Biography
Rabbah bar bar Chana is one of the recurring voices of the Talmud, recorded above all as a faithful transmitter of the teachings of his master Rabbi Yochanan. Time and again the cited passages open with the formula “Rabbah bar bar Chana said in the name of Rabbi Yochanan,” through which a wide range of halachic rulings is preserved — on the laws of menstrual purity and fixed cycles (vesatot), on the identification of blemishes in firstborn animals, on questions of substitution (temurah), and on tithing and the produce of the Shmittah year.
He appears with notable frequency in tractates Niddah and Bekhorot, where his transmissions clarify fine points of law, such as the timing of an “onah,” the definition of “untasted spittle” (rok tafel), and the criteria by which extra digits or membranes render an animal blemished. He also reports firsthand testimony he received from elder sages, naming figures such as Yoshiyah of Usha and Rabbi Yochanan ben Elazar.
Beyond strictly legal matters, he is remembered for his vivid first-person reports of places he had seen — as in his statement “I myself saw that place,” cited in connection with the dimensions of the camp of Israel — a hallmark of the eyewitness narratives associated with his name.
Sources & notes. Approximate birth date per Wikidata.
Where traditions differ. Wikidata supplies only an approximate birth date (c. 300 CE). The teacher-student relationship with Rabbi Yochanan is inferred from the recurring transmission formula in the passages, not from structured data.
רבה בר בר חנה היה אמורא, בן הדור השלישי של האמוראים. חי בסוף המאה ה-3, נולד בבבל והיה תלמידו של רבי יוחנן. לאחר פטירת רבו, קיבל את מרותו של ממשיך דרכו - רבי אלעזר.
Rabbah bar bar Hana was a Jewish Talmudist who lived in Babylonia, known as an Amora of the third generation.
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