רב כהנא מפום נהרא

Rav Kahana of Pum Nahara — called also the third Rav Kahana, several amoraim having carried that name — was a Babylonian amora of the third and fourth generations who stood at the head of the yeshiva of Pum Nahara. He was a kohen, of the family of Eli HaKohen.

In his youth he learned before Rav Yehuda, and after his rebbe’s passing he attended Rabba, learning masechet Sanhedrin from him together with his friend Rav Safra. The two of them went up to Eretz Yisrael, where Rav Kahana learned before Zeira and before Rabbi Abbahu, and before Rabbi Chiya bar Abba, who davened for him that he be granted length of days — a berachah that was fulfilled.

Afterward he came back to Bavel and set his yeshiva in Pum Nahara. There Rav Ashi learned before him and became his foremost talmid, holding him in a particular honor: though Rav Ashi took Ameimar too as his rebbe and addressed him with the honorific “Mar,” he did not use it while standing before Rav Kahana. He was a friend of Rav Nachman bar Yitzchak, and the two together carried their rebuke to the gasei haruach — the wealthy men who involved themselves in the appointing of dayanim and parnassim, and whose high-mindedness and great riches made them forget what was owed of them.

His yeshiva at Pum Nahara stood under the yeshiva of Sura, but from the passing of Rava onward the heads of Nehardea came often to visit him there, seemingly to bind their yeshiva to his; he delivered the hesped in Pum Nahara for Rav Zvid of Nehardea, who had been his rebbe. The tie to Sura held as well, and from the citations in the Gemara it appears that Rav Yeimar, rosh yeshiva of Sura in Mata Mechasya, was influenced by him.