רבי שמעון בן אלעזר

Rabbi Shimon ben Elazar was a tanna of the fifth generation, of the foremost talmidim of Rabbi Meir and a colleague of Rabbi Yehudah HaNasi. He appears only a handful of times in the Mishnah, but his name fills the Tosefta and the baraitot brought in the Gemara, where he often gives a different version of machlokot that stand in the Mishnah, and he brings the Torah of his rebbe Rabbi Meir in halachah and in aggadah alike.

The Geonim write that wherever Rabbi Shimon ben Elazar speaks without machloket, the halachah follows him. He set the klal for the dotted letters of the Torah: where the plain letters outnumber the dotted ones, expound the plain text; where the dotted outnumber, expound the dots. In arguments with the Kuttim, who denied techiyat hameitim, he proved it to them from the Torah itself. And his mimra is well known: the yetzer, a child, and a wife — let the left hand push away while the right hand draws near.

Avot d’Rabbi Natan tells that returning from the beit midrash in high spirits, he met a man of very ugly appearance who greeted him, and he answered with scorn. The man replied: go tell the Craftsman who made me how ugly is the vessel He made. Rabbi Shimon, knowing he had sinned, begged his pardon and followed him to his own city, where the man forgave him at the plea of the townspeople; that very day Rabbi Shimon entered the beit midrash and taught that a person should always be soft like a reed and not hard like a cedar. His kever is pointed out today in two places — in Sajur, beside Rabbi Shimon Shezuri, and in Teverya, beside Rabbi Meir Baal HaNes and his fellow talmid Sumchus.