Huna (Hona)

(3rd century)

   Babylonian amora. Huna, who came from a poor family, studied under RAV and SAMUEL MAR-SAMUEL and earned his living as a farm labourer. After the death of Rav and Samuel, he became head of the Sura academy and attracted so many new pupils that it was said that when they rose from the ground after one of Huna’s lectures, and shook out their clothes, the sun was blotted out by the cloud of dust. His great influence can be seen in the number of halachic and aggadic decisions that were transmitted in his name in the Babylonian and Jerusalem Talmuds.

   He lived well into his eighties and was buried in the Holy Land.