Judah ha-Nasi (Hebrew: יְהוּדָה הַנָּשִׂיא, Yəhūḏā hanNāsīʾ; Yehudah HaNasi or Judah the Prince or Judah the President) or Judah I, known simply as Rebbi or Rabbi, was a second-century rabbi (a tanna of the fifth generation) and chief redactor and editor of the Mishnah. He lived from approximately 135 to 217 CE. He was a key leader of the Jewish community in Roman-occupied Judea after the Bar Kokhba revolt.
The title nasi was used for presidents of the Sanhedrin. He was the first nasi to have this title added permanently to his name; in traditional literature he is usually called "Rabbi Yehuda ha-Nasi." Often though (and always in the Mishnah) he is simply called Rabbi "my teacher" (רבי), the master par excellence. He is occasionally called Rabbenu "our master". He is also called "Rabbenu HaQadosh" "our holy master" (רבנו הקדוש) due to his deep piety.
Judah was born in 135 in the newly-established Roman province of Syria Palaestina to Simeon ben Gamaliel II. According to the Talmud, he was of the Davidic line. He is said to have been born on the same day that Rabbi Akiva died as a martyr. The Talmud suggests that this was a result of divine providence: God had granted the Jewish people another leader of great stature to succeed Akiva. His exact place of birth is unknown.
Judah spent his youth in the city of Usha in the Lower Galilee. His father presumably gave him the same education that he had received, including Koine Greek. This knowledge of Greek enabled him to become the Jews' intermediary with the Roman authorities. He favoured Greek as the language of the country over Jewish Palestinian Aramaic. In Judah's house, only the Hebrew language was spoken, and the maids of the house became known for their use of obscure Hebrew terminology.
Judah devoted himself to the study of the oral and the written law. He studied under some of Akiva's most eminent students. As their student and through conversation with other prominent men who gathered about his father, he laid a strong foundation of scholarship for his life's work: the editing of the Mishnah.
His teacher at Usha was Judah bar Ilai, who was officially employed in the house of the patriarch as judge in religious and legal questions. In later years, Judah described how in his childhood he read the Book of Esther at Usha in the presence of Judah bar Ilai.
Judah felt especial reverence for Jose ben Halafta, the student of Akiva's who had the closest relations with Simon ben Gamaliel. When, in later years, Judah raised objections to Jose's opinions, he would say: "We poor ones undertake to attack Jose, though our time compares with his as the profane with the holy!" Judah hands down a halakhah by Jose in Menachot 14a.
Judah studied from Shimon bar Yochai in Teqoa, a place some have identified with Meron. He also studied with Eleazar ben Shammua. Judah did not study with Rabbi Meir, evidently in consequence of the conflicts which distanced Meir from the house of the patriarch. However, he considered himself lucky even to have seen Meir from behind.
Another of Judah's teachers was Nathan the Babylonian, who also took a part in the conflict between Meir and the patriarch; Judah confessed that once, in a fit of youthful ardour, he had failed to treat Nathan with due reverence. In both halakhic and aggadic tradition, Judah's opinion is often opposed to Nathan's.
In the Jerusalemite tradition, Judah ben Korshai (the halakhic specialist mentioned as assistant to Simon ben Gamaliel) is designated as Judah's real teacher. Jacob ben Hanina (possibly the R. Jacob whose patronymic is not given and in whose name Judah quotes halakhic sentences) is also mentioned as one of Judah's teachers, and is said to have asked him to repeat halakhic sentences.
Judah was also taught by his father (Simon ben Gamaliel); when the two differed on a halakhic matter, the father was generally stricter. Judah himself says: "My opinion seems to me more correct than that of my father"; and he then proceeds to give his reasons. Humility was a virtue ascribed to Judah, and he admired it greatly in his father, who openly recognised Shimon bar Yochai's superiority, thus displaying the same modesty as the Bnei Bathyra when they gave way to Hillel, and as Jonathan when he voluntarily gave precedence to his friend David.
Nothing is known regarding the time when Judah succeeded his father as leader of the Jews remaining in Eretz Yisrael. According to Rashi, Judah's father Simon had served as the nasi or head of the Sanhedrin in Usha before it moved to Shefar'am (now Shefa-'Amr). According to a tradition, the country at the time of Simon ben Gamaliel's death not only was devastated by a plague of locusts but suffered many other hardships.
From Shefar'am, the Sanhedrin transferred to Beit Shearim (now part of the Beit She'arim necropolis), where the Sanhedrin was headed by Judah. Here he officiated for a long time. Eventually, Judah moved with the court from Beit Shearim to Sepphoris, where he spent at least 17 years of his life. Judah chose Sepphoris chiefly because of his ill health would improve in its high altitude and pure air. However, Judah's memorial as a leader is principally associated with Bet She'arim: "The Sages taught: The verse states: “Justice, justice, shall you follow.” This teaches that one should follow the Sages to the academy where they are found. For example [...] after Rabbi Yehuda HaNasi to Beit She’arim[.]"
Among Judah's contemporaries in the early years of his activity were Eleazar ben Simeon, Ishmael ben Jose, Jose ben Judah, and Simeon ben Eleazar. His better-known contemporaries and students include Simon b. Manasseh, Pinchas ben Yair, Eleazar ha-Kappar and his son Bar Kappara, Hiyya the Great, Shimon ben Halafta, and Levi ben Sisi. Among his students who taught as the first generation of Amoraim after his death are: Hanina bar Hama and Hoshaiah Rabbah in Eretz Yisrael, Abba Arikha and Samuel of Nehardea in Babylon (the Jewish term for Lower Mesopotamia).
Only scattered records of Judah's official activity exist. These include: the ordination of his students; the recommendation of students for communal offices; orders relating to the announcement of the new moon; amelioration of the law relating to the Sabbatical year; and to decrees relating to tithes in the frontier districts of Eretz Yisrael. The last-named he was obliged to defend against the opposition of the members of the patriarchal family. The ameliorations he intended for Tisha B'Av were prevented by the college. Many religious and legal decisions are recorded as having been rendered by Judah together with his court, the college of scholars.
According to the Talmud, Rabbi Judah HaNasi was very wealthy and greatly revered in Rome. He had a close friendship with "Antoninus", possibly the Emperor Antoninus Pius, though it is more likely his famous friendship was with either Emperor Marcus Aurelius Antoninus or Antoninus who is also called Caracalla and who would consult Judah on various worldly and spiritual matters. Jewish sources tell of various discussions between Judah and Antoninus. These include the parable of the blind and the lame (illustrating the judgment of the body and the soul after death), and a discussion of the impulse to sin.
The authority of Judah's office was enhanced by his wealth, which is referred to in various traditions. In Babylon, the hyperbolic statement was later made that even his stable-master was wealthier than King Shapur. His household was compared to that of the emperor. Simeon ben Menasya praised Judah by saying that he and his sons united in themselves beauty, power, wealth, wisdom, age, honour, and the blessings of children. During a famine, Judah opened his granaries and distributed corn among the needy. But he denied himself the pleasures procurable by wealth, saying: "Whoever chooses the delights of this world will be deprived of the delights of the next world; whoever renounces the former will receive the latter".
The year of Judah's death is deduced from the statement that his student Abba Arikha left Eretz Yisrael for good not long before Judah's death, in year 530 of the Seleucid era (219 CE). He assumed the office of patriarch during the reign of Marcus Aurelius and Lucius Verus (c. 165). Hence Judah, having been born about 135, became patriarch at the age of 30, and died at the age of about 85. The Talmud notes that Rabbi Judah the Prince lived for at least 17 years in Sepphoris, and that he applied unto himself the biblical verse, "And Jacob lived in the land of Egypt seventeen years" (Genesis 47:28).