רבי יוסי בן קיסמא

Rabbi Yose ben Kisma was a tanna who lived in the Land of Israel. He appears in several memorable passages of the Gemara, most notably in Avodah Zarah, where during his final illness Rabbi Chanina ben Teradyon came to visit him. In that exchange Rabbi Yose cautioned his colleague about the dangers of publicly gathering crowds to study Torah under Roman rule, warning of the power Heaven had granted that empire. The Gemara relates that soon afterward Rabbi Yose passed away, and the great men of Rome went out to bury him and eulogized him greatly.

In Sanhedrin his students asked him when Ben David — the Mashiach — would come. He replied that he feared they would ask him for a sign, and when they assured him they would not, he engaged their question. In Yevamot he is brought as having witnessed a Torah scroll torn in anger during a dispute, and he remarked that he would be astonished if the place did not become a site of idol worship — and so it came to be. Rabbi Yose ben Kisma’s words also serve later authorities, such as the Ran in his Derashot, as a basis for discussion of the value of mitzvos.