רבי יונתן בן הרכינס

Rav Yonatan ben Harkinas was a tanna of Eretz Yisrael in the first and second generations of the Tannaim — the first century — a talmid of Shammai the Elder and the younger brother of Rav Dosa ben Harkinas. He appears once in the Talmud Yerushalmi and once in the Talmud Bavli.

His own brother called him a bechor satan, which Rashi explains as one so sharp that he stands his ground upon the teaching he has received and acts on it, and will not draw back from it to rule with the majority. Rav Dosa warned Rav Yehoshua, Rav Elazar ben Azaryah and Rav Akiva — some add Rav Tarfon — not to enter into halachic argument with him, since he would overcome them: he held three hundred answers on the one question. The episode itself is famous. Elders came to Rav Dosa to ask about tzarat habat, and asked him whether he was the one who permitted the tzarot. He asked them what they had heard, Dosa or ben Harkinas; they answered ben Harkinas. He told them it was his brother Yonatan who had permitted — a bechor satan, of the talmidim of Beit Shammai — and that they should take care with him, for he had three hundred answers that tzarat habat is permitted. Rav Dosa then sent word to his brother to be ready, since the chachamim of Israel were on their way. They sat before Rav Yonatan, and he explained and they did not follow him; he explained again and again they did not follow, until they began to doze off, whereupon he asked them why they were dozing and threw stones at them. Some say they entered through one gate and fled through three. Rav Yonatan sent back to Rav Dosa: why did you send me men who still need to learn, and tell me that they are the chachamim of Israel? It was his sharpness itself, the account teaches, that put his explanations beyond them.

Rav Chaim Vital, around 1570, is the first to write of his resting place: in Shaar HaGilgulim, in the name of his rebbe the Arizal, he places the kever of Yonatan between Nevoraya and Ein Zeitim, beside the amora Rav Yitzchak ben Elyashiv (4th generation Amora) — though the spot as described has never been found.