רבי חייא בר גמדא

Rabbi Chiya bar Gamda was an amora who brings teachings of the earlier sages of his day. In the Gemara he appears citing Rabbi Yose ben Shaul on an aggadic theme: that when a righteous person departs the world, the ministering angels say before Hashem that a particular tzaddik has come, and Hashem bids the earlier righteous go forth to greet him and welcome him in peace — a teaching drawn from the verse “they shall rest on their beds” (Ketubot 104a).

He also figures in halachic discussion. In Pesachim 73b a teaching of his on the laws of the Pesach offering is brought, dealing with a case where the owners were ritually impure through contact with the dead and were therefore deferred to Pesach Sheni. His name thus appears in both the aggadic and the halachic portions of the Talmud.