רבי יוסי בן זמרה

Rabbi Yosi ben Zimra was a tanna of the last generation and a kohen, who lived in the passage between the era of the tannaim and that of the amoraim. He came of a distinguished family — his daughter married the son of Rabbi Yehudah HaNasi — and there are those who say he was a descendant of David HaMelech. Most of what he left is aggadah, and most of it reached the batei midrash through his talmid Rabbi Elazar ben Pedat, who brings his teachings in his name.

A large share of the statements he said, or that were said in his name, concern the prohibition of lashon hara. In Masechet Arachin he draws attention to the guards set about the tongue, the limb charged with speech: it was made hedged in on every side, so that words should not come out lightly and a man should have space to think before an unworthy word leaves his mouth. Another of his teachings, on the length of Avraham Avinu’s steps, is among the closed sayings whose plain sense does not settle easily; Rav Chaim Vital devoted an entire composition to it, known as the Igeret Rabbi Chaim Vital.

Travelers to the Galil in later centuries record a kever attributed to a “Rabbi Zimra” near Ras al-Ahmar. A talmid of the Ramban notes it in the fourteenth century on the road from Gush Chalav to Alma; Rabbi Moshe Bassola in 5283/1523 describes a tomb built over it on a high hill from which most of the Galilean heights can be seen; and by the eighteenth century the tradition there included Rabbi Yosi ben Zimra alongside his father. The moshav Kerem Ben Zimra stands in that place, and Nachal Ben Zimra and Har Ben Zimra nearby, all bearing his name.