For the source text click/tap here: Yevamot 105
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Our daf relates that Rabbi Hiyya and Rabbi Shimon the son of Rabbi Yehuda HaNasi were discussing whether a person should look upwards during prayer (based on the passage in Eicha 3:41)
or downwards (based on the passage in I Melakhim 9:3).
Then an exchange occurs between Rabbi Yishmael the son of Rabbi Yossi and a certain Avdan, one of Rabbi Yehuda’s HaNasi’s students also known as Abba Yudan.
We explore this person and his name elsewhere in midrash, and the use of the term Abba in antiquity including the NT and our liturgy (Avinu Malden)
ending with the Lacanian “Nom du Pere” and Yehudah Amichai’s poetry struggling with the transcendent theology of the rabbis.