1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Rabbi

​RABBI, a Hebrew word meaning “my master,” “myteacher.” It is derived from the adjective rab (in Aramaic,and frequently also in Hebrew, “great”), which acquired inmodern Hebrew the signification of “lord,” in relation to servantsor slaves, and of “teacher,” “master,” in relation to thedisciple. The master was addressed by his pupils with theword rabbi (“my teacher”), or rabbenu (“our teacher”). Itbecame customary to speak of Moses as Moshe rabbenu (“ourteacher Moses”). Jesus makes it a reproach against thescribes that they cause themselves to be entitled by the peoplerabbi (ῥαββί, Matt. xxiii. 7): and He Himself is saluted by thedisciples of John as rabbi (John i. 38, where the word is explainedas equivalent to διδάσκαλε). As an honorary title of thescribes, with whose name it was constantly linked, “Rabbi”only came into use during the last decades of the second Temple.Hillel and Shammai, the contemporaries of Herod, werementioned without any title. Gamaliel I., the grandson of Hillel,was the first to whose name the appellation Rabban (the same asrabbon, and also pronounced as ribbon, cf. ῥαββουνί, Mark x. 51;John xx. 16) was prefixed. This title, a higher distinction thanthat of rabbi, is in tradition borne only by the descendants ofGamaliel I., the last being Gamaliel III., the son of Jehuda I.(Aboth ii. 2), and by Joḥanan b. Zaccai, the founder of theschool of Jamnia (Jabneh). Otherwise all Tannaites (seeTanna), the scholars of the Mishnah period, were distinguished by the title of “rabbi.” The Jehuda I. mentioned above, theredactor of the Mishnah, was honoured as the “Rabbi”κατ’ ἐξοχήν (“par excellence”), and in the tradition of thehouses of learning, if it was necessary to speak of him or to citehis opinions and utterances, he was simply referred to as“Rabbi,” without the mention of any name. Scholars who werenot definitely ordained—and among these were men of highdistinction-were simply mentioned by their names withoutthe Rabbi-title. In the post-Talmudic age the Qaraites, whorejected the tradition of the Talmud, designated the Jews whoadhered to that tradition as Rabbanites. Similarly the termRabbins, or Rabbis, is applied to modern Jewish clergy. Theplural rabbanim was employed to describe the later Jewishscholars (so, for example, in the historian Abraham Ibn Daud,12th century). By “rabbinical literature” is understood thepost-Talmudic Jewish literature; in particular, so far as itssubject is the literature of the tradition and its contents.

Rab became a proper name as the standing nomenclatureof the celebrated amora, Abba Arika (q.v.). (W. Ba.)