רבי מנא

Rabbi Mana, cited in the Talmud simply as Rabbi Mani, was a kohen and an amora of the fifth generation in Eretz Yisrael who served as rosh yeshiva in Tzipori. He is brought mainly in the Talmud Yerushalmi. He was the son and talmid of Rabbi Yonah, one of the leading chachamim of the generation before him, and much of what he taught he brought in his father’s name — when he had heard it from him at home he would say “so father said to me,” and when he had heard it in the beit midrash he would say “so said Rabbi Yonah.” He also learned from and served Rabbi Yosi bar Zavida, who had been his father’s colleague, and Rabbi Chagai. On a journey to Caesarea he learned there from the amoraim Rabbi Chizkiya, Rabbi Oshaya bar Shami, Rabbi Ahava, Rabbi Zeira and Rabbi Zerikan.

His talmid-chaver was Rabbi Yosi b’Rabbi Bun, and his particular colleague was Rabbi Chananya of Tzipori, with whom the Yerushalmi brings many disputes in the form “Rabbi Chananya and Rabbi Mana: one said… and the other said…” Once they came to know one another, Rabbi Chananya acknowledged in his humility that Rabbi Mana surpassed him in Torah, handed over to him the position of rosh yeshiva in Tzipori, and then sat and learned before him as one of the talmidim.

Rabbi Mana had no patience for men who acquired the title of rabbi through gifts to the house of the Nasi, and it may be for this that the Talmud tells of his being harassed by the men of that house. Once, when they were pursuing him, he went to his father’s grave and cried, “Father, father, the men of the house of the Nasi are causing me pain.” Another time, when those men passed by the grave of Rabbi Yonah, the hooves of their horses were fixed fast in the ground and they could not move from the spot until they undertook to trouble his son no more.