רב רחומי הראשון

Rav Rechumi the First was a Babylonian amora of the fourth generation, a talmid of Abaye and of Rava, and the first of the two chachamim who carry the name Rav Rechumi. He learned in Rava’s yeshiva in Mechoza and was his foremost talmid. As a talmid of Abaye he appears in Masechet Pesachim, where he put a question to him clarifying what maror is; as a talmid of Rava he appears in Masechet Ketubot.

The gemara in Ketubot 62b, in the course of the sugya of mitzvat onah, brings a short account of him. Rav Rechumi was constantly before Rava in Mechoza, and would come home every erev Yom Kippur. One time a sugya drew him in and he lengthened his learning, and he did not come home that erev Yom Kippur. His wife sat waiting and saying to herself, now he is coming, now he is coming — and he did not come. Her spirit fell, and she wiped a tear from her eye. At that hour he was sitting on the roof of the beit midrash; the roof gave way beneath him, and he was niftar.

Rabbeinu Yonah of Gerona, as brought in his name in the Shitah Mekubetzet, reads the story against what precedes it. Rav Ada bar Ahava had said that a talmid may go out to learn Torah for two and three years even without his wife’s leave; Rabbeinu Yonah holds that even so a man may not leave her alone so long — the way of mercy is that he come earlier, so that she not suffer overmuch and he not be punished on her account as Rav Rechumi was punished, and all the more so if he sees that she is particular about it. Rav Adin Steinsaltz writes that the account comes to teach how careful a man must be, since Rav Rechumi was punished for causing his wife pain even without intending it.