רבי יעקב

Rabbi Yaakov ben Korshai was a tanna of the fourth generation, brought everywhere simply as Rabbi Yaakov and in a few places by his full name. He was one of the rebbeim of Rabbi Yehudah HaNasi, and it was from him that Rebbi received the correct versions of the mishnayot and baraitot. Where the two differed in halachah, Rebbi ruled in practice like his rebbi. He was a companion of Rabbi Meir and brings halachah in his name, and he learned and differed with Rabbi Natan, Rabbi Shimon, Rabbi Yehudah and Rabbi Yosi the son of Rabbi Yehudah. Yehudah ben Nekosa and Elazar ben Yehudah of Avlim bring teachings in his name.

The Gemara relates that he saved Rabban Shimon ben Gamliel, the Nasi, from humiliation. Learning that Rabbi Meir and Rabbi Natan intended to put a hard question from Uktzin to him and, when he could not answer, to remove him from the nesiut, Rabbi Yaakov sat and learned that masechta aloud all night behind Rabban Shimon’s lodging, and so hinted to him to prepare. Rabban Shimon answered the question, and Rabbi Meir and Rabbi Natan were afterwards put out of the beit midrash. Most hold his act to have been a proper one, though some see harm in it, since it drew anger upon his two colleagues and their names were left out of the Mishnah. Halachot Gedolot brings that Rabbi Meir met him afterwards and was strict with him over the matter, and that Rabbi Yaakov was niftar on that account.

Among his teachings: this world is like an antechamber before the World to Come — prepare yourself in the antechamber so that you may enter the hall; there is no reward for a mitzvah in this world; the light that the Holy One created on the first day let a man see with it from one end of the world to the other; and one who has no wife dwells without good, without help, without joy, without blessing and without atonement.