אביי

Abaye is the orphan who grew to be half of the most famous pair in all the Talmud, 'the deliberations of Abaye and Rava.' He was born and immediately orphaned, 'I had no father and mother,' and was raised in the home of a nurse who called him affectionately 'Nachmani.' From that orphanhood arose one of the sharpest analysts, whose name every yeshiva student knows.

His dialectic with Rava, his contemporary, spreads across the whole Talmud, and 'the deliberations of Abaye and Rava' is an idiom for the depth of learning. In only six of their disputes was the law decided like Abaye, and in most like Rava, yet it is precisely Abaye, the side that 'lost' in law, who established the mode of thought. The Talmud is not only the ruling; it is the path to the ruling, and in that Abaye is a giant.

Abaye was also known for his fine character: 'a person should always be cunning in reverence, a soft answer turns away wrath,' and he taught that proper conduct precedes Torah. Even a master of sharp dialectic knew that wisdom begins in humility and awe, not only in incisiveness.

What do we learn from him? That even an orphan without a home can raise generations of learners, and that the value is not only in 'who was right' but in the mode of thought itself. Abaye teaches that scholarship and fine character are one, and that the greatest sharpness must sit together with 'a soft answer' and awe of Heaven.