רבי אבא מקרטיגנא

Rav Abba of Kartigna was an amora of Eretz Yisrael of the third generation, from the city of Kartignin. In non-Hebrew sources he is called Rabbi Abba of Carthage, following the identification of his city with Carthage; some identified Kartigenin instead with Cartagena, but many hold it to be Carthage.

He is cited a great deal in the Talmud Yerushalmi, where he appears as “Rabbi Ba Kartigna” or “Rabbi Ba Kartigneya,” and much of his Torah engages the words of Rabbi Yochanan and Reish Lakish. He explained why, in Rabbi Yochanan’s view, one is not given malkot for plowing in the shemittah year: the prohibition is a lav that comes from the force of an aseh. In another place he raised a difficulty against Reish Lakish, and the difficulty was left unanswered.

His best-known teaching explains what the nine berachot of the Musaf of Rosh Hashanah stand against: the nine times Hashem’s Name is written in the parsha of Chana, which closes with “Hashem yadin afsei aretz” (Shmuel I 2:10) — and it is that closing pasuk that ties the day of judgment to Chana’s tefillah. So it reads in the Yerushalmi. In manuscripts of the Bavli a similar teaching in his name binds Chana to Rosh Hashanah along another path: the nine mentions of the Name that Chana said in her tefillah, for Sarah, Rachel and Chana were remembered on Rosh Hashanah.