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A volume on Rabbi Yehuda HaNasi and the redaction of the Mishnah. Rabbi Yehuda HaNasi (latter half of the second and beginning of the third century C.E.), patriarch of Judea and redactor of the Mishnah. He is referred to also as "rabbenuha-kadosh" ("our holy teacher") or simply as "Rabbi." R. Judah was the son of Rabban Simeon b. Gamaliel and the seventh (or sixth?) generation descended from Hillel (see Nasi), having been born, according to an aggadic tradition, "on the day that R. Akiva died" during the Hadrianic persecutions (Kid. 72b). Both his contemporaries and later generations held him in veneration, and regarded him as the savior of Israel, as much as Simeon the Just, Mattathias the Hasmonean, and Mordecai and Esther (Meg. 11a). In him the sages found all the qualities which they enumerated as becoming to the righteous (Avot 6:8). They even associated his name with messianic hopes to the extent of applying to him the verse (Lam. 4:20): "The breath of our nostrils, the anointed of the Lord" (TJ, Shab. 16:1, 15c), and in his days chose for the proclamation of the new month the password: "David, King of Israel, lives and exists" (RH 25a). His wisdom, sanctity, and humility, as well as his wealth and close ties with the Roman emperor, became the subject of numerous legends. In addition to his father, his teachers included Judah b. Ilai (TJ, BM 3:1, 9a), Simeon b. Yohai (Shab. 147b), Eleazar b. Shammua (Er. 53a), Jacob b. Korshai (TJ, Shab. 10:5, 12c), and, apparently, R. Meir (Shab. 13b). His mastery of the vast volume of tradition, his great application to his studies (Ket. 104a), his humility (Sot. 9:15), coupled with self-confidence, sound judgment, and a rule that was based on a strict discipline (Ket. 103b), combined to give authority to his leadership and an undisputed status to the patriarchate.
Dr. Sigmund Gelbhaus (Joshua Samuel ; c. 1850–1928), East European rabbi and writer. Gelbhaus was born in Tysmienica (Galicia) and served as rabbi in Karlovac (Karlstadt, Croatia), Nordhausen (Germany), Prague, and Vienna. In Vienna he also lectured at the Israelitisch-Theologische Lehranstalt and at the Hebrew Paedagogium. A prolific writer, he published numerous articles, books, and translations into Hebrew. Among them are Rabbi Jehuda Hanassi und die Redaktion der Mischna (1876); Die Mittelhochdeutsche Dichtung in ihrer Beziehung zur biblisch-rabbinischen Literatur (3 vols., 1889–93); Esra und seine reformatorischen Bestrebungen (1903); Religioese Stroemungen in Judaea waehrend und nach der Zeit des babylonischen Exils (1912); and Die Metaphysik der Ethik Spinozas im Quellenlichte der Kabbala (1917). |
