רבי יהודה נשיאה

Rabbi Yehuda Nesiah, of the first generation of the amoraim of Eretz Yisrael, was nasi of the Sanhedrin in Tzippori and the grandson of the sealer of the Mishnah, Rabbi Yehuda HaNasi. He was the son and talmid of Rabban Gamliel b’Rabbi and learned also from Rabbi Chiya. The word Nesiah is simply the Aramaic for HaNasi, used to keep him apart from his grandfather; the Baalei HaTosafot put it that the language of Mishnah and Beraita calls him HaNasi, while the language of the amoraim calls him Nesiah. In the Yerushalmi he often appears as Rabbi Yudan Nesiya, and English works list him as Judah II.

He was close to Rabbi Oshaya Rabbah, to whom he once sent mishloach manot on Purim, and the talmidim of Rebbi and of Rabbi Chiya were his chaverim; more than once he was a guest at the court of Rabbi Zakkai of Kabul. Rabbi Simlai served as his shamash. Reish Lakish was the greatest of his talmidim, Rabbi Yehoshua ben Levi learned from him, and Abba bar Abba, the father of Shmuel, sent him a question in halachah.

His beit din is remembered by its Aramaic name, bei dina d’sharu mishcha — the court that permitted the oil. The oil of non-Jews had been forbidden by a decree going back to Daniel, meant to keep Jews from the tables of the nations and from marrying into them. Rabbi Yehuda Nesiah examined the matter, found it a gezeirah the tzibbur could not stand in, and since it had never been properly taken on throughout Israel, his court had the standing to annul it. A second takanah dealt with a get given on condition that the husband not return within twelve months, where the husband was niftar inside the year: his court ruled that the get takes effect retroactively from the date written in it, freeing the woman from yibum and chalitzah. That ruling did not win the backing of the chachamim of the generation, and when Rabbi Simlai wished him to permit the bread of a non-Jewish baker as well, he refused, saying a third leniency would earn his court the name bei dina sharya, the court that always permits.

He carried himself with humility and plainness. Once he decreed a fast over a drought and no rain fell, and he said aloud what a distance there is between Shmuel of Ramah and Yehuda ben Gamliel — woe to the generation left with such a tent-peg, and woe to him in whose days it had come about; he was pained, and the rains came down. The learning of children stood highest with him: Reish Lakish brought in his name that the world stands only on the breath of schoolchildren, and in his name it was taught that children are not taken from their learning even for the building of the Beit HaMikdash. His son Rabban Gamliel the Fourth filled his place in the nesiut after him.