Rav Ashi

Who was Rav Ashi?

Rav Ashi was a Babylonian Amoraic Talmid Chacham, who reestablished the Academy at Sura and was first editor of the Babylonian Talmud. According to a tradition preserved in the academies, Rav Ashi was born in the same year that Rava, the great teacher of Mahuza, died, and he was the first teacher of any importance in the Talmudic Academies in Babylonia after Raba's death. Simai, Ashi's father, was a rich and learned man, a student of the college of Naresh near Sura, which was directed by Rav Papa, Raba's disciple. Ashi's teacher was Rav Kahana, a member of the same college, who later became president of the academy at Pumbedita.