samuel the Little

Samuel the Little ( Shmuel ha-katan ; * after 90 ) was an ancient Jewish scholar and belonged to the early Tannaites (2nd generation).

life and career

Before Gamaliel II , but on his behalf, he formulated the birkat ha-minim (insertion of the "Plea against the slanderer in Israel" in the Schmone Esre ).

He taught and learned in the spirit of Hillel (but can no longer, as is claimed, have been his personal pupil) and was a younger contemporary of Gamliel II. Some explain the name "the little one" from his excessive modesty and humility, others because he was around is said to have been a little smaller than Samuel the prophet.

Little Samuel's motto were the words ( Abot 4:24; cf. Proverbs 24: 17-18):

"If your enemy falls, do not rejoice, and if he stumbles, do not rejoice in your heart, God would see and he would be displeased and he would turn his anger away from him."

In addition, a comparison between the human eyeball and the world is handed down by Samuel the Little (through Aba Issi ben Jochanan, Derech Erez Suta 9 ):

"The white is the ocean, the black the surrounding world, the depression in the black (pupil) Jerusalem, the figure visible in it the sanctuary."

literature

• Shulamis Frieman, Who's who in the Talmud (1995), 305–307.