רבי חנינא בן אנטיגנוס

Rabbi Chanina ben Antigonus — his name appears also as Chananya, and his father’s as Antignos — was a tanna of the first or second century who lived close to the destruction of the Second Beit HaMikdash. A kohen, he testified after the Churban to many details of the Mikdash and its service. He was known for exacting care in the laws of tumah and taharah and as an expert in examining animals for the blemishes that disqualify a korban, and he had a son who was likewise a chacham and a master of tumah and taharah.

His testimonies preserve what he had seen. He knew the families of Emmaus called Beit HaPegarim and Beit Tzipparya, who accompanied the song of the Levi’im on instruments — “I knew them, and they were Levi’im”; a spare parochet was kept in case the parochet became tamei; the beit hadeshen in the azarah, where disqualified korbanot were burned, stood east of the mizbeach; and a segan was appointed to stand in for the Kohen Gadol should the need arise.

A story tells of his family’s stringency. Rabbi Yehuda and Rabbi Yosi, unsure of a point in the laws of taharah, sent two talmidei chachamim to ask his son. They found him carrying tahor food, and when he paused to consider their question he handed it to his own talmidim rather than trust the two visitors. Rabbi Yehuda heard the report with anger — the father had slighted talmidei chachamim, and now the son — but Rabbi Yosi calmed him: let the elder’s honor rest in its place; since the day the Mikdash was destroyed the kohanim have adopted a stringency of not handing taharot to just anyone.

He taught that the two-thousand-amah techum Shabbat around a town is measured as a circle, with nothing added for the corners; that the marriage of a small orphan girl who cannot guard what she received for her kiddushin has no standing, so that she needs no mi’un to leave; and that a woman who finds a bloodstain on her clothing no larger than a bean may assume it is not from her and remains tehorah. In Shevi’it, on sixth-year onions left in the ground, he preferred a test of the hand to a judgment of the eye: if they can be pulled up by their leaves they are forbidden. In aggada he taught that sudden death is a form of karet, that death after seven days’ illness is a death of affection, and that a longer illness is a death of yissurim. About half of his mishnayot are in Masechet Bechorot, on the blemishes that disqualify a korban.