רבנאי

Ravnai — also given as Ravyanai, and known in the Gemara as the brother of Rabbi Chiya bar Abba — was an amora of the third generation in Bavel. He was born in Bavel to a family of kohanim. His brother Rabbi Chiya bar Abba went up to Eretz Yisrael and learned there before Rabbi Yochanan, while Ravnai remained in Bavel. A further brother was Rav Natan Kohen, who once asked Rabbi Chiya to daven for him as he set out on a sea voyage, and received counsel in place of a tefillah: from the hour you bind your lulav, bind your feet. That is, he should not still be at sea after Sukkot, when the tzibbur’s prayers for rain would stand against any prayer said for one man’s safe crossing.

The amora learned under Shmuel and brings teachings in his name, among them that the keruvim stood in the Kodesh HaKodashim by a miracle. He lived in Nehardea and later moved to Pumbedita, as did Rav Amram Chasida; their departure may have come in the days of the revolt of Ben Netzer, which laid Nehardea waste in 4019/258–259, and Pumbedita was the safer and more distant city. The wives of Ravnai and of Rav Amram sold techeilet for tzitzit, and because these sellers were the wives of talmidei chachamim, the chachamim relied on them as they would on their husbands not to exchange the halachically valid dye for kala ilan.

His father-in-law was Avimi bar Nazi, who came before his own son-in-law in a din Torah over a stolen cloak that had been handed over against a loan of money. Ravnai and his brother Rav Kohen differed as to whether takanat hashuk protects Avimi, so that the original owner must repay him for the stolen cloak. The question travelled until it reached Rabbi Abbahu, head of the yeshiva in Caesarea, who held like Rav Kohen that Avimi had no claim to repayment.

From the pesukim Ravnai brings the source that the presence of ten Jewish men carries the standing and kedushah of a minyan, by a gezeirah shavah between the word toch in “v’nikdashti b’toch Bnei Yisrael” and the word toch in “hibadlu mitoch ha’edah hara’at” said at the sin of Korach — and an edah is ten. The chachamim of the Gemara build on this teaching in a range of sugyot: that a davar shebikdushah is not said before fewer than ten, and that a man must give his life for kiddush Hashem rather than commit even a light aveirah when the matter takes place b’farhesya, which means precisely in the presence of ten Jews.