Judah ben Ezekiel

Judah bar Ezekiel (220–299 CE) (Hebrew: יהודה בן יחזקאל; also known as Rav Yehuda bar Ezekiel) was a Babylonian amora of the 2nd generation. He was the most prominent disciple of Rav (Abba Arika), in whose house he often stayed, and whose son was his pupil (Er. 2b). After Rav's death Judah went to Samuel of Nehardea, who esteemed him highly and called him "Shinena" (= "sharpwitted"; Ber. 36a; Kid. 32a) or he with the long teeth (R' Hai Gaon in a responsa). He remained with Samuel until he founded a school of his own at Pumbedita. He died there in 299.

Judah possessed such great zeal for learning and such tireless energy that he even omitted daily prayer in order to secure more time for study, and prayed but once in thirty days (R. H. 35a). This diligence, together with a remarkably retentive memory, made it possible for him to collect and transmit the greater part of Rav's, as well as many of Samuel's, sayings; the Talmud contains about four hundred haggadic and halakic sayings by the former, and many by the latter, all recorded by Judah b. Ezekiel, while a number of other sayings of Rav's that occur in the Talmud without the name of the transmitter likewise were handed down by Judah (Rashi to Ḥul. 44a).

In recording the words of his teachers, Judah used extreme care, and frequently stated explicitly that his authority for a given saying was uncertain, and that his informant did not know positively whether it was Rav's or Samuel's (Ḥul. 18b). His own memory, however, never failed him, and the traditions recorded by him are reliable. When his brother Rami says, in one place, that a certain sentence of Rav's, quoted by Judah, should be disregarded (Ḥul. 44a), he does not question the accuracy of Judah's citation, but implies that Rav had afterward abandoned the opinion quoted by Judah, and had, in a statement which the latter had not heard, adopted an opposite view.

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