Rav Ashi - Elevation of Sura

Elevation of Sura

Rav Ashi not only elevated Sura until it became the intellectual center of the Babylonian Jews, but contributed to its material grandeur also. He rebuilt Rav's academy and the synagogue connected with it, sparing no expense and personally superintending their reconstruction. As a direct result of Rav Ashi's renown, the Exilarch came annually to Sura in the month after the New Year to receive the respects of the assembled representatives of the Babylonian academies and congregations. To such a degree of splendor did these festivities and other conventions in Sura attain that Rav Ashi expressed his surprise that some of the Gentile residents of Sura were not tempted to accept Judaism.

Sura maintained the prominence conferred on it by Rav Ashi for several centuries, and only during the last two centuries of the Gaonic period did Pumbedita again become its rival. Rav Ashi's son Tabyomi, always spoken of as "Mar (Master), the son of Rab Ashi," was a recognized scholar, but it was not until 455, 28 years after his father's death, that he was invested with the position that his father had so successfully filled for more than half a century.