Levi bar Sisi לוי בר סיסי

Levi bar Sisi was a disciple of Rabbi Yehuda haNasi, among the last to witness the making of the Mishnah from within. He gathered his own collection of teachings that did not enter the Mishnah—the "baraita of Levi", which the Talmud consults alongside the Tosefta; in the Yerushalmi his word carries special weight.

After Rebbi's death he went to Babylonia and lived in Nehardea beside Shmuel: through him the Babylonian academies received the Mishnah at first hand. The Talmud remembers how he was sent to teach in the town of Simonia and could not answer the questions—not because he did not know, but because he was not used to explaining; Rebbi told him: sit and show what you know.

He died unusually: in a drought he prayed prostrate—"Master of the world, You have gone up and taken Your seat on high and have no pity on Your children"—and the rain came, and he was left lame. The Talmud says: for the boldness of his speech; and then qualifies itself—or perhaps for that very boldness he was heard (Taanit 25a).

The sources give no years of life; the window of activity is set by generation, following Aharon Hyman's Toldot Tannaim ve-Amoraim.

When the Talmud says simply "Levi" with no patronymic, it is usually he who is meant.