רבי יונתן בן אלעזר

Rabbi Yonatan ben Elazar — cited in the Gemara most often simply as Rabbi Yonatan — was an amora of the first generation in Eretz Yisrael and one of the acknowledged masters of aggadah, honored with the title Sar HaBirah. His rebbe muvhak was Rabbi Shimon bar Yosi bar Lekunya; he stood in fellowship with Rabbi Chanina bar Chama and Rabbi Yehoshua ben Levi, and in friendship with the younger Rabbi Yochanan. His great talmid in aggadah was Rabbi Shmuel bar Nachmani, through whom his teachings fill both Talmuds and the midrashim.

His teachings guard the honor of the righteous and the honor of Heaven at once. It was Rabbi Yonatan who taught: whoever says Reuven sinned — is simply mistaken; and so of the sons of Eli, of David, of Shlomo and of Yoshiyahu — readings that lift the surface of the pesukim to their truth. Against the heretics who found plurality in “Let us make man,” he taught that Moshe himself objected — and was answered: write, and let him who wishes to err, err. And his is the immortal word on the drowning of Mitzrayim: the ministering angels sought to sing, and the Holy One said — My handiwork is drowning in the sea, and you would say shirah before Me?

He taught, let the spirit of those who calculate the end expire — for the geulah is awaited, not computed. Few amoraim left sayings so deep in the bloodstream of Jewish thought.