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Bar Kappara
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Bar Kappara
Bar Kappara (Jewish Palestinian Aramaic: בר קפרא, romanized: bar qapparā) was a Jewish scholar of the late second and early third century CE (i.e., during the period between the tannaim and amoraim). He was active in Caesarea Maritima, the capital of the Roman province of Syria Palaestina, from around 180 to 220 CE. His name, meaning "Son of Qappara", was taken from his father, Eleazar ha-Kappar. He was one of the students of Judah ha-Nasi and a first-generation amora.
He was a talented poet and storyteller, and it is said that, at the wedding feast of Simeon ben Judah ha-Nasi, he kept the guests captivated with fables until their food got cold. His satirical wit, however, lost him the chance to be ordained as a rabbi.
His full name was Eleazar (there seems to be no ground for the form "Eliezer") ben Eleazar ha-Kappar. This is the form appearing in the tannaite sources, Tosefta and Sifre; the usual Talmudic form, "Bar Kappara," and the frequent appellation, "Eleazar ha-Kappar Berabbi", are abbreviations of this. According to a later source, his given name was Shimon rather than Eleazar.
In Ecclesiastes Rabbah, He is referred to as Abba bar Kappara.
Bar Kappara appears in a story in Ecclesiastes Rabbah where he entertains a party with stories about foxes, which were popular in Hellenistic culture:
Rabbi made a wedding feast for his son. Rabbi invited all the Rabbis but forgot to invite bar Kappara. [Bar Kappara] went and wrote on the gate of [Rabbi’s] house: After all your rejoicing there is death; and what is the profit in your rejoicing? [Rabbi] said: ‘Who did this to us?’ They said: ‘It was bar Kappara whom, alone, you forgot to invite, and he is disgraced.’ He went and made another feast and he invited all the rabbis and he invited bar Kappara. For each and every dish that [the waiter] would place before them, [bar Kappara] would recite three hundred parables about the fox. [The parables] were very pleasant for them, and the dishes grew cold and they did not taste them. Rabbi would say to his servants: ‘Why are the dishes going in and going out and they are not tasting anything?’ They said to him: ‘Because one of the elders who is sitting there, when the dish is taken in, he says three hundred parables regarding the fox. That is why the dishes are growing cold and they are not eating anything.’ He came to [bar Kappara] and said: ‘Why are you doing this? Let the diners eat.’ [Bar Kappara] said to him: ‘It is so you do not think that I came here because of your feast, but rather, it is because you did not invite me here with my colleagues.’ Is this not what Solomon said: “What profit is there for man [in all his toil that he toils under the sun]” (Ecclesiastes 1:3), since “one generation passes and one generation comes” (Ecclesiastes 1:4). After they placated each other, they were reconciled. Abba bar Kappara said to Rabbi: ‘If, in this world, which is not yours, the Holy One blessed be He granted you serenity, in the World to Come, which is entirely yours, all the more so.’
Bar Kappara was a pupil of Judah ha-Nasi. His teachers seem to also include Nathan the Babylonian and Jeremiah ben Eleazar (probably identical with the Jeremiah mentioned in the Mekhilta of the Land of Israel and Sifre).
Bar Kappara and Judah ha-Nasi seem to have been opposites in personality, with Judah haNasi's princely grandeur contrasting with Bar Kappara's poetic abandon and vivacious attitude. Perhaps as a result, the two are recorded as coming into conflict in various ways. Judah initially refused to invite Bar Kappara to the wedding of Simeon bar Judah ha-Nasi, and after Judah changed his mind, Bar Kappara went on to mock Judah at the wedding. According to another source, Bar Kappara took revenge differently: at the feast which Judah subsequently gave in Bar Kappara's honor, the latter told a vast number of fox fables (300, it is reported) and the guests left the food untouched to listen to him.
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Bar Kappara
Bar Kappara (Jewish Palestinian Aramaic: בר קפרא, romanized: bar qapparā) was a Jewish scholar of the late second and early third century CE (i.e., during the period between the tannaim and amoraim). He was active in Caesarea Maritima, the capital of the Roman province of Syria Palaestina, from around 180 to 220 CE. His name, meaning "Son of Qappara", was taken from his father, Eleazar ha-Kappar. He was one of the students of Judah ha-Nasi and a first-generation amora.
He was a talented poet and storyteller, and it is said that, at the wedding feast of Simeon ben Judah ha-Nasi, he kept the guests captivated with fables until their food got cold. His satirical wit, however, lost him the chance to be ordained as a rabbi.
His full name was Eleazar (there seems to be no ground for the form "Eliezer") ben Eleazar ha-Kappar. This is the form appearing in the tannaite sources, Tosefta and Sifre; the usual Talmudic form, "Bar Kappara," and the frequent appellation, "Eleazar ha-Kappar Berabbi", are abbreviations of this. According to a later source, his given name was Shimon rather than Eleazar.
In Ecclesiastes Rabbah, He is referred to as Abba bar Kappara.
Bar Kappara appears in a story in Ecclesiastes Rabbah where he entertains a party with stories about foxes, which were popular in Hellenistic culture:
Rabbi made a wedding feast for his son. Rabbi invited all the Rabbis but forgot to invite bar Kappara. [Bar Kappara] went and wrote on the gate of [Rabbi’s] house: After all your rejoicing there is death; and what is the profit in your rejoicing? [Rabbi] said: ‘Who did this to us?’ They said: ‘It was bar Kappara whom, alone, you forgot to invite, and he is disgraced.’ He went and made another feast and he invited all the rabbis and he invited bar Kappara. For each and every dish that [the waiter] would place before them, [bar Kappara] would recite three hundred parables about the fox. [The parables] were very pleasant for them, and the dishes grew cold and they did not taste them. Rabbi would say to his servants: ‘Why are the dishes going in and going out and they are not tasting anything?’ They said to him: ‘Because one of the elders who is sitting there, when the dish is taken in, he says three hundred parables regarding the fox. That is why the dishes are growing cold and they are not eating anything.’ He came to [bar Kappara] and said: ‘Why are you doing this? Let the diners eat.’ [Bar Kappara] said to him: ‘It is so you do not think that I came here because of your feast, but rather, it is because you did not invite me here with my colleagues.’ Is this not what Solomon said: “What profit is there for man [in all his toil that he toils under the sun]” (Ecclesiastes 1:3), since “one generation passes and one generation comes” (Ecclesiastes 1:4). After they placated each other, they were reconciled. Abba bar Kappara said to Rabbi: ‘If, in this world, which is not yours, the Holy One blessed be He granted you serenity, in the World to Come, which is entirely yours, all the more so.’
Bar Kappara was a pupil of Judah ha-Nasi. His teachers seem to also include Nathan the Babylonian and Jeremiah ben Eleazar (probably identical with the Jeremiah mentioned in the Mekhilta of the Land of Israel and Sifre).
Bar Kappara and Judah ha-Nasi seem to have been opposites in personality, with Judah haNasi's princely grandeur contrasting with Bar Kappara's poetic abandon and vivacious attitude. Perhaps as a result, the two are recorded as coming into conflict in various ways. Judah initially refused to invite Bar Kappara to the wedding of Simeon bar Judah ha-Nasi, and after Judah changed his mind, Bar Kappara went on to mock Judah at the wedding. According to another source, Bar Kappara took revenge differently: at the feast which Judah subsequently gave in Bar Kappara's honor, the latter told a vast number of fox fables (300, it is reported) and the guests left the food untouched to listen to him.