[1] He was the first nasi to have this title added permanently to his name; in traditional literature he is usually called "Rabbi Yehuda ha-Nasi."

[4][5] Judah was born in 135 in the newly-established Roman province of Syria Palaestina to Simeon ben Gamaliel II.

[9] The Talmud suggests that this was a result of divine providence: God had granted the Jewish people another leader of great stature to succeed Akiva.

As their student and through conversation with other prominent men who gathered about his father, he laid a strong foundation of scholarship for his life's work: the editing of the Mishnah.

His teacher at Usha was Judah bar Ilai, who was officially employed in the house of the patriarch as judge in religious and legal questions.

According to Rashi, Judah's father Simon had served as the nasi or head of the Sanhedrin in Usha before it moved to Shefar'am (now Shefa-'Amr).

[29] According to a tradition,[30] the country at the time of Simon ben Gamaliel's death not only was devastated by a plague of locusts but suffered many other hardships.

Judah chose Sepphoris chiefly because of his ill health would improve in its high altitude and pure air.

Among his students who taught as the first generation of Amoraim after his death are: Hanina bar Hama and Hoshaiah Rabbah in Eretz Yisrael,[34] Abba Arikha and Samuel of Nehardea in Babylon (the Jewish term for Lower Mesopotamia).

These include the parable of the blind and the lame (illustrating the judgment of the body and the soul after death),[49] and a discussion of the impulse to sin.

[52] Simeon ben Menasya praised Judah by saying that he and his sons united in themselves beauty, power, wealth, wisdom, age, honour, and the blessings of children.

[57] According to a different calculation, he died on 15 Kislev, AM 3978 (around December 1, 217 CE),[58][59] in Sepphoris, and his body was interred in the necropolis of Beit Shearim, 15.2 kilometres (9.4 mi) distant from Sepphoris,[60] during whose funeral procession they made eighteen stops at different stations along the route to eulogise him.

It is said that when Judah died, no one had the heart to announce his demise to the anxious people of Sepphoris, until the clever Bar Ḳappara broke the news in a parable, saying: "The heavenly host and earth-born men held the tablets of the covenant; then the heavenly host was victorious and seized the tablets.

[62] Two of Judah's sons assumed positions of authority after his death: Gamaliel succeeded him as nasi, while Shimon became hakham of his yeshiva.

According to some Midrashic and Kabbalistic legends, Judah ha-Nasi had a son named Yaavetz who ascended to Heaven without experiencing death.

Later, when his maid was about to kill some small animals which were in their house, he said to her: "Let them live, for it is written: '[God's] tender mercies are over all his works'.

"[69] He exclaimed, sobbing, in reference to three different stories of martyrs whose deaths made them worthy of future life: "One man earns his world in an hour, while another requires many years".

[70] He began to weep when Elisha ben Abuyah's daughters, who were soliciting alms, reminded him of their father's learning.

[72] He was frequently interrupted by tears when explaining Lamentations 2:2 and illustrating the passage by stories of the destruction of Jerusalem and of the Temple.

[75] Hiyya found him weeping during his last illness because death was about to deprive him of the opportunity of studying the Torah and of fulfilling the commandments.

[79] When 70-year-old wine cured him of a protracted illness, he prayed: "Blessed be the Lord, who has given His world into the hands of guardians".

[80] He privately recited daily the following supplication on finishing the obligatory prayers: "May it be Thy will, my God and the God of my fathers, to protect me against the impudent and against impudence, from bad men and bad companions, from severe sentences and severe plaintiffs, whether a son of the covenant or not.

Fearing that the oral traditions might be forgotten, Judah undertook the mission of consolidating the various opinions into one body of law which became known as the Mishnah.

According to Abraham ben David, the Mishnah was compiled by Rabbi Judah the Prince in 3949 AM, or the year 500 of the Seleucid era, which corresponds to 189 CE.

Both the Talmuds assume as a matter of course that Judah is the originator of the Mishnah—"our Mishnah," as it was called in Babylon—and the author of the explanations and discussions relating to its sentences.

[86] Using the precedent of Rabbi Meir's reported actions, Judah ruled the Beit Shean region to be exempt from the requirements of tithing and shmita regarding produce grown there.

[94] Noteworthy among the other numerous Scriptural interpretations which have been handed down in Judah's name are his clever etymological explanations, for example: Exodus 19:8-9;[95] Leviticus 23:40;[96] Numbers 15:38;[97] II Samuel 17:27;[98] Joel 1:17;[99] Psalms 68:7.