Biography
Rabbi Efes was an amora of Eretz Yisrael of the first generation, active around the year 225, who sat on the beit din of Rabbi Yehudah HaNasi. A midrash relates that Rebbi appointed him to write a letter to Antoninus, and from this Rav Aharon Hyman concludes that he served as Rebbi’s sofer. He lived in the south of the land, and for that reason is called Efes HaDaromi; the Talmud Yerushalmi, where his name appears as Pas, speaks of “our rabbeim in the south.”
Before his passing, Rebbi gave instruction that Rabbi Chanina bar Chama be appointed in his place at the head of the yeshiva in Tzippori. Rabbi Chanina would not take up the position while Rabbi Efes was alive, since Rabbi Efes was his senior by two and a half years; and so it was Rabbi Efes who was crowned rosh yeshiva after Rebbi, and only after him did Rabbi Chanina bar Chama assume it.
Rabbi Hoshaya Rabbah, who learned before him, mentions him many times and brings aggadic teachings in his name — among them a reading of the verse in Yeshayahu that nations shall walk by your light: Yerushalayim is destined to become a torch by whose light the peoples of the world will walk. He also cites a ruling of his in monetary law, and Reish Lakish put a question in halachah to him. Levi bar Sisi was likewise among his talmidim.
Where traditions differ. Accounts differ on the length of his tenure: one has him leading the yeshiva for at least twenty years until his passing, another that he did not outlive Rabbi Yehudah HaNasi by many years.
רבי אפס היה אמורא ארץ ישראלי מהדור הראשון של האמוראים.
Epes the Southerner, or Rabbi Epes, was a scholar of the 3rd century, secretary to the patriarch Judah ha-Nasi, and one of the last tannaim. After Judah's death, while Efes conducted a college in southern Judea, on account of which he was called "'Efes the Southerner", he was made head of the academy at Sepphoris, although the dying patriarch had ordered the appointment of Hanina bar Hama to that position. Hanina refused to supersede Efes, who was his senior by two years and a half.
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