Rabbi Levi (the aggadist) רבי לוי

Of Rabbi Yochanan's circle, he made aggadah a craft: a parable, a king of flesh and blood, an unexpected verse—and the listener leaves carrying the law inside an image. Bereshit Rabbah would lose a third of itself without his name. Rabbi Yochanan, hearing how he reconciled the opposing views on the tribe of the prophet Jonah, held him fit to hold a lectureship of his own—and for twenty-two years he held it (Bereshit Rabbah 98:11; Jerusalem Talmud, Sukkah 5:1).