הרב אבא כהן ברדלא

Abba Kohen Bardela was a tanna whose teachings appear both in aggadic midrash and in halachah. In Bereshit Rabbah he is brought reflecting on the early generations of mankind: when questioned on the verse listing Adam, Sheth, and Enosh, he answered that until that point the line continued “in the image and likeness” of Hashem, and from there onward the generations became corrupted. On the verse describing Yosef revealing himself to his brothers and weeping, he drew a sobering lesson — “Woe to us from the day of judgment, woe to us from the day of rebuke” — comparing the brothers’ inability to answer Yosef to how each person will stand speechless before Hashem’s reckoning.

In halachah he is cited by Reish Lakish in tractate Bava Metzia. There Reish Lakish brings in his name the ruling that a person’s four cubits acquire for him in any place, an enactment of the Sages so that disputes should not arise, and the further teaching concerning whether a minor girl has a courtyard and four cubits for the purposes of acquisition.