Judah bar Ilai

Rabbi Yehudah ben Ilai ( Rabbi Yehudah / or Judah bar Ilai also: illai, also: Elaj [ abbreviation of Eleazar or Eliehoenai? ] Palestinian case: Yudan, in the Mishnah always easy R. Yehuda and Rabbi Juda [ more than 600 times ] called; * after 130 ) was a Tannait the so-called third generation, one of the most prolific teachers of his time, of which a very large number of halachic and aggadic statements have survived.

He is regarded as the chief representative of his generation. Sanh 86a attributes to him the basis or the anonymous statements of the halakhic Midrash Sifra. His authority was great: Regarding the many controversies with Rabbi Meir was decided in practice always Yehuda. Also Judah ha - Nasi, the redactor of the Mishnah, was one of his students.

Jehuda ben Ilai learned as a small boy with Rabbi Tarfon in Lydda. Apart from his father, Rabbi Akiba was his most important teacher.

He received the ordination secretly during the Hadrianic persecutions, together with four other colleagues from Judah ben Baba, who had to pay the banned anti- establishment ( Smicha ) of the five rabbis with his death as a martyr.

After the end of the persecutions Jehuda ben Ilai came together in Usha, his hometown, and in Yavneh and its scholars colleagues. He was of a gorgeous eloquence, could reasonably occur in each case was the first speaker and subsequently received the partly honorable and partly ambiguous epithet rosch hamedabberim [ Bekol makom ] (the first / first of the speakers ).

A certain prestige among the Romans he gained from the fact that he praised their public buildings.

He was very pious ( as was the epitome of the Hasid ), very poor, malnourished miserably and loved, apart from the studies ( craft ) work to a great extent, as they make the workers honor. After he applied the principle that those who teach not craft his son, so applies as if he of robbery teach him ( bKidd. 29a). According to some sources he was Böttcher and contributed to instill the love of work his students every time he entered the Lyceum, a self-made barrel in the room, on which he took during his teaching lecture course. Also, he should have just worn clothes that had even woven and tailored his wife.

His motto was: "Be careful when teaching, because a mistake is considered here as intentionally committed sacrilege. " ( Abot IV, 16).