RABBIS AND DISCIPLES
"Parables such as those Jesus used were extremely prevalent among ancient Jewish sages, and over 4,000 of them have survived in rabbinic literature...the rabbis of Jesus’ day spent much of their time traveling throughout the country...to communicate their teachings and interpretations of Scripture. An itinerant rabbi was the norm rather than the exception. Hundreds and perhaps thousands of such rabbis circulated in the land of Israel in the first century.
"To ’make many disciples’ was one of the three earliest sayings recorded in the Mishnah, and perhaps the highest calling of a rabbi. Often he would select and train large numbers of disciples, but he was perfectly willing to teach as few as two or three students. It is recorded that the Apostle Paul’s teacher Gamaliel had one thousand disciples who studied with him."
[From, "New Light on the Difficult Words of Jesus" by David Bivin, pp 12-14].