For the source text click/tap here: Ketubot 69
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Our Gemara relates an unusual story about Ilfa, one of the first generation amoraim in the Land of Israel. Ilfa attached himself to a ship’s mast and announced that if anyone presented him with a teaching that appeared in the baraitot of Rabbi Ḥiyya and Rabbi Oshaya, he would show a source from the Mishna from which this teaching could be understood (i.e. that all of the traditions that appeared in the baraita were included in the Mishna).
Furthermore, he said if he was unable to do so he would throw himself into the sea.
The Gemara relates that there were those who took Ilfa up on his challenge, and that he was able to successfully respond to those challenges.
We examine the history of seafaring in antiquity and the interaction of the myth of Ulysses and the rabbinic tradition and its use in modern Hebrew literature.