רבי אושעיא

Rabbi Oshaya, called in the Talmud Yerushalmi Rabbi Hoshaya Rabbah, was among the greatest of the first generation of Amoraim in Eretz Yisrael, a kohen born into a family of chachamim. His father was Rabbi Chama bar Bisa, and because he merited to sit and rule together with his father and his grandfather Rabbi Bisa in one beit midrash, Rami bar Chama applied to them the pasuk, "the threefold cord is not quickly broken." He rose to greatness while still young — it was said of him, as of Rabbi Meir in his generation, that his colleagues could not plumb the depth of his reasoning — and he received most of his Torah from Rabbi Chiya and from Bar Kappara, chachamim of the house of Rabbi Yehudah HaNasi.

He is called Avi HaMishnah, "the father of the Mishnah," for his power to explain and interpret it — and above all for his life’s work with his rebbi Rabbi Chiya: the arranging of the baraitot, the teachings of the Tannaim left outside the Mishnah when Rabbi Yehudah HaNasi sealed it. Their editions became the deciding standard, and the chachamim after them ruled that any baraita not taught in the beit midrash of Rabbi Chiya and Rabbi Oshaya is considered garbled, and no challenge may be raised from it in the beit midrash. He was likewise exacting in the precise wording of teachings, down to the writing of the words.

His beit midrash stood for many years in Tzippori, and in his later years in Caesarea, and talmidim pressed in to hear him — it is told that he had twelve talmidim, and that four would crowd into each amah of space during the shiur. His regard for the feelings of others is seen in his gracious apology to the blind melamed he had engaged for his son, whom he had kept from the guests at dinner only so that the man not be embarrassed. His greatest talmid was Rabbi Yochanan, who even after he had become a great teacher in his own right continued to visit his aged rebbi in Caesarea.