רב נחמן בר רב הונא

Rav Nachman bar Rav Huna was among the last of the Amoraim of Bavel and head of the yeshiva in Sura. The Iggeret of Rav Sherira Gaon sets out the succession: after Rav Ashi was niftar in 4187/427, Sura was led by Mareimar and then by Rav Idi bar Avin the second, and when he was niftar in 4211/451 Rav Nachman bar Rav Huna was raised to the head of the yeshiva. He held it three years, until his own passing in 4214/454. For all the name he carried, he was not a son of the well-known amora Rav Huna, who lived generations before him, and nothing is known of any link between the two.

He is nowhere named in the Talmud in full. In a number of sugyot a Rav Nachman appears discussing matters with Rav Ashi and with Ravina, and it is generally taken that he is the sage meant there.

A tradition brought in Shibolei HaLeket says that the enactment of folding Kriyat Shema into the Kedushah is from his time. Quoting the teshuvot of the Geonim, it relates that Yazdegerd, king of Persia, decreed that Kriyat Shema not be said at its proper time, and that the sages of the generation answered the decree by embedding it within the Kedushah — at first in every tefillah, Shacharit, Musaf and Mincha, on weekdays, Shabbat and Yom Tov alike, and in the end in Musaf. The Iggeret of Rav Sherira records that it was with Rav Nachman’s passing that the shmad fell and Yazdegerd decreed against the keeping of Shabbat.