רבי חנינא בן עגיל

Rabbi Chanina ben Agil — also called Agol was an amora of Eretz Yisrael of the third and fourth generations, mentioned only a handful of times in the Talmud Bavli, the Yerushalmi and the midrashim.

In the Talmud Bavli he appears only in masechet Bava Kamma, where he asks Rabbi Chiya bar Abba, most likely his teacher, why the word “tov” appears in the second Dibrot (the Ten Commandments as repeated in Sefer Devarim), in the pasuk “lema’an yitav lecha,” but not in the first. Rabbi Chiya bar Abba answered that he did not even know for certain that the word appears in the second Dibrot, and sent him to Rabbi Tanchum bar Chanilai, a talmid of Rabbi Yehoshua ben Levi and a master of aggadah. Rabbi Tanchum told him that Rabbi Yehoshua ben Levi had not taught on this point, but another amora explained to him that “tov” was left out of the first luchot because they were destined to be broken. The Gemara adds that Hashem did not want the word “tov” itself to be shattered, so that, chas veshalom, goodness should never cease from Israel.

In the Talmud Yerushalmi Rabbi Chanina bar Agol says a teaching in the name of Rabbi Chizkiyah. In the Midrash he is quoted about the Jews who came to the great feast that Achashverosh made in the third year of his reign.

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