רב חננאל

Rav Chananel was a Babylonian amora of the second generation, the outstanding talmid of Rav, though he learned as well under Rabbah bar bar Chanah. For many years he sat in Rav’s beit midrash in Bavel, and the Gemara preserves a picture of those years: he and his chaver Rav Bruna were eating a seudat mitzvah, attended by Rav Yeiva Sava. When they decided to bentch and then asked for something to drink, Rav Yeiva reminded them of their rebbi’s ruling — once a person resolves to say Birkat HaMazon the meal is closed, and anything eaten or drunk afterward needs its own bracha.

Rav Chananel was a sofer. Rav Chisda once found him writing sifrei Torah from memory and told him: the whole Torah is fit to be written from your mouth, but the Chachamim ruled that not even one letter may be written except from a written copy. One of the halachot he brings in Rav’s name concerns the same craft — when a mistake requires erasing a word on the klaf, one may erase it even though the Shem will then have to be written outside the line. Dozens of Rav’s rulings in hilchot Sta”m reach us through Rav Chananel.

He also brings in Rav’s name that, since the second day of Yom Tov in the Diaspora is now kept only as a minhag, mention of geshem begins on Shemini Atzeret and is not broken off until Simchat Torah. His name is tied to a novel ruling that became the first foundation of the principle that the Chachamim can uproot a kiddushin. In the town of Neresh a man betrothed a girl while she was still a minor, so that the kiddushin held only mi-derabbanan; when he later held a fresh wedding ceremony, another man snatched her from the apiryon and betrothed her himself. Rav Bruna and Rav Chananel ruled that the second kiddushin did not take hold and she remained the first man’s wife, and Rav Ashi later explained that because the second man had acted improperly, the Chachamim dealt with him improperly in turn — “afkinhu rabbanan l’kiddushei minei.”

In aggadah he teaches in Rav’s name that three groups of ministering angels say shirah each day, and that the angels do not sing above until Yisrael have sung below, as Iyov 38 first says “when the morning stars sang together” and only then “all the bnei Elokim shouted.” An amora named Ze’ira ben Rav Chananel, who brings Rav’s Torah, may have been his son. Rav Chananel is buried in Teveria, where one matzeivah stands over his kever and those of his two chaverim, Rav Bruna and Rav Yochanan; the Sefer HaGilgulim places him in a small courtyard west of the city wall.