Rabbi Helbo
Also known as Amora of prayer and the festivals
250 CE–320 CE · Amoraim · Tiberias
A Babylonian-born Amora (late 3rd–early 4th century CE) who settled in the Land of Israel. Frequently paired with Rav Huna in the Talmud, he is known for teachings on prayer, the festivals, and the seriousness of converting sincerely.
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TiberiasLand of Israel
What they did here
Settled in the Land of Israel, teaching in Tiberias.
Tiberias in this era
Tiberias in the Amoraic era was a city caught between empires—first under late Roman (Byzantine) rule, then Persian dominion following the sixth-century conquest—yet it flourished as one of the great academies of Jewish learning in the Land of Israel. The community, substantial and culturally vital, engaged in the intense intellectual work of the Amoraic sages who debated and refined the teachings of their predecessors, their discussions eventually crystallizing into the Jerusalem Talmud. Hot springs rose from the earth near the city's shores, and the lakeside setting made Tiberias a crossroads where merchants and pilgrims mingled; the marketplace hummed with Aramaic and Greek. Scholars gathered in academies to interpret scripture and Mishnah, wrestling with questions of law and meaning that would echo through Jewish tradition for centuries. The city's Jewish population enjoyed relative autonomy under both rulers, stewarding a tradition of legal reasoning and midrashic creativity that rivaled even the great Babylonian academies, and here figures like R. Chiyya HaGadol and their contemporaries shaped the contours of rabbinic thought.
About Tiberias
Galilee center; home of Menachem Mendel of Vitebsk and his Hasidic disciples after aliyah.
In Tiberias at the same time
Anonymous (Sefer Yetzirah), Anonymous Merkavah mystics, Yose bar Chanina, Shimon bar Abba, Rabbi Ami, Shmuel bar Nachmani
In the same place & time
Sages whose lives overlapped with Rabbi Helbo’s in the same cities, drawn from their recorded journeys.
In the same tradition
Anonymous (Sefer Yetzirah), Anonymous Merkavah mystics, Yose bar Chanina, Shimon bar Abba, Rabbi Ami, Shmuel bar Nachmani, Ulla, Rabbi Assi, Chiyya bar Abba, Yitzchak Nappacha, Rav Safra, Yehuda Nesia II, Rabbi Zeira, Rabbi Levi, Rabbi Yose, Shimon bar Pazi, Rabbi Yirmeyah, Rabbi Yonah
The world in their lifetime
Thinkers and teachers of other traditions whose lives overlapped with Rabbi Helbo’s — a glimpse of the wider world they lived in. Drawn purely from recorded birth and death years.
Works
No works attributed in the corpus yet.