The sage known simply as "Rav," who founded the academy at Sura and inaugurated the great age of Babylonian Talmudic scholarship.
Life
Abba Arikha (c. 175–247), called Rav, studied in the Land of Israel under Judah ha-Nasi before returning to Babylonia, where he founded the academy at Sura around 220 CE. His teachings, and his debates with his colleague Shmuel, fill the Babylonian Talmud, and his academy became a center of Jewish learning that endured for centuries. He is regarded as a founder of Babylonian Jewry's intellectual preeminence and a bridge between the Mishnah and the Talmud.