רבי יוסי בן שאול

Rav Yose ben Shaul was an amora of Eretz Yisrael in the first generation, whose principal rebbe was Rebbi, Rav Yehuda HaNasi. He put his questions before Rebbi and argued the halacha out with him, and he brings many of his rebbe’s teachings in his name; he also cites halachot in the name of the kehala kadisha d’birushalem, the holy community of Yerushalayim. Two of his brothers appear beside him — Rav Yochanan ben Shaul, with whom he holds a dispute in Shabbat, and Rav Chalafta ben Shaul, mentioned together with him in the Yerushalmi. In one place in Shabbat, where Rav Yaakov brings a teaching in his name, he is called Rav Assi ben Shaul.

One of the questions he laid before Rebbi concerned the vessels of Beit Chonyo. According to the view that Beit Chonyo was not counted a house of avodah zarah, may the vessels used there be used in the Beit HaMikdash — the kohanim who served there being disqualified only as a penalty — or are the vessels forbidden as well? Rebbi answered that there is a pasuk teaching that they are forbidden, but he could not call it to mind. Rav Yose then pressed the other way, from the words of Divrei HaYamim II 29:19 about the vessels that King Achaz had cast aside, which were prepared and sanctified and set before the mizbeach of Hashem. Hearing him, Rebbi rejoiced and blessed him for returning his lost object — for that was the very pasuk he had forgotten, since its meaning is that those vessels were stored away and others sanctified in their place.

The Yerushalmi brings the case of a man who hated to keep mitzvot while his wife loved them and was not allowed by him to keep them. Once she brought a poor man into the house while her husband was out, and hid him in the attic when he returned; a snake put its venom into the food set before the husband as he dozed, and when he woke to eat, the guest ran and stopped him. Rav Yose ben Shaul ruled that the guest was not under suspicion of yichud, since he had warned the husband and saved him from the venom. In the name of Rebbi he brings that although a katan cannot be counted for a zimmun, he may be joined to nine so that the Name of Hashem is mentioned; and in Rebbi’s name he also brings the derasha that the head of the beit din must sanctify the new month, from the pasuk in Vayikra 23:44. His talmidim Rav Chiya bar Gamda and Rav Yehoshua ben Levi bring teachings in his name, and in Ketubot it is Rav Chiya bar Gamda who cites in his name the teaching about what unfolds in the upper worlds at the hour a tzaddik is niftar.