רבי חנינא בן דוסא

Rabbi Chanina ben Dosa (Hebrew חנינא בן דוסא) was a tanna of the first generation, at the close of the Second Temple period, and a talmid of Rabban Yochanan ben Zakkai, in whose town of Arav in the Galilee he lived. He is remembered far more for his conduct than for his rulings: almost no halachot are quoted in his name, and he stands in the Mishnah as the very measure of a man whose deeds outweigh his learning. In Pirkei Avot he teaches that when fear of sin comes before wisdom, wisdom endures, and that one with whom his fellow men are pleased is pleasing also before Hashem.

Above all he was a man of tefillah whose prayers were answered. When the son of Rabban Yochanan ben Zakkai fell ill, and later the son of Rabban Gamliel, Rabbi Chanina prayed and they recovered; he could tell at once whether a prayer had been accepted, saying, “I am no navi nor the son of a navi, but this I have learned — when my prayer flows freely in my mouth, it is accepted.” He was exceedingly poor: a bat kol from Chorev declared that the whole world was sustained for the sake of Chanina His son, while Chanina himself made do with a measure of carobs from one erev Shabbat to the next. Many wonders were told of him — a lamp his daughter filled with vinegar that burned all through Shabbat, and a venomous creature that bit him as he stood in prayer, which he did not so much as feel, and which was found dead.

The Mishnah marks his passing with the words that when Rabbi Chanina ben Dosa was niftar, the men of wondrous deeds ceased. He and his wife are buried in Arav, his kever a place of pilgrimage already in the time of the Geonim.