Rabbi Yehoshua

"Happy is she who bore him"

Pirkei Avot, the tractate of the Mishnah that collects the sages' sayings on character, says that Rabban Yochanan ben Zakkai had five students and used to count the praise of each one. For Rabbi Yehoshua ben Chananya his words were: "Happy is she who bore him." The Mishnah does not explain the praise or say anything more about his mother.

A baraita (a teaching from the time of the Mishnah that was not put into the Mishnah) reads the verse "Justice, justice shall you pursue" as telling a person to go after the sages to the place where they sit. It then lists sages and their towns. For Rabbi Yehoshua the town is Peki'in. The baraita does not say where Peki'in is.

The blackened walls

The Gemara in Berakhot tells that Rabban Gamliel went to make peace with Rabbi Yehoshua. When he reached his house he saw that the walls were black. He said: "From the walls of your house it can be seen that you are a pechami." Rabbi Yehoshua answered: "Woe to the generation that has you as its leader, for you do not know the pain of Torah scholars, how they earn a living and how they feed themselves." Rabban Gamliel asked him to forgive him. Rabbi Yehoshua paid no attention, until Rabban Gamliel said, "Do it for the honor of my father." Then he was reconciled.

What is a pechami?

The Hebrew word is pechami (פחמי), from the word for charcoal. Rashi, the main commentary on the Gemara, gives two readings. The first is that he made charcoal. Then Rashi adds that some say it means a smith, a person who works metal in a fire.

A different telling: making needles

The Jerusalem Talmud, the Gemara that was put together in Eretz Yisrael, tells this visit differently. There Rabban Gamliel went to Rabbi Yehoshua and found him sitting and making needles. This telling has no black walls and no word pechami. It does have the same answer: "Woe to the generation that has you as its leader."

When he died

The Mishnah at the end of tractate Sotah lists sages and what left the world when each one died. Its line for him is: "When Rabbi Yehoshua died, good came to an end in the world." The Mishnah writes only "Rabbi Yehoshua" here, and it does not explain the line.

Pirkei Avot is the tractate of the Mishnah that collects the sages' sayings on character. It says that Rabban Yochanan ben Zakkai had five students, and it names them. The first two are Rabbi Eliezer ben Hyrkanos and Rabbi Yehoshua ben Chananya. This is one of the places that gives his father's name, Chananya.

"A house of study cannot be without something new"

A baraita in Chagigah tells that Rabbi Yochanan ben Beroka and Rabbi Elazar ben Chisma went to greet Rabbi Yehoshua in Peki'in. He asked them what new thing had been taught in the house of study that day. They answered: "We are your students, and we drink your water." He said that even so, a house of study cannot be without something new.

"Whose Shabbat was it?"

The baraita goes on. He asked whose Shabbat it had been, and they told him it was the Shabbat of Rabbi Elazar ben Azarya. (Our note: the baraita does not explain these words. They are usually understood to mean whose turn it was to teach.) They said he had taught about the section of Hakhel, the gathering of the whole people, and the verse "Gather the people, the men and the women and the little children". If the men come to learn and the women come to hear, why do the little children come? So that those who bring them are rewarded. Rabbi Yehoshua said: "You had a fine pearl in your hands, and you wanted to make me lose it?"

A different telling: on the road from Yavneh to Lod

The Jerusalem Talmud, the Gemara that was put together in Eretz Yisrael, tells the same visit in its own words. There the two sages were walking from Yavneh to Lod, two towns in Eretz Yisrael, when they greeted Rabbi Yehoshua. This book spells the name of his town with a different first letter, Beki'in. In this telling he ends by saying that the generation is not an orphan when Rabbi Elazar ben Azarya is in it.

He and Rabbi Eliezer on a festival day

In the Mishnah in Pesachim (chapter 6, Mishnah 2), Rabbi Yehoshua answers Rabbi Eliezer with a proof from the festival day, and Rabbi Eliezer objects: how can something optional be a proof for a mitzvah? The Gemara explains that Rabbi Yehoshua "follows his own reasoning", for he said that rejoicing on a festival is also a mitzvah. Then it brings a baraita. Rabbi Eliezer says that on a festival a person has only two choices: either eat and drink, or sit and learn. Rabbi Yehoshua says: split the day, half for eating and drinking and half for the house of study.

The Gemara in Nedarim, in its story of Rabbi Akiva, says that Rabbi Akiva's wife told him to go to the house of study, and that he spent twelve years in front of Rabbi Eliezer and Rabbi Yehoshua.

The walls of the house of study

A baraita in Bava Metzia tells of the day the sages argued with Rabbi Eliezer about an oven. Rabbi Eliezer gave every answer and the sages did not accept them, so he called on a carob tree, then a stream, then the walls of the house of study to prove him right. The walls leaned over to fall. Rabbi Yehoshua scolded them: "If Torah scholars are trying to win against each other in a matter of law, what business is it of yours?" The baraita says the walls did not fall, out of respect for Rabbi Yehoshua, and did not stand straight, out of respect for Rabbi Eliezer.

"It is not in heaven"

The baraita continues. Rabbi Eliezer said: if the law is as I say, let it be proved from heaven. A voice came out from heaven (in Hebrew, a bat kol) and said: "What do you want with Rabbi Eliezer? The law is as he says everywhere." Rabbi Yehoshua stood up on his feet and said: "It is not in heaven." (Our note: these words come from a verse in the Torah, in the book of Devarim.) The whole story is on Rabbi Eliezer's page.

The witnesses to the new moon

The Mishnah in Rosh Hashanah tells that Rabban Gamliel had pictures of the shapes of the moon, which he showed to the witnesses who came to say they had seen the new moon. Once two witnesses said they had seen it at its time, and that on the following night it was not seen. Rabban Gamliel accepted them. Rabbi Dosa ben Harkinas said they were false witnesses. Rabbi Yehoshua said to him: "I see your words", meaning that he agreed with him.

"Come to me with your staff and your money"

The next Mishnah tells what Rabban Gamliel did. He sent to Rabbi Yehoshua: "I decree on you that you come to me with your staff and your money on the day that is Yom Kippur by your count." (Our note: a staff and money are things a person does not carry on Yom Kippur. The Mishnah does not stop to say this.) Rabbi Akiva went and found him troubled. He told him that whatever Rabban Gamliel has done is done, and he learned it from a verse about the festivals.

"My teacher and my student"

The same Mishnah goes on. Rabbi Yehoshua came to Rabbi Dosa ben Harkinas, who said to him: if we come to judge the court of Rabban Gamliel, we must judge every court that has stood from the days of Moshe until now. Rabbi Yehoshua took his staff and his money in his hand and went to Yavneh, to Rabban Gamliel, on the day that was Yom Kippur by his own count. Rabban Gamliel stood up and kissed him on his head. He said: "Come in peace, my teacher and my student. My teacher in wisdom, and my student because you accepted my words."

The question about the evening prayer

A baraita in Berakhot tells that a student asked Rabbi Yehoshua whether the evening prayer is optional or an obligation, and he said: optional. The student asked Rabban Gamliel, who said: obligation. In the house of study Rabban Gamliel asked whether anyone disagreed, and Rabbi Yehoshua said no. Rabban Gamliel said: but I was told "optional" in your name. Rabban Gamliel told him to stand on his feet so that they could testify about him. Rabbi Yehoshua stood up and said: if I were alive and he were dead, the living could deny the dead. Now that I am alive and he is alive, how can the living deny the living?

Left standing, and what the people did

The story continues. Rabban Gamliel sat and taught while Rabbi Yehoshua stood on his feet, until all the people murmured and told Chutzpit the interpreter, the man who repeated the teacher's words aloud, to stop, and he stopped. They said: how long will he go on causing him pain? He caused him pain on Rosh Hashanah last year. He caused him pain in Bekhorot, in the matter of Rabbi Tzadok. And here too he caused him pain. "Come, let us remove him." They did not put Rabbi Yehoshua in his place, because he was the one the matter was about.

Rashi on the two earlier times

Rashi, the main commentary on the Gemara, explains the two earlier times the people mention. "On Rosh Hashanah" is the story in tractate Rosh Hashanah, where Rabban Gamliel told him to come with his staff and his money on the day that was Yom Kippur by his count. "In Bekhorot" means tractate Bekhorot. Rashi says that there too Rabban Gamliel told Rabbi Yehoshua to stand on his feet, as he did here. That passage in Bekhorot was not opened for this page.

The three who got the better of him: the woman

In Eruvin, Rabbi Yehoshua ben Chananya says: "In all my days no one ever got the better of me, except a woman, a boy and a girl." The woman kept an inn where he stayed. On the first two days he ate all the beans she made and left nothing. On the third day she put in too much salt, and he stopped after one taste and told her he had already eaten earlier. She said that in that case he should have held back from the bread too. Then she asked whether perhaps he had left nothing on the first days, and reminded him that the sages said to leave a little over on the plate.

The girl and the boy

He goes on. Once he was walking on a path that cut through a field. A girl said, "Rabbi, is this not a field?" He said it was a path already trodden down, and she answered: "Robbers like you trod it down." Another time he asked a boy at a crossroads which road led to the town. The boy said, "This one is short and long, and this one is long and short." He took the short and long one, and found the town ringed by gardens and orchards, so he had to turn back. He asked the boy, "Did you not tell me it was short?" and the boy said, "Did I not tell you it was long?" Rabbi Yehoshua kissed him on his head and said: "Happy are you, Israel, for you are all very wise, from your greatest to your smallest."

The people who stopped eating meat

A baraita in Bava Batra tells that when the Second Temple was destroyed, many people in Israel held back from eating meat and drinking wine. Rabbi Yehoshua joined their company and asked them why. They said meat used to be brought on the altar and wine used to be poured on it, and now that has stopped. He showed them that by the same reasoning they could not eat bread or fruit or drink water, and they were silent. He told them: "Not to mourn at all is impossible, because the decree has already been made. To mourn too much is also impossible, because we do not make a decree for the public unless most of the public can live with it." The baraita goes on: rather, this is what the sages said. A person plasters his house and leaves a small part of it bare.

What "it is not in heaven" means

A baraita in Bava Metzia tells that in an argument with Rabbi Eliezer, a voice from heaven said the law was as Rabbi Eliezer said, and Rabbi Yehoshua stood up and answered: "It is not in heaven." The Gemara asks what he meant, and Rabbi Yirmeya, one of the Amoraim (the sages of the Gemara), answers. The Torah was already given at Mount Sinai, so we pay no attention to a voice from heaven. For You already wrote in the Torah at Mount Sinai: "Follow the majority." ("You" is said to Hashem.) This is Rabbi Yirmeya's explanation. Rabbi Yehoshua himself said only the three Hebrew words, "It is not in heaven."

The Gemara uses this as his rule elsewhere

The Gemara in Yevamot brings two opinions about whether Beit Shammai, the school of Shammai, acted by their own rulings. It asks when this was, and gives two possible answers. In the second answer the time is after a voice from heaven, and the opinion that they did act is said to be Rabbi Yehoshua's view, "who said: we pay no attention to a voice from heaven." Here the Gemara states the rule in his name.

Abaye and Rava on the evening prayer

Rav Yehuda says in the name of Shmuel that Rabban Gamliel and Rabbi Yehoshua disagreed about the evening prayer: Rabban Gamliel says it is an obligation, and Rabbi Yehoshua says it is optional. Two later Amoraim then disagree about which view is the law. Abaye says the law follows the one who says obligation. Rava says the law follows the one who says optional. This is a dispute in the Gemara. This page gives no ruling on what to do in practice, and it does not explain what "optional" means here. Ask your teacher.