רבינא האחרון

Ravina the Last — Ravina II, whose full name was Rav Avina bar Rav Huna — was a Babylonian sage of the eighth and final generation of amoraim. He was likely the nephew of Ravina I; his father was niftar while he was still a child, so it was his mother who taught him the family’s rulings and customs, and his teacher Meremar too preserved his father’s Torah for him. He went to learn in the yeshiva of Rav Ashi at Mata Mechasya, where most of the amoraim of the generation had gathered to carry forward the editing of the Talmud.

He first served as a dayan, occupied chiefly with monetary law. After the passing of Mar bar Rav Ashi and of his teacher Rabbah Tosafa’ah, he was appointed rosh yeshiva at Mata Mechasya, the academy of Sura, and there he labored to complete the editing of the Bavli and the sealing of the words of the earlier chachamim — the work opened by Ravina I and Rav Ashi. His generation was a hard one for the Jews of Bavel, who suffered under the Sasanian persecutions of Peroz, remembered as Peroz rashiya, whose decrees included seizing children from their homes; the oppression at length drove the Jews to revolt under Mar Zutra the Reish Galuta.

The Gemara’s words “Rav Ashi and Ravina are the end of instruction” are understood by Rav Sherira Gaon to point to Rav Ashi, the editor of an earlier generation, and to this Ravina, who sealed the work, completing it shortly before his passing. His death marked the close of the amoraic era; the chachamim who followed, many of them his talmidim, were called the Rabbanan Savorai, who explained the Talmud he had sealed. He was niftar on the 13th of Kislev.