הרב אליעזר זעירא

Rabbi Eliezer Ze’ira (Eliezer, or Elazar, Ze’ira ) was an amora of Bavel of the first generation, the generation of Shmuel. He was an “adam gadol” (a man of great standing), and most likely lived in the city of Nehardea.

The Gemara in masechet Bava Kamma tells that Eliezer Ze’ira put on black shoes, as mourners did, and stood in the marketplace of Nehardea. Men of the house of the Reish Galuta (the head of the Jews of Bavel) found him there and asked why he wore black shoes, and he answered that he was mourning the churban (destruction) of Yerushalayim. They held that he was not an “adam chashuv,” a man of enough standing to mourn Yerushalayim in this way, took the black shoes as arrogance, and had him imprisoned. He answered them, “gavra rabbah ana” — I am a great man, of enough standing to mourn for Yerushalayim.

To prove it, he put a difficult halachic question to them: one who cuts down a date palm whose dates have not yet ripened, does he pay for the dates at their present value, or at the much higher value they would have once ripe? They did not know, and asked him to give the answer himself. He told them that the felled palm is treated as one-sixtieth of a large tract of land: the land is assessed, and the one who cut the tree pays one-sixtieth of its price.

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