Judah bar Ezekiel (220–299 CE) (Hebrew: יהודה בן יחזקאל); often known as Rav Yehudah,[1] was a Babylonian amora of the 2nd generation.
Judah possessed such great zeal for learning and such tireless energy that he even omitted daily prayer in order to secure more time for study, and prayed but once in thirty days.
[8] In recording the words of his teachers, Judah used extreme care, and frequently stated explicitly that his authority for a given saying was uncertain, and that his informant did not know positively whether it was Rav's or Samuel's.
In the school which Judah built up at Pumbedita, he introduced a new and original method of instruction: by emphasizing the need of an exact differentiation between, and a critical examination of, the subjects treated, he became the founder of Talmudic dialectics.
Although Judah devoted himself chiefly to dialectics, he did not fail to interpret the mishnayot, to explain peculiar words in them,[13] or to determine the correct reading where several were given.