Basya Tsybukmakher
Who in the city did not know Rabbi Hiyya? Everyone knew of his righteousness, his great knowledge, and his love for the Torah.
Every day, Rabbi Hiyya studied Torah and prayed to God. His prayers were so powerful that miracles seemed to happen through them.
One day, Rabbi Hiyya decided to help a poor widow who had no food to feed her children. He planted flax seeds and waited for the plants to grow. When the flax was ready, he gathered it and made strong nets from its fibers.
Then he took the nets and went out to catch a deer. He caught one, slaughtered it according to all the laws of kashrut, and gave all the meat to the poor widow so that she and her children would have something to eat.
But Rabbi Hiyya did not stop there. He took the animal’s hide and prepared it to make parchment. On this parchment, he wrote the Torah and the six orders of the Mishnah.
Why did he go to all this trouble? Because Rabbi Hiyya wanted every Jewish child to be able to learn Torah.
In those days, there were villages far away from the big cities. No teachers lived there, and the children had no one to teach them Torah. Rabbi Hiyya decided to travel to these distant villages himself.
He brought the books he had written and gathered the children around him. He taught them the words of the Torah and the Mishnah, so that they would grow up knowing them and pass them on to their own children.
Rabbi Hiyya worked tirelessly, traveling from village to village and teaching one child after another. He did all this so that the Torah would never be forgotten among the Jewish people.
That is why Rabbi Judah HaNasi said, “Great are the deeds of Rabbi Hiyya!”
And our Sages taught us that if it had not been for Rabbi Hiyya, the Torah might have been forgotten by the Jewish people.
Every day, Rabbi Hiyya studied Torah and prayed to God. His prayers were so powerful that miracles seemed to happen through them.
One day, Rabbi Hiyya decided to help a poor widow who had no food to feed her children. He planted flax seeds and waited for the plants to grow. When the flax was ready, he gathered it and made strong nets from its fibers.
Then he took the nets and went out to catch a deer. He caught one, slaughtered it according to all the laws of kashrut, and gave all the meat to the poor widow so that she and her children would have something to eat.
But Rabbi Hiyya did not stop there. He took the animal’s hide and prepared it to make parchment. On this parchment, he wrote the Torah and the six orders of the Mishnah.
Why did he go to all this trouble? Because Rabbi Hiyya wanted every Jewish child to be able to learn Torah.
In those days, there were villages far away from the big cities. No teachers lived there, and the children had no one to teach them Torah. Rabbi Hiyya decided to travel to these distant villages himself.
He brought the books he had written and gathered the children around him. He taught them the words of the Torah and the Mishnah, so that they would grow up knowing them and pass them on to their own children.
Rabbi Hiyya worked tirelessly, traveling from village to village and teaching one child after another. He did all this so that the Torah would never be forgotten among the Jewish people.
That is why Rabbi Judah HaNasi said, “Great are the deeds of Rabbi Hiyya!”
And our Sages taught us that if it had not been for Rabbi Hiyya, the Torah might have been forgotten by the Jewish people.