Kallah

Name of a teachers' convention which was held in Babylonian academies, after the beginning of the amoraic period, in the two months Adar and Elul. The original meaning of the word is not known. It is always written with ה (

The importance of the Kallah (referred to under another name) is extolled in the Midrash Tanḥuma (Noaḥ, § 3): "God has appointed the two academies ["yeshibot"] for the good of Israel. In them day and night are devoted to the study of the Torah; and thither come the scholars from all places twice a year, in Adar and Elul, and associate with one another in discussions on the Torah." The greater the attendance at the convention, the greater was the renown of the academy. Hence Abaye says (Ber. 6b): "The most important part of the Kallah is a crowd." The unpleasant side of this crowd is characterized by Abaye's colleague Raba as follows (ib. 6a): "The crowd at the Kallah is caused by the mazziḳim" (the unseen tormenting spirits which hover around people). There was a saying in Babylonia that whoever dreamed of going into a forest would become president of the Kallah (the Kallah being likened to a forest).

That treatise of the Mishnah which formed the subject of explanation and discussion at each separate Kallah was called "the treatise of the Kallah" according to Ta'an. 10b (see R. Hananeel in Kohut, c. 4:227b). The sentence in question is a tannaitic maxim, the latter part of which is: ". . . among the scholars is to be counted he who is able to answer every question concerning every halakah which he has studied"; to this the words