רב שמואל בר יהודה

Rav Shmuel bar Yehuda was an amora of the third generation, born in Bavel, who later went up to Eretz Yisrael. He came from a family of geirim, and went to learn Torah under Rav Yehuda in Bavel. His great teacher held him in high regard and said that he relied on his every word without reservation. Later he went up to Eretz Yisrael and sat before Rabbi Yochanan and Rabbi Elazar in Teveria, but in the end he returned to Bavel, bringing with him many halachot from the sages of Eretz Yisrael, above all in the name of Rabbi Yochanan. The teachings he carried back were prized by the Babylonian sages; of one of them Rav Yosef said, “How excellent is this teaching.” The Talmud later finds him citing Rabbi Zeira and Rav Shmuel bar Rav Yitzchak, and teaching in the name of Rabbi Abba, and Abaye sat before him and debated halachah with him. His daughter was niftar in his lifetime, and Ulla and the great sages of the day came to comfort him.

One of his teachings concerns the arusah of a kohen — a woman “betrothed” by kiddushin but not yet brought into her husband’s home by nisuin. By Torah law she may eat terumah, yet the sages forbade it until nisuin, and Rav Shmuel bar Yehuda and Ulla differ on the reason. Ulla holds that since she still lives in her father’s house, a cup might be poured for her there and she might share it with her brothers and sisters, who may not eat terumah. Rav Shmuel bar Yehuda gives a different reason: until nisuin the match may yet prove a mekach ta’ut, should a bodily blemish be discovered in her afterward, and the kiddushin would then be annulled retroactively — leaving her to have eaten terumah while never truly married to a kohen.