הרב מר בר רב אשי

Mar bar Rav Ashi (d. 11 Tishrei 4228/467), who signed his name Tavyomi, was the son of Rav Ashi and one of the last of the amoraim — rosh yeshiva of Sura and, with Maremar, among the final redactors of the Talmud Bavli, completing the great work his father had begun. His scholarship was renowned already in his father’s lifetime, yet the leadership of Sura came to him only twenty-eight years after Rav Ashi’s passing, through the famous episode the Gemara records: hearing a madman in the marketplace of Mechoza crying that the next head of Mata Mechasya would sign Tavyomi, he set out for the yeshiva — where the chachamim had already inclined to appoint Rav Acha of Difti. Detaining the pairs of talmidim sent to him until ten had gathered, he opened and darshened, and was thereby installed; Rav Acha’s rueful words became a proverb: one for whom Heaven does good does not soon see evil.

He led Sura for some thirteen years through darkening times: when the Persian king Yazdegerd decreed against Shabbat observance, Mar bar Rav Ashi and Rav Sama of Pumbedita decreed fasting and tefillah — and the Iggeret of Rav Sherira Gaon records that the king died on his bed and the decree was annulled. His piety toward talmidei chachamim became halachah in his mouth: I am disqualified from judging a talmid chacham, he said, for he is as dear to me as my own self, and no man can see fault in himself.

His standing among the poskim was fixed by the savoraim and geonim in a standing rule: the halachah follows Mar bar Rav Ashi. He was niftar on motzaei Yom Kippur, 11 Tishrei; Rabbah Tosfa’ah succeeded him and carried the Talmud’s redaction to its close.