רבי אחא בר חנינא

Rabbi Acha bar Chanina was an amora of Eretz Yisrael in the third generation (the fourth century), who appears often in the Talmud Bavli and a little in the Yerushalmi. He came from the region called Daroma, the hill country of Chevron, and the Gemara several times introduces him with “when Rabbi Acha bar Chanina came from Daroma,” apparently to the yeshiva of Teveria; in this way he carried north the teachings of the southern chachamim, such as Rabbi Yehoshua ben Levi of Lod. In Teveria he learned under Rabbi Assi, from whom he received the teachings of Rabbi Yochanan. His chaver was Rabbi Yaakov bar Idi, and a debate between them on the meaning of suffering in this world is preserved.

He seems to have been poor — it is told that he went out to the market in patched shoes — and he praised Torah learned under the strain of earning a living, opposing reliance on tzedakah funds. He apparently went down to Bavel, which explains why his teachings are so common in the Bavli; Sanhedrin even records an exchange between him and Rav Papa, though the text there is uncertain. His father, Rabbi Chanina, is sometimes named after him as “Rabbi Chanina the father of Rabbi Acha,” and his mother’s brother (by another reading, her father) was a chacham named Shmuel bar Nachum, considered an expert in aggadah. Rabbi Yehudah bar Titas brings teachings in his name.

Most of his teachings are aggadic, and even in halachic sugyot he was quick to bring pesukim in support of the halachah; he also darshened before the public. Among his sayings: whoever visits a sick person takes away one sixtieth of his pain; whoever says “this teaching is fine and that one is not” loses the wealth of Torah; and the World to Come is unlike this world, where on good news we say “HaTov v’HaMeitiv” and on bad news “Dayan HaEmet” — there, all is “HaTov v’HaMeitiv.”