Rabbi Anani ben Sason (Hebrew: רבי ענני בר ששון; also called 'Anani, 'Inani, and 'Inyani) was a

Jew Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""Th ...

ish

Talmud The Talmud (; he, , Talmūḏ) is the central text of Rabbinic Judaism and the primary source of Jewish religious law (''halakha'') and Jewish theology. Until the advent of modernity, in nearly all Jewish communities, the Talmud was the cente ...

ist who lived in the

Land of Israel The Land of Israel () is the traditional Jewish name for an area of the Southern Levant. Related biblical, religious and historical English terms include the Land of Canaan, the Promised Land, the Holy Land, and Palestine (see also Isra ...

in the third century (third generation of

amoraim ''Amoraim'' (Aramaic language, Aramaic: plural or , singular ''Amora'' or ''Amoray''; "those who say" or "those who speak over the people", or "spokesmen") refers to Jewish scholars of the period from about 200 to 500 Common Era, CE, who "sai ...

Teachings

He was a contemporary of

Rabbi Ammi Rabbi Ammi, Aimi, Immi (Hebrew: רבי אמי) is the name of several Jewish Talmudists, known as amoraim, who lived in the Land of Israel and Babylonia. In the Babylonian Talmud the first form only is used; in the Jerusalem Talmud all three forms ...

. He rarely discussed ''Halakhot'', and his discussions of them were not original. Once he recited a ''

Halakhah ''Halakha'' (; he, הֲלָכָה, ), also transliterated as ''halacha'', ''halakhah'', and ''halocho'' ( ), is the collective body of Jewish religious laws which is derived from the written and Oral Torah. Halakha is based on biblical commandm ...

'' in the patriarch's mansion, without naming its author, which provoked Ammi to ask: "Is it his own? It is what Rabbi Eleazar had reported in the name of Rabbi Oshaiah". In ''

aggadah Aggadah ( he, ''ʾAggāḏā'' or ''Haggāḏā''; Jewish Babylonian Aramaic: אַגָּדְתָא ''ʾAggāḏəṯāʾ''; "tales, fairytale, lore") is the non-legalistic exegesis which appears in the classical rabbinic literature of Judaism, ...

'', he sometimes reported the sayings of others, but more often he was original. Thus, to explain the juxtaposition of the laws of sacrifice and priestly vestments, he argues that the priestly vestments were to provide atonement just as the sacrifices do. He represents the

miter The mitre (Commonwealth English) (; Greek: μίτρα, "headband" or "turban") or miter (American English; see spelling differences), is a type of headgear now known as the traditional, ceremonial headdress of bishops and certain abbots in t ...

as atoning for haughtiness, and cites R. Chanina as saying, "That which rests highest on the priest atones for one's considering himself high"; and similarly with the rest of the priestly garments. Referring to God's appearance in the burning bush he remarks, "The Holy One—blessed be He!—said to Moses, 'When I will it, one of my angels stretches forth his hand from heaven and reaches to the ground,' as Scripture says, 'He put forth the form of a hand, and took me by a lock of my head'; and when it so pleases me, I make three angels sit under one tree; when I choose, my glory fills the universe, as it is written, 'Do I not fill heaven and earth? says the Lord'; and when I so willed, I spoke to

Job Work or labor (or labour in British English) is intentional activity people perform to support the needs and wants of themselves, others, or a wider community. In the context of economics, work can be viewed as the human activity that contr ...

in a whirlwind, as it is said "The Lord answered Job out of the whirlwind"". The same idea, though in different form, is found elsewhere in the name of R. Chanina b. Issi (Sissi). As the name of the subject of this article is sometimes written 'Inani and also 'Inyani—which forms are dialectic variations of Chanina, though with the initial ''aleph'' instead of ''ayin''—the circumstance probably suggested the identity of the two names. But this identification meets with insuperable chronological difficulties, Chanina b. Sissi being a contemporary of

Johanan Yohanan, Yochanan and Johanan are various transliterations to the Latin alphabet of the Hebrew male given name ('), a shortened form of ('), meaning "YHWH is gracious". The name is ancient, recorded as the name of Johanan, high priest of the Sec ...

, while 'Anani was younger even than Johanan's pupils. Isaac Reichlin''Ha-Kerem,'' 1887, p. 214b aptly suggests that Anani's real name was Ananiel, as it is still preserved in ''Exodus Rabbah'' 3:7, and that its apocopated form was adopted to avoid the mention of the name "El" (God) in common speech.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Anani Ben Sason Talmud rabbis of the Land of Israel 3rd-century rabbis Year of birth unknown Year of death unknown