Rav Chisda רב חסדא
head of Sura after Rav Huna; he taught that a person should be scrupulous in small things
Rav Chisda studied under Rav and under Rav Huna, and after the latter's death headed Sura.
His sayings in the Talmud are recognisable by their cast: short, practical, and often about the body and the household. Do not sit on someone else's if you can buy your own; eat and drink below your means, dress according to your means, and support your wife and children above your means. One who can eat barley bread and eats wheat transgresses "do not destroy."
His too is the rule that a person should not frighten his household — and the story from which it is derived.
A frequent error is worth correcting here. The well-known "do not enter a ruin" is not his: it is a baraita in Berakhot 3a, cited in the story of Rabbi Yose, who went into a ruin to pray and met Elijah there. Three reasons are named outright: suspicion, collapse, and harm. Rav Chisda has nothing to do with the passage, though his name keeps appearing beside the quotation.
On the timeline
Sources
Chazal: Mishnah, Talmud, midrash, Zohar
- Chullin 84b — eat within your means, dress to your means, keep your family above them
- Berakhot 3a — “do not enter a ruin” — a baraita, not Rav Chisda's words
Basis: Talmud and midrash.