רבי חמא בר חנינא

Rabbi Chama bar Chanina was an amora of Eretz Yisrael in the third century. Like his father, Rabbi Chanina bar Chama — a talmid of Rabbi Yehuda HaNasi — he led a yeshiva in Tzippori and was among the leaders of that city, where he once decreed a public fast. He was a contemporary of Rabbi Yochanan, and he is brought many times in the Talmud Yerushalmi and in the midrashim. According to the Midrash HaGadol he was blind.

He was above all a master of aggadah, and later chachamim such as Levi cited his teachings. His derashot aimed at practical lessons: on the command to walk after Hashem he asked how a man can walk after Hashem, who is called a consuming fire, and answered that one must follow in His ways — as He clothes the unclothed, so should you. Visiting the synagogues of Lod with his colleague Hoshaiah, he pointed with pride to the wealth his forebears had sunk into those walls; Hoshaiah answered that better the money had gone to needy scholars who could then have given themselves wholly to Torah.