Rav
RAV (lit., "rabbi"), epithet of Abbaʾ bar Ayyvu (c. 155–c. 247), a first-generation Babylonian amora. Rav helped lay the foundations for rabbinic Judaism in Babylonia. He studied in Palestine with his uncle Ḥiyyaʾ and with Yehuda ha-Nasiʾ, from whom he reportedly received authorization to render decisions in many areas. These contacts gave him a rich reservoir of teachings, self-reliance, and the freedom to go beyond tannaitic traditions.
Later Talmudic circles considered his resettlement in Babylonia, conventionally dated to 217, a turning point in Jewish history, one presaged by natural omens (B. T., Shab. 108a). First dwelling in Nehardea, a city on the Euphrates River, he assisted other rabbis and served as a market administrator (J.T., B.B. 5.11[5]; 15a–b). He later moved to Sura, a town hitherto said to lack a rabbinical presence. There he gathered a circle of students but probably did not head an academy, as was anachronistically claimed by some post-Talmudic chronicles (Goodblatt, 1975).
Rav's prestige was enhanced by a claim of Davidic descent and by his daughter's marriage into the exilarchic family. He was perceived as a master of wisdom and practical advice (B.T., Pes. 113a), able to read natural signs and en-dowed with the power to hurl curses to maintain respect (B.T., Meg. 5b).
In explaining the Mishnah, he drew on Palestinian sources and patterned his teachings after the Mishnah's style and phraseology even where he disputed it (Epstein, 1964). Though later Talmudic circles considered Rav especially authoritative in ritual matters, his dicta affected the way amoraim approached issues in general. Indeed, his comments, with those of Shemuʾel the amora, were subsequently reworked to form a structure around which later teachings were organized; thereby they eventually became the literary rubric for the gemaraʾ (Bokser, 1980).
Rav stands out for his wide-ranging theological interests. He emphasized that God rules with supremacy and that he benevolently and with knowledge created the world (B.T., Ḥag. 12a). The latter belief was expressed in a Roʾsh ha-Shanah prayer, teqiʿataʾ devei Rav, selected or edited by Rav, which stresses creation (J.T., ʿA.Z. 1.2; Neusner, 1966). Describing the future, Rav distinctively suggested that the righteous will experience as a reward a spiritual nourishing analogous to what the mystic visionaries of God experience in their lifetime (Chernus, 1982). He often emphasized the importance of Torah study and the respect due to Torah students (B.T., Taʿan. 24a, San. 93b). Rav made the fulfillment of messianic hopes dependent on human repentance and good deeds (B.T., San. 97b). He reportedly asserted that the commandments were designed to purify (tsaref) people, in the sense of refining or improving (Gn. Rab. 44.1). His ideas, teachings, and activities thus started the process of transforming tannaitic Judaism in Babylonia into a wider social movement.
Amoraim.
Bibliography
A comprehensive treatment and bibliography of Rav and his teachings can be found in Jacob Neusner's A History of the Jews in Babylonia, 5 vols. (Leiden, 1966–1970), esp. vol. 2, passim. Valuable works in Hebrew are Jacob Samuel Zuri's Rav (Jerusalem, 1925); Jacob N. Epstein's Mavoʾ le-nusaḥ ha-Mishnah, 2 vols. (1948; reprint, Jerusalem, 1964), pp. 166–211, on Rav's attitude to tannaitic traditions and the Mishnah; and E. S. Rosenthal's "Rav," in Sefer Hanokh Yalon (Jerusalem, 1963), pp. 281–337, on Rav's lineage and background. Works in English that include discussion of Rav are David M. Goodblatt's Rabbinic Instruction in Sasanian Babylonia (Leiden, 1975), my own Post Mishnaic Judaism in Transition (Chico, Calif., 1980), and Ira Chernus's Mysticism in Rabbinic Judaism (Berlin, 1982), esp. pp. 74–87.
New Sources
Kalmin, Richard Lee. "Changing Amoraic Attitudes toward the Authority and Statements of Rav and Shmuel: A Study of the Talmud as a Historical Source." HUCA 63 (1992): 83–106.
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