Grave
Chanina ben Dosa
Tanna
Resting Place of Tanna Rabbi Chanina ben Dosa
Burial place - the Arab village of Kfar Arraba;
Rabbi Chanina ben Dosa was a renowned miracle-worker and tzadik. A disciple
of Rabbi Yochanan ben Zakkai.
In the merit of his prayers the sick were healed, and he could foretell in advance: "This one will live, and this one will die," for he could sense when his prayer was accepted and when it was rejected (Berachot 34b).
It is told that when Rabbi Gamliel's son fell ill, he sent messengers to
Rabbi Chanina. After offering his prayer, Rabbi Chanina said: "Go back, the fever has already left the patient." The messengers noted the exact time of his prayer, and when they returned to Rabbi Gamliel, it turned out that the healing had occurred at that very moment.
Another time, when
Rabbi Chanina healed the son of his teacher Rabbi Yochanan from a mortal illness, Rabbi Yochanan's wife exclaimed in astonishment: "Is your student Chanina really greater than you?!"
Rabbi Yochanan explained: "I am like a minister who is admitted to the King only occasionally, while Chanina is like a servant who may enter the King's presence at any moment" (Berachot, ibid.).
Through his prayer Rabbi Chanina could bring on rain and stop it (Taanit 24b).
Every day a Bat Kol (heavenly voice) would proclaim:
"The whole world is sustained for the sake of My son Chanina, yet My son Chanina is content with a handful of carobs from one Shabbat to the next" (Taanit, 24).
The Oven
Every Shabbat eve, Rabbi Chanina's wife, ashamed of their poverty, would place a smoking piece of firewood in the oven.
She had a spiteful neighbor, and one Shabbat eve the neighbor said to herself:
"I know full well they have nothing. Let me go and see why smoke is coming from their chimney."
She came and began knocking at the door. Ashamed of her poverty, Rabbi Chanina's wife hid in another room. At that moment a miracle occurred: entering, the neighbor found the oven full of loaves of bread and the kneading trough full of dough.
"Listen, listen," she cried, "bring the peel quickly - your bread is burning!"
"I was just going for the peel," Rabbi Chanina's wife calmly replied.
THE LEG OF THE GOLDEN TABLE
One day Rabbi Chanina's wife said to him:
"How long shall we live in such poverty?"
"But what can be done?"
"Pray to G-d and ask Him to give us something from the three treasures prepared for tzadikim in the World to Come."
So that, seeing the smoke from the chimney, people would think she was baking Shabbat loaves.
Rabbi Chanina prayed. A likeness of a hand appeared and threw him the leg of a golden table. That night Rabbi Chanina saw in a dream: the tzadikim sitting at a heavenly feast, each at a golden table with three legs, while he and his wife sat at a table with only two legs.
He told his wife of his dream and asked:
"Will it be pleasant for you, when all the tzadikim sit each at a table with three legs, and our table will be missing one leg?"
"No, no!" the wife declared. "Pray that they take it back."
Rabbi Chanina prayed - and the leg was taken back.
(Taanit, 25)
THE MIRACLE OF THE BURNING VINEGAR
One Shabbat eve, already at dusk, Rabbi Chanina found his daughter distressed about something.
"What is troubling you, my daughter?" he asked.
"Instead of the vessel of oil, I mistakenly took the vessel of vinegar and poured it into the lamp."
"No matter, my daughter," said Rabbi Chanina, "He Who commanded the oil to burn will command the vinegar to burn as well."
And the lamp with vinegar burned the entire Shabbat day, until they took fire from it for Havdalah.
THE SNAKE
In a certain place a monstrous snake appeared, which had bitten many people. They told Rabbi Chanina about it.
"Show me its burrow," said Rabbi Chanina. They brought him there. He placed his foot on the opening of the burrow. The snake rose up, bit him - and fell dead.
Rabbi Chanina took it on his shoulder and brought it to the study hall.
"You see, my children," he said to his students, "it is not the snake that kills, but sin."
From this a saying arose:
"Woe to the person who meets a snake, and woe to the snake that meets Rabbi Chanina ben Dosa" (Berachot, 33).
SPARED OR DOOMED
It was told of Rabbi Chanina that, praying for the sick, he could foretell who would recover and who would die.
Asked how he knew this, he replied:
"If my prayer flows smoothly, this tells me that the sick person is spared; if not, that he is doomed" (Berachot, 34).
TO THE VERY MINUTE
Once, when Rabban Gamliel's son fell ill, he sent two learned men to Rabbi Chanina to ask him to pray for G-d's mercy. Seeing them, Rabbi Chanina went up to an upper chamber and immersed himself in prayer. Coming back down, he said to Rabbi Gamliel's messengers:
"You may go: the fever has left the patient."
They wrote down the exact time when Rabbi Chanina said this. And when they returned and reported Rabbi Chanina's words, Rabbi Gamliel declared:
"I swear that it happened neither earlier nor later: at that very moment the fever left the patient, and he asked for water."
The cave in which he is buried is located in the Galilee, near the village of Arbel.
He used to say: "One with whom people are pleased, G-d is also pleased with; but one with whom people are displeased, G-d is also displeased with" (Berachot 3:10).
Rabbi Chanina witnessed the destruction of the Temple (Seder HaDorot).
Tractate Sotah (49a) notes that "with the death of Rabbi Chanina, those who performed great wonders ceased to exist."
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