רבי אסי

Rabbi Assi was an amora of Eretz Yisrael of the third generation — the constant companion of Rabbi Ami, with whom he is called in the Gemara one of the “dayanim of Eretz Yisrael” and of the “distinguished kohanim of Eretz Yisrael.” In the Yerushalmi he appears as Rabbi Yesa; he is not to be confused with Rav Assi, the first-generation amora of Bavel. Born in Bavel to a family of kohanim, he learned under Shmuel in Nehardea and under Rav Huna in Sura, and then went up to Eretz Yisrael and settled in Teveria.

There he became the close talmid of Rabbi Yochanan and grew into a talmid-chaver; Rabbi Elazar called him “mofet hador” — the wonder of the generation. When Rabbi Yochanan taught him that a safek of orlah outside the Land is permitted, he exclaimed that had he gone up to Eretz Yisrael only to hear this teaching, it would have been enough. Though Teveria had thirteen shuls, he and Rabbi Ami davened “between the pillars” of the beit midrash where they learned and sat in din, and the two went out at the word of the Nasi, Rabbi Yehudah Nesiah, to inspect the state of Torah chinuch in the towns of the Land. Reish Lakish once put his own life at risk to free Rabbi Assi from captors. He was exacting in kibud av va’em: when his mother came up from Bavel and reached Botzra, whose standing is as chutz la’aretz, he went out to meet her despite his kehunah. He was versed in Maaseh Merkavah and wished to teach it to Rabbi Elazar ben Pedat, who did not accept.

His teaching on the yetzer hara is learned everywhere: at first it is like a spider’s thread, and at the end it becomes like cart ropes. In his name — or in Rabbi Ami’s — came the counsel to eat and drink less than one’s means, to dress according to one’s means, and to honor one’s wife and children beyond one’s means. After his petirah the chachamim gathered to review the halachot he had taught so they would not be forgotten, and Rabbi Chiya bar Abba, who had sat with him as dayan, mourned him as for one of his own family. His kever in Teveria (Israel), near the resting place of the Rambam, beside Rabbi Ami.