Fellow Student (

Hebrew Hebrew (; ''ʿÎbrit'') is a Northwest Semitic languages, Northwest Semitic language within the Afroasiatic languages, Afroasiatic language family. A regional dialect of the Canaanite languages, it was natively spoken by the Israelites and ...

: תלמיד חבר) was a

Talmud The Talmud (; ) is the central text of Rabbinic Judaism and the primary source of Jewish religious law (''halakha'') and Jewish theology. Until the advent of Haskalah#Effects, modernity, in nearly all Jewish communities, the Talmud was the cen ...

ist epithet commonly used to describe the interim status of a disciple between the status of being merely a disciple of a teacher

Rabbi A rabbi (; ) is a spiritual leader or religious teacher in Judaism. One becomes a rabbi by being ordained by another rabbi—known as ''semikha''—following a course of study of Jewish history and texts such as the Talmud. The basic form of t ...

and being practically equal in status. In many cases, a Fellow Student didn't fall short of his Rabbi, however he continued to perceive his teacher Rabbi above him and continued to learn from him. The term was commonly used in the

Rabbinic period The Rabbinic period, or the Talmudic period, denotes a transformative era in Jewish history, spanning from the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 CE to the Muslim conquest of the Levant, Muslim conquest in 638 CE. Pivotal in shaping ...

, however, the usage was continued throughout the

Middle Ages In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the 5th to the late 15th centuries, similarly to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire and ...

and in latter times.

References

Orthodox rabbinic roles and titles Talmud concepts and terminology {{Judaism-stub