Rabbah bar Nachmani רבה בר נחמני
“the uprooter of mountains” — a sharpness nothing withstands
Berakhot 64a puts the question squarely: who is preferable — Rabbah, "the uprooter of mountains," or Rav Yosef, who is called "Sinai"? The first wins by sharpness, the second remembers everything. They answered: Sinai is preferable, because "everyone needs the owner of the wheat." But Rav Yosef declined the office, and Rabbah led the academy — for twenty-two years; Rav Yosef took it after him and held it two and a half years.
His end is described in Bava Metzia 86a. He was denounced to the authorities and fled: from Pumbedita to Akra, from Akra to Agma, and on. He died alone, in a field.
At that hour, says the Gemara, the heavenly academy was disputing a law of purity, and the dispute could not be settled; they said: let Rabbah bar Nachmani decide it, for he says "I am alone in this matter." And he said: "pure, pure" — and died with that word.
It is one of the best-known passages in the Talmud, and it is usually cited for one thought: an argument about the law does not stop with the death of the one arguing, and where they are arguing, his word is still needed.
On the timeline
Sources
Chazal: Mishnah, Talmud, midrash, Zohar
- Berakhot 64a — “the uprooter of mountains” and “Sinai”; twenty-two years at the head
- Bava Metzia 86a — the flight from informers and the word “pure”
Basis: Talmud and midrash.