Who is Resh lakish? — Rabbi Shimon ben Lakish

רֵישׁ לָקִישׁ

c. 200 – 275 CE · Tiberias, Land of Israel

The bandit chief who jumped into the Jordan after a rabbi and came out a Torah giant.

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The facts

Before: Leader of a band of marauders; sold himself to the gladiators (Bava Metzia 84a, Gittin 47a)
Teacher: Rabbi Yochanan, who became his brother-in-law
Known for: Twenty-four objections to every ruling (Bava Metzia 84a)
Taught: Return out of love turns sins into merits (Yoma 86b)

Overview

Resh Lakish, Rabbi Shimon ben Lakish, was the leader of a gang of bandits who jumped into the Jordan River after a rabbi and came out of it a Torah scholar. He lived in the Land of Israel in the third century, around 200 to 275, and became one of the greatest sages of the Talmud: the study partner, brother-in-law and constant challenger of Rabbi Yochanan, the leading rabbi of his generation. Their arguments fill hundreds of pages of the Talmud.

Of all the Jewish OGz, Resh Lakish is the one whose story sounds most like the streets. He was strong, violent and respected among the worst people around. He was not a scholar who had a bad year. He was a gang leader. And he became so great in Torah that, after he died, his teacher lost his mind from grief because no one else could argue with him like Resh Lakish could.

If anyone ever told you that your past disqualifies you from Torah, this is the page to send them. Everything below comes straight from the Talmud, with links to the original text on Sefaria so you can read every word for yourself. Nothing here is a legend made up later; it is how the Sages themselves chose to remember one of their greatest. Meet the other OGs on the OGz page.

Name

His full name was Shimon ben Lakish, Shimon son of Lakish. The Talmud almost always calls him by the short form, Reish Lakish or Resh Lakish, made from the first letters of Rabbi Shimon and his father's name. Rabbi Yochanan sometimes called him simply bar Lakisha, "the son of Lakish".

He was an amora, one of the sages of the Talmud who lived after the Mishnah was completed. He taught in Tiberias, by the Sea of Galilee, in the great study hall of Rabbi Yochanan. Thousands of his teachings and arguments are recorded in both the Babylonian and the Jerusalem Talmud.

Leader of the bandits

The Talmud says it directly: before he became a sage, Resh Lakish was the leader of a band of marauders (Bava Metzia 84a). He was famous for his physical strength. He knew weapons, raids and how to lead hard men.

Another passage tells that at a low point in his life he even sold himself to the gladiators, the Roman games where men fought to the death for an audience (Gittin 47a). The Talmud records that he survived by his strength and his wits, and came out alive. It's not a pretty story, and the Talmud doesn't make it pretty. It just wants us to know exactly where this man came from.

Think about what that means. The Talmud, the holiest book after the Torah itself, preserves the fact that one of its greatest teachers was a gang leader and a gladiator. It doesn't hide it, clean it up, or leave it out. It tells it, because the story is the point.

The man who saw him: Rabbi Yochanan

To understand Resh Lakish you have to understand the man in the river. Rabbi Yochanan bar Nafcha was the head of the great academy in Tiberias and the leading Torah authority of the Land of Israel. He was famous for his beauty, so famous that the Talmud uses him as the standard for what a beautiful person looks like.

He was also a man of terrible loss. The Talmud records that he buried ten of his children, and that he kept a small bone from his tenth son. When he went to comfort other mourners, he would show it to them and say: "This is the bone of my tenth son" (Berakhot 5b). He knew pain from the inside.

Maybe that is why he could look at a bandit in a river and see a future instead of a threat. A man who has lost everything doesn't waste people. He took the most dangerous man in the region and made him his brother-in-law, his student and his partner. And when he lost him too, he couldn't survive it.

The jump into the Jordan

One day Rabbi Yochanan, the greatest Torah scholar of the Land of Israel, was bathing in the Jordan River. Resh Lakish saw him and jumped into the water after him. The Talmud doesn't say why. Some think he took him for a woman, because Rabbi Yochanan was famously beautiful; some think he was coming to rob him. Either way, the bandit chief was in the river, coming at the rabbi.

Rabbi Yochanan looked at him and said: "Your strength is fit for Torah."

Resh Lakish shot back: "Your beauty is fit for women."

Rabbi Yochanan answered: "If you come back to Torah, I will give you my sister as a wife. She is more beautiful than I am."

And Resh Lakish accepted. Right there, in the middle of the river (Bava Metzia 84a).

Then comes one of the most beautiful details in the whole Talmud. Resh Lakish wanted to jump back out of the river to get his clothes, and he couldn't. As soon as he took the Torah upon himself, the strength he had used as a bandit was gone. The power was still there, but it belonged to something else now.

Notice what Rabbi Yochanan saw. He didn't look at the gang leader and see a threat or a lost cause. He saw strength, and he saw that the same strength that made him dangerous could make him great in Torah. He didn't tell Resh Lakish to become a different person. He told him to point who he already was in a new direction.

From the river to the study hall

Rabbi Yochanan kept his word. He married his sister to Resh Lakish, and he taught him. The Talmud says Rabbi Yochanan "taught him Bible, and taught him Mishnah, and made him into a great man" (Bava Metzia 84a). Resh Lakish started from nothing, as an adult, with no background, and he became one of the outstanding scholars of his generation.

He brought his old intensity with him. As the Talmud's many records of his arguments show, he never lost his edge: he was blunt, honest and unafraid to challenge anyone, including his own teacher.

For anyone who comes to Torah late, from the street, from prison, from a life that had nothing to do with books, this is the model. Resh Lakish didn't need to have been a yeshiva boy. He needed a teacher who believed in him, and the willingness to start with the alef-bet as a grown man.

Twenty-four objections

Rabbi Yochanan and Resh Lakish became the most famous learning pair in the Talmud. Whole sections of the Talmud are built on their disagreements, and the phrase "Rabbi Yochanan says… and Resh Lakish says…" appears again and again.

How did they learn together? Rabbi Yochanan described it himself after Resh Lakish was gone: "When I would state a matter, he would raise twenty-four difficulties against me, and I would answer him with twenty-four answers, and the law by itself would become broadened and clarified" (Bava Metzia 84a).

That's what a real partner does. He doesn't flatter you. He doesn't agree to keep the peace. He hits your idea with everything he has, twenty-four times, until what's left is true. The bandit who once fought with his fists now fought with questions, and the whole Jewish people still learns from the results.

There's a lesson in that for anybody building a new life. Find the person who will push back on you. Not the one who tells you you're right, but the one who asks the twenty-four hard questions.

"A bandit knows his banditry"

The end of their story is painful, and the Talmud tells it honestly. One day in the study hall the sages were debating a technical question about weapons: at what stage of manufacture does a sword, a knife or a spear count as a finished vessel? Rabbi Yochanan gave one answer. Resh Lakish gave another.

And Rabbi Yochanan said to him: "A bandit knows about his banditry" (Bava Metzia 84a). Of course you know about weapons; you were a bandit.

Years of learning, a marriage into the family, a place among the greatest sages, and in one sentence his teacher threw his past in his face in front of everyone.

Resh Lakish answered: "What good did you do me by bringing me close to Torah? There, among the bandits, they called me leader of the bandits, and here, too, they call me leader of the bandits." Rabbi Yochanan answered: "I did you good: I brought you close to G-d, under the wings of the Divine Presence."

Both were hurt. The Talmud says that Resh Lakish fell ill. His wife, Rabbi Yochanan's own sister, came crying and begged her brother to pray for him, for the sake of her children and for her own sake. Rabbi Yochanan wouldn't. And Resh Lakish died.

This is one of the hardest stories in the Talmud, and it's there on purpose. It teaches the prohibition of reminding a person who has changed about his past. The Mishnah forbids saying to a baal teshuvah, a person who has returned, "remember your earlier deeds", or to the child of converts, "remember the deeds of your fathers" (Bava Metzia 58b). Even a Rabbi Yochanan could get this wrong, and the cost was a life.

"Where are you, son of Lakish?"

After Resh Lakish died, Rabbi Yochanan was devastated. The sages sent their sharpest young scholar, Rabbi Elazar ben Pedat, to learn with him and comfort him. Every time Rabbi Yochanan said something, Rabbi Elazar brought a source to support it.

Rabbi Yochanan cried out: "Are you like the son of Lakish? He would raise twenty-four objections, and I would give twenty-four answers, and the law would become clear. And you bring me support? Don't I know that what I say is good?"

Then he went around tearing his clothes and weeping: "Where are you, son of Lakish? Where are you, son of Lakish?" He screamed until he lost his mind, and the sages prayed for mercy for him, and he died (Bava Metzia 84a).

The great teacher who had pulled a bandit out of the river discovered too late that the bandit had become the one person he couldn't live without. That's how much one former gang leader became worth to the Torah world.

Sins that become merits

Resh Lakish taught one of the most powerful ideas about teshuvah in the whole tradition. The Talmud quotes him: "Great is repentance, for one's intentional sins are counted for him as merits" (Yoma 86b).

The Talmud explains that it depends on why a person returns. When someone returns out of fear, his intentional sins are counted as if they were accidents. But when someone returns out of love, even his sins become merits.

Think about who is saying this. A man whose past included raids and the gladiator arena, sitting in the study hall teaching that, if you come back out of love, even those years can be turned into something holy. Because the strength, the street knowledge, the hunger, all of it becomes fuel for the new life. Rabbi Yochanan saw it on the first day in the river: "Your strength is fit for Torah."

That isn't a license to have done wrong. It's a promise that nothing you've been through has to be wasted.

He never laughed again

The Talmud records that Rabbi Yochanan taught that a person may not fill his mouth with laughter in this world while the Jewish people are still in exile, and that after Resh Lakish heard this from his teacher, he never again filled his mouth with laughter for the rest of his life (Berakhot 31a).

That's the kind of student he was. Once he accepted something, he accepted it all the way. The same total commitment that once made him dangerous made him one of the most serious Torah scholars who ever lived. He didn't do anything halfway: not the life he left, and not the life he chose.

More from Resh Lakish

Resh Lakish's teachings are scattered all through the Talmud. A few of them read like they were written by someone who knew exactly how a person falls, and how he gets back up.

On why people do wrong: "A person commits a transgression only if a spirit of folly enters him" (Sotah 3a). Sin isn't who you are. It's a moment of craziness that gets in. That means it can also get out.

On the daily fight: "A person's evil inclination overcomes him each day and seeks to kill him… and if not for the Holy One, blessed be He, who helps him, he would not overcome it" (Sukkah 52b). He never pretended the struggle was over. Every day the old pull comes back. Every day you need help from above to beat it. That isn't weakness; it's the honest truth of anyone in recovery from any kind of life.

On teshuvah: the teaching we saw above, that when you come back out of love, even your sins become merits (Yoma 86b).

Put those three together and you have Resh Lakish's whole philosophy of change: the fall is folly, not identity; the fight is every day and you need Hashem's help; and if you come back out of love, nothing is wasted.

What Resh Lakish teaches us

Your strength is fit for Torah. Whatever made you dangerous can make you great. Don't try to become someone else. Point who you are somewhere new.

Accept it in the river. Resh Lakish said yes in the middle of the Jordan, before he had his clothes, before he had a plan. Don't wait until everything is in order to commit.

You can't jump back. Once he accepted the Torah, the old strength wasn't available for the old life. Some doors close behind you, and that's a blessing.

Find a partner who argues. Twenty-four objections and twenty-four answers. The truth comes out of real disagreement, not flattery.

Never remind a person of his past. Even Rabbi Yochanan got it wrong once, and the Talmud records the price. When someone has changed, honor the change.

Come back out of love. Then even what you did before can become a merit.

The river is still there

Every generation has its Resh Lakish: the young man with too much strength and nowhere good to put it, already leading the wrong crew, already known to the police. And every generation needs its Rabbi Yochanan: someone who looks at that young man and says, out loud, "your strength is fit for Torah."

If you're the one in the river: the offer is still open. You don't need a background, a degree or a clean record to start learning. Resh Lakish started with the alef-bet as a grown man and became a teacher of the whole Jewish people. Find a teacher, a shul, a learning partner. Say yes before you have your clothes on.

If you're the one on the bank: look at the people your community is afraid of and ask what their strength could become. Offer them something real, the way Rabbi Yochanan offered his own sister. And once they've changed, protect their dignity. Never say "a bandit knows his banditry." The Talmud already showed us what that costs.

And if you're both, someone who came out of the river and is now standing on the bank, then you know better than anyone what it took. Go back to the water's edge. Somebody is about to jump in.

Why Resh Lakish is an OG

Because he's the proof. Every other OG on our list has something remarkable about him, but Resh Lakish is the one who came straight from the gang. He led bandits, he went through the gladiator games, and he jumped in a river ready to fight a rabbi. Then he took the deal, learned the alef-bet as a grown man, and ended up as the partner without whom the greatest sage of his time couldn't live.

Six1Trey exists because one man from the streets of Queens and Bogotá made his own jump into the river. Read that story in G2G: From Gangster to Ger. Then go meet the rest of the Jewish OGz: Rashi, Onkelos and Avraham Avinu.

And if you're still on the riverbank, deciding: your strength is fit for Torah.

Questions to think about

What is your strength? What made you good at the old life? How could it serve something holy?

Who is your Rabbi Yochanan? Who saw something in you when you were at your worst? Have you thanked him?

Who is your partner? Who in your life asks you the twenty-four hard questions?

Whose past are you throwing in his face? Is there someone who changed, and you still treat him like who he was?

חֵילָךְ לְאוֹרָיְיתָא
“Your strength is fit for Torah.”

— Rabbi Yochanan to Resh Lakish, Bava Metzia 84a

Books about Resh Lakish

Rabbinic Stories — Jeffrey L. Rubenstein. Paulist Press, Classics of Western Spirituality, 2002. English translations of the great Talmudic stories, including Rabbi Yochanan and Resh Lakish, with commentary.
Talmudic Stories: Narrative Art, Composition, and Culture — Jeffrey L. Rubenstein. Johns Hopkins University Press, 1999. A close reading of how the Talmud tells its stories and why it tells them that way.
Stories of the Babylonian Talmud — Jeffrey L. Rubenstein. Johns Hopkins University Press, 2010. More of the Talmud's great narratives, read closely and in context.