הרב שמואל בר נחמני

Rabbi Shmuel bar Nachmani (sometimes called bar Nachman), a kohen, was an amora of Eretz Yisrael in the second and third generations, active across the third and fourth centuries with his main seat at Lod. He was a talmid of Rabbi Yonatan ben Elazar and learned as well from Rabbi Yehoshua ben Levi; he lived early enough to have seen the tanna Rabbi Shimon ben Elazar and perhaps Rabbi Yehuda HaNasi, and his colleague was Rabbi Yaakov bar Idi. Among the amoraim he was counted one of the greatest masters of aggadah of any age, and his sayings were brought chiefly by Rabbi Chelbo.

In his youth he went to Bavel and soon returned; he went a second time on an official errand, to set the leap-year intercalation, which the political conditions of the day did not allow to be finalized in Eretz Yisrael. As an old man he came before Zenobia, the queen of Palmyra, to plead pardon for an orphaned youth. In the days of the Nasi Rabbi Yehuda the Second he was among his closest companions, traveling with him to Teveria at the Roman order. He held a place of authority in the academy, and it was his ruling that learning be set aside during the heat of the day.

His teachings run through halacha and aggadah alike — the history of Israel and the nations, the laws of gerim, and the reading of Scripture. To him belongs the idea of dirah betachtonim, brought in Midrash Tanchuma, that Hashem’s desire is to dwell in the lower, material world — a concept later central to Chabad. He is known too for his moving depiction of the grief of the Avot and of Rachel over the churban, written in Hebrew prose with dirges in Aramaic. Two of his sons are known by name, Nachman and Hillel, and teachings of both were preserved.