Pinchas ben Yair

Pinchas ben Yair (Hebrew: פנחס בן יאיר) was a Tanna of the 4th generation who lived, probably at Lod, in the late 2nd century.

The aggadah relates a story of a donkey belonging to Pinchas which, having been stolen, was released after a couple of days due to its refusal to eat food from which ma'aser had not been taken.

He, and others with him, used to visit the marketplace of the Saracens in Ashkelon to buy wheat during the shmita year, and return to their own city, and immerse themselves in order to eat their bread (Terumah) in a state of ritual purity.

The Beth din of Rabbi Ishmael ben Jose and Ben HaKapar, when they heard that Pinchas (known as a very pious man) had visited Ashkelon when it was not permitted for priests to venture outside the Land of Israel, understood thereby that Ashkelon (though not conquered by those returning from the Babylonian exile) was not like other lands of the gentiles, and that defilement had not been decreed upon that city.

[7] Therefore, with Pinchas' example, they assembled themselves and reverted the old practice, decreeing a state of cleanness over the city's air, and that, henceforth, Jews (including priests) were permitted to visit Ashkelon without harboring feelings of guilt or fear of contracting uncleanness.

[8] Pinchas drew a gloomy picture of his time: "Since the destruction of the Temple, the members and freemen are put to shame, those who conform to the Law are held in contempt, the violent and the informer have the upper hand, and no one cares for the people or asks pity for them.

The only reasons for this ascription are the facts (1) that the midrash begins with Pinchas' explanation of Genesis 1:11, from which the work derives its name, and (2) that its seventh chapter commences with a saying of his on the tree of knowledge.