Hoshaiah Rabbah - "Father of The Mishnah"

"Father of The Mishnah"

Hoshaiah's yeshibah, also, was for many years located at Sepphoris, where pupils crowded to hear his lectures. R. Johanan, one of his greatest disciples, declared that Hoshaiah in his generation was like R. Meïr in his: even his colleagues could not always grasp the profundity of his arguments (Er. 53a). And the esteem in which Hoshaiah was held by his pupils may be gaged by the statement that, even after Johanan had himself become a great scholar and a famous teacher and no longer needed Hoshaiah's instruction, he continued visiting the master, who in the meantime had grown old and had removed his school to Cæsarea (Yer. Sanh. xi. 30b).

Hoshaiah was called the "father of the Mishnah," not so much because of his collection and edition of the mishnayot, as because of the ability with which he explained and interpreted them (see Yer. Ḳid. i. 60a; Yer. B. Ḳ. iv. 4c). Hoshaiah's most important halakic decision is directed against the standard weights and measures, held by R. Johanan to be traditional from the Sinaitic period. Hoshaiah's radical point of view can be traced to his theory of the development of the Mishnah. He even goes so far as to overrule both Bet Shammai and Bet Hillel with reference to offerings brought on visiting the Temple in Jerusalem three times every year (Ḥag. i. 2). The custom of greeting mourners on the Sabbath was permitted in southern Galilee, including Cæsarea, and prohibited in other places. Hoshaiah happened to be in a certain town on the Sabbath, and, meeting mourners, greeted them, saying, "I do not know your custom, but I greet you according to our custom" (Yer. M. Ḳ. iii. 82d).

Hoshaiah's consideration for others is exemplified in his gracious apology to the blind teacher whom he had engaged for his son, and whom he did not suffer to meet visitors at dinner for fear that he might be embarrassed (Yer. Peah viii. 21b).

Hoshaiah's authority must have been very powerful in his later years, when he successfully resisted the efforts of R. Gamaliel ha-Nasi, the son of Rebbi, to introduce "demai" (the "suspicion," on buying wheat from an am ha-areẓ (common folk), that he had not separated the tithes) into Syria (Yer. Ḥal. iv. 60a) It is also indicated by his remarkable interposition in regard to the mishnah which declares that "a Gentile's testimony in the case of an agunah is allowed only if stated as a matter of fact and without any intention to testify" (Yer. Yeb. xvi. 5; Yeb. 121b).