רבי זכאי דכבול

Rav Zakkai of Kabul was an amora of Eretz Yisrael in the first generation, who lived and taught in the town of Kabul in the western Galil in the third century. The Talmud Yerushalmi brings a halacha in his name on correcting mistakes in the reading of the Torah in shul — a teaching that Rav Yirmiyah and Rav Zeira took up in discussion after such a case arose in the shul of Sichnin.

Several baraitot tell of a visit paid to him by Yehuda and Hillel, the sons of Rabban Gamliel b’Rabbi, and of the great honor the people of Kabul showed the two guests in food and drink, placing the town bathhouse at their disposal as well. He appears in Vayikra Rabbah as a darshan, expounding the words of Kohelet lischok amarti meholal upon a tragedy that had taken place in his own town: at the wedding feast of the son of one of the notables of Kabul, the young man went to fetch a barrel of wine for the guests and was bitten by a snake and was niftar. The cave known today as Me’arat Zakkai, near Kabul, carries his name.