The Invention of an Amora
There’s lots of aggadic material on Sanhedrin 38, and also a lot of girsological import to note. Here are a two points:
(1) The Invention of an Amora. At the turn of the amud to amud bet:
תַּנְיָא, הָיָה רַבִּי מֵאִיר אוֹמֵר: אָדָם הָרִאשׁוֹן מִכׇּל הָעוֹלָם כּוּלּוֹ הוּצְבַּר עֲפָרוֹ, שֶׁנֶּאֱמַר: ״גׇּלְמִי רָאוּ עֵינֶיךָ״, וּכְתִיב: ״כִּי ה׳ עֵינָיו מְשֹׁטְטוֹת בְּכׇל הָאָרֶץ״. אָמַר רַב אוֹשַׁעְיָא מִשְּׁמֵיהּ דְּרַב: אָדָם הָרִאשׁוֹן
It is taught in a baraita that Rabbi Meir would say: The dust that served to form Adam the first man was gathered from the entire world, as it is stated: “When I was made in secret and wrought in the lowest places of the earth, Your eyes did see my unshaped flesh” (Psalms 139:15–16), and it is written: “For the eyes of the Lord run to and fro throughout the whole earth” (II Chronicles 16:9), indicating that this figure was formed from the whole earth, the place within the view of the Lord’s eyes. Rav Oshaya says in the name of Rav: With regard to Adam the first man,
גּוּפוֹ מִבָּבֶל, וְרֹאשׁוֹ מֵאֶרֶץ יִשְׂרָאֵל, וְאֵבָרָיו מִשְּׁאָר אֲרָצוֹת. עַגְבוֹתָיו, אָמַר רַב אַחָא: מֵאַקְרָא דְאַגְמָא.
his torso was fashioned from dust taken from Babylonia, and his head was fashioned from dust taken from Eretz Yisrael, the most important land, and his limbs were fashioned from dust taken from the rest of the lands in the world. With regard to his buttocks, Rav Aḥa says: They were fashioned from dust taken from Akra De’agma, on the outskirts of Babylonia.
In Toledot Tannaim vaAmoraim, Rav Aharon Hyman has an entry on רב אחא מאקרא דאגמא. He writes:
נזכר סנהדרין לח: כן מובא באוצר ישראל בערך אמוראים, ובמחילה שטעה טעות גדול בפשט הגמרא שאמרו שם א"ר הושעיא משמיה דרב, אדם הראשון גופו מבבל וראשו מא"ר ואבריו משאר ארצות, ושואל הגמרא עגנותיו (מאיזה מקום) וע"ז אמר רב אחא [שנברא] מאקרא דאגמי ופרש"י בבבל הוא והוא עמוק מאוד, ובדק"ס הגרסא בקצרה "ועגבותיו מאקרא דאגמא".
That is, he points to Otzar Yisrael, an encyclopedia by Yehudah Dovid Eisenstein, where in the entry for Amoraim, Rav Acha from Akra deAgma is listed. Essentially, in this encyclopedia entry, he tried to list each Amora, a place of occurrence, and scholastic generation (1-6, listed as the letter aleph through vav).
Presumably, he guessed second generation because it is a response to first-generation Rav. I don’t know - Rav Oshaya is second or third-generation. And we have know idea when this Rav Acha of Akra deAgma chimes in.
But Rav Hyman’s point is stronger than that. You need punctuation! It is not רב אחא מאקרא דאגמא. Rather, Rav Acha said (about the source material for Adam HaRishon’s buttocks): from Akra deAgma. And indeed, in dikdukei soferim, a version omit the name but Akra deAgma is there.
Presumably, in his haste, the encyclopedia writer read the end of the statement: אָמַר רַב אַחָא מֵאַקְרָא דְאַגְמָא and mentally appended it to the beginning of the next statement, אָמַר רַבִּי יוֹחָנָן בַּר חֲנִינָא, so it is a quote. But, indeed, it does not work in context.
(2) What Aramaic in this verse?
וְאָמַר רַב יְהוּדָה אָמַר רַב: אָדָם הָרִאשׁוֹן בְּלָשׁוֹן אֲרַמִּי סִפֵּר, שֶׁנֶּאֱמַר: ״וְלִי מַה יָּקְרוּ רֵעֶיךָ אֵל״.
And Rav Yehuda says that Rav says: Adam the first man spoke in the language of Aramaic, as it is stated in the chapter of Psalms speaking in the voice of Adam: “How weighty also are Your thoughts to me, O God” (Psalms 139:17).
The maggid shiur suggested that Rav Yehuda / Rav was referring either to יָּקְרוּ or to רֵעֶיךָ. Because yakar has a word-sense of heavy rather than precious in Aramaic. And rei’echa can mean thoughts, ra’ayanot, thoughts, instead of friends. (See Artscroll who points to Radak’s commentary.) But is that really Aramaic, more than Hebrew?
I think the third alternative is somehow with רֵעֶיךָ we are dealing with an ayin / tzadi switchoff. Because of a third sound or original letter, mapping in Hebrew to one of these and in Aramaic to the other, there are:
Hebrew tzadi == Aramaic tzadi
Hebrew ayin == Aramaic ayin
Hebrew tzadi == Aramaic ayin
That is how yehi ratzon because yehei ra’ava. If so, Rav would read רֵעֶיךָ as retzonecha.