רבי שמעון בר אבא

Rabbi Shimon bar Abba HaKohen — also called Rabbi Shimon bar Ba, or bar Va — was a talmid-chaver of Rabbi Yochanan. The Talmud Yerushalmi in Berachot describes him as exacting in mitzvot. He knew the worth of precious stones, and yet he himself was a poor man whose living came to him through his kehunah. It may be that he was a relative, or even the brother, of Rabbi Chiya bar Abba.

The Yerushalmi brings that a wealthy landowner named Eliposa wished to give him his ma’asrot, and Rabbi Shimon hesitated to take them, doubting whether the man was reliable in terumot and ma’asrot; only after he asked Rabbi Yochanan, who confirmed that the man could be trusted, did he agree. His poverty in the end forced him to leave Eretz Yisrael and settle in Damascus. Rabbi Chiya tried and failed to hold him back from going down from the Land, saying to him: tomorrow I will stand before your fathers, and they will say to me — one precious sapling (referring to him, Rabbi Shimon) we had in Eretz Yisrael, and you permitted it to leave for chutz la’aretz?