Johanan bar Nappaha

Johanan bar Nappaha (Hebrew: יוחנן בר נפחא‎‎ Yoḥanan bar Nafḥa) (also known as Johanan bar Nafcha, "Johanan son [of the] blacksmith") (lived 180–279 CE) was a rabbi in the early era of the Talmud. He was born in Sepphoris in the Roman-ruled Galilee (then part of Syria Palaestina province). His father, a blacksmith, died prior to his birth, and his mother died soon after; he was raised by his grandfather in Sepphoris.

Judah the Prince (Yehudah Ha-Nasi) took the boy under his wing and taught him Torah. Due to the disparity in ages, though — Johanan was only fifteen years old when Rabbi Yehudah died — Johanan was not one of Yehuda's prime students; rather, he studied more under Rabbi Yehudah's students. It is said that he sat seventeen rows behind Rav (Abba Arikha) in the school taught by Rabbi Yehudah Ha-Nasi. He studied Torah diligently all his life, even selling a field house and an olive shed that he had inherited from his parents in order to be able to devote his time to study; after that was spent, he lived a life of poverty. When the time came to start teaching Torah, Johanan decided to move from Sepphoris to Tiberias, so as not to show disrespect to great rabbis in Sepphoris who did not have their own centers of Torah study. He was considered, however, the greatest rabbi in the Land of Israel, and was even esteemed in the other center of Rabbinical Judaism, Babylonia — so much so that after the deaths of Abba Arikha and Samuel of Nehardea in Babylonia, Johanan was considered by Babylonian Jews as the greatest rabbi of the generation. He started a school in Tiberias, and let anybody in if they wanted to learn, a controversial move at the time. He laid the foundations for the Yerushalmi (Jerusalem Talmud). He cites many traditions relating to the destruction of the Second Temple.

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