הרב בבא בן בוטא

Bava ben Buta was a chacham of the generation between the Zugot and the tannaim, a talmid of Shammai the Elder, a dayan in Yerushalayim — and the man whose counsel gave Yisrael the rebuilt Beit HaMikdash of Herod. When Herod seized the throne and slaughtered the chachamim, the Gemara relates, he spared Bava ben Buta alone to take counsel from him — after putting out his eyes. The famous dialogue followed: the disguised king pressed the blind chacham again and again to curse “that wicked slave,” and Bava ben Buta, unknowing, refused — a bird of the heavens shall carry the voice. Herod, revealing himself, asked how such a wrong as killing the chachamim could be repaired; and Bava ben Buta answered: he extinguished the light of the world — let him occupy himself with the light of the world, and rebuild the Beit HaMikdash. He even counseled him how to manage Rome in the meantime — and Herod did so.

Though of the house of Shammai, he knew the halachah to be like Beit Hillel in the machloket over semichah on a korban on Yom Tov — and acted: finding the Azarah empty on a Yom Tov because the people leaned toward Beit Shammai’s stringency, he brought three thousand lambs of the flocks of Kedar, checked them for blemishes, and called out: whoever wishes, let him bring an olah and lay his hands on it! In that hour the halachah was fixed like Beit Hillel, and no one said a word.

He volunteered a korban asham taluy every day of the year save the day after Yom Kippur — “the asham of the chassidim.” And his humility became a story every child learns: when a misunderstood instruction sent a wife to break two candles on the head of “Bava” at the gate — the dayan sitting in judgment — he blessed her: you have done your husband’s will; may Hashem give you two sons like Bava ben Buta.