הרב ריש לקיש

Rabbi Shimon ben Lakish (c. 3960/200–c. 4035/275), known throughout the Talmud as Reish Lakish, was among the greatest Amoraim of Eretz Yisrael in the second generation — brother-in-law, chavruta, and bar plugta of Rabbi Yochanan, with whom later generations paired him as one of the “two great ones of the world.” In his childhood he merited to see Rabbi Yehudah HaNasi. The Bavli tells that in his youth he left the path of learning: a man of tremendous bodily strength, he sold himself to the arena and for a time stood at the head of a band of highwaymen — until the day he leapt into the Yarden after Rabbi Yochanan, who said to him, “Your strength is fit for Torah.” He took Torah upon himself then and there — and found his old strength gone. Rabbi Yochanan gave him his sister in marriage, and the two never parted.

No one matched his diligence. He would repeat his Mishnah forty times before entering Rabbi Yochanan’s shiur, and supported himself as a watchman of orchards. Ulla said of him: whoever sees Reish Lakish in the beit midrash sees a man uprooting mountains and grinding them against one another. He would raise twenty-four difficulties on each teaching of Rabbi Yochanan, and through the give-and-take the halacha was clarified; Rabbi Yochanan admitted that when Reish Lakish was absent, his own right hand was missing. His objections were founded on the Mishnah, and when he found no support for a view he was not ashamed to let it go. Such was his honesty that a man seen talking with Reish Lakish in the market could borrow money without witnesses. He feared no one: he chased down the captors of Rabbi Assi at the risk of his life, and told the Nasi to his face that no fear of flesh and blood would make him hold back a word of Hashem’s Torah.

In their disputes the halacha generally follows Rabbi Yochanan, yet in a handful of great matters it stands with Reish Lakish — above all the principle that kinyan peirot is not like kinyan haguf. His sayings became the property of all Yisrael: one who lifts a hand against his fellow, even without striking, is called a rasha; adorn yourself first, and afterward adorn others; words of Torah endure only in one who kills himself over them.

His end came through a wound of words: in a dispute over when weapons become subject to tumah, Rabbi Yochanan made a remark about his early years; Reish Lakish took it to heart, fell ill, and was niftar, leaving behind nothing but a kav of saffron. Rabbi Yochanan could not be comforted, crying “Where are you, bar Lakisha? Where are you, bar Lakisha?” until his mind gave way and the chachamim asked mercy for him. A written tradition from the thirteenth century places the kever of Reish Lakish at Katzion in the Upper Galil.