In the Babylonian Talmud he is identified with various other Yitzchaks,[1] and since that was due to the arbitrary action of a later amora, the real name of his father can no longer be determined.
He associated intimately with Rabbi Ammi, with whom he often discussed halakhic questions;[14] and together they sometimes rendered decisions in matters pertaining to religious law.
[22] Among those who transmitted in the name of Yitzchak were the famous halakhist Haggai, the latter's sons Jonathan and Azariah,[23] and Luliani ben Tabrin.
However, Yitzchak devoted himself to aggadah with more zeal, because he regarded it as a necessity in the adverse circumstances of the Jews.
The poverty of the Jews of Palestine had increased to such an extent that people no longer waited for the harvest, but ate the green ears of wheat;[26] consequently they were in need of comfort and refreshment of soul.
[27] Yitzchak tried to make his lectures as effective as possible, and they show him to have been an unusually forceful rhetorician and a skillful exegete.
Karaite tradition, borrowed from the Rabbanites, credits Isaac with declaring new months not by observing the Moon, but like the Rabbanites computing according to the rule of lo, bet, dalet, waw which meant that Passover can never begin on a Monday, or a Wednesday, or a Friday.