Rav (Abba Arikha) רב (אבא אריכא)
first Babylonian Amora, founder of the academy at Sura
His name was Abba, his nickname Arikha — «the tall one». In the Talmud he is simply «Rav», without a name, as «Rebbi» without a name means Yehuda HaNasi: the title of a man who begins an era.
Raised in Babylonia, he went up to the Land of Israel and studied with Rabbi Yehuda HaNasi while the Mishnah was still the living speech of its editor. Returning home he found Jewish Babylonia rich and populous but starved of learning. Around the year 3979 he founded the academy at Sura, which lasted eight hundred years.
Rav is remembered for more than law. Tradition credits him with the Rosh Hashanah prayers, including «Aleinu»; his is the saying that the commandments were given only to refine human beings, and the warning that a person will one day answer for every permitted pleasure he refused.
He also established the «kallah» months, when farmers and traders left their work to study. With Shmuel of Nehardea he forms the pair whose arguments open the Babylonian Talmud.