The Lenient Position of Rav Acha and Ravina (full article)
Here is my Jewish Link article for this week:
Avodah Zarah 75b takes up the question of whether lead-glazed earthenware requires immersion. Rav Acha and Ravina disagree. One maintains that it follows its initial state, and doesn’t require immersion just like earthenware. The other maintains that it follows its final state so does require immersion. Finally, the Talmudic Narrator weighs in that the halacha is that it follows its final state.
Rav Shmuel Strashun, the Rashash, expresses surprise, for this is contrary to a rule established in Pesachim 74b (and also found in Chullin 93b). Under discussion are three cases regarding salting meat and drawing out blood, seemingly all grounded in a single dispute about scientific reality. The gemara interjects that, generally speaking, when Rav Acha and Ravina disagree, it is Ravina who is the lenient one and Rav Acha the stringent one, and we rule like Ravina. (This helps identify the typically ambiguous “one maintains X and one maintains Y”, as well as we rule.) However, in these three cases, it is Rav Acha who is lenient and Ravina who is stringent, and we rule like Rav Acha who is lenient. Thus, regardless, we rule leniently. However, regarding lead-glazed earthenware, we are ruling stringently!
Indeed, and as Rashah points out, earlier on Avodah Zarah 33b, regarding tar on jugs owned by gentiles, there are kashering procedures involving returning them to the furnace. What about instead dropping ignited splinters of wood into the jug? Rav Acha and Ravina disagree. One prohibits and the other permits. The Talmudic Narrator weighs in that the halacha is like the forbidder (and Rashi explains why). Tosafot there refer us to the rule expressed in Chullin that the halacha accords with the lenient position in Rav Acha / Ravina disputes. Since this is an exception to that rule, the gemara must specify how we rule.
Descriptive or Prescriptive?
Thus, Tosafot regard this rule about ruling leniently as general rather than universal, and descriptive of a general pattern that emerged. The alternative would have been to express astonishment at the violation of the apparently universal rule. Let us flesh out these two possibilities.
The first possibility: A search of פְּלִיגִי בַּהּ רַב אַחָא וְרָבִינָא yields 28 results, but with some repetitions. It just so happens that Ravina was generally the lenient one, except in three disputes. Within these disputes, regardless of who was lenient, it just so happened that the consensus of their contemporary colleagues; or the consensus of later Sages; or the conclusion of their proofs back-and-forth (non-existent in the Rav Acha / Ravina instance) happened to accord with the lenient side of the dispute. Since this a rule of thumb, or a mnemonic to recall how we rule, it’s plausible that an occasional exception occurs where we rule stringently.
The second possibility is that the rule is prescriptive. What if something about Rav Acha and Ravina’s scholastic identities consistently produces a lenient halachic conclusion. By way of poor analogy, see Tosafot on Avodah Zarah 7a, d.h. בשל תורה הלך אחר המחמיר, who describe Rabbeinu Tam’s approach towards internal Talmudic variants – that is, two versions of a sugya separated by ikka de’amrei, as opposed to a dispute between named Amoraim. Rashi’s approach to these perhaps unresolvable doubts as to what the Amoraim or Gemaras established was to rule stringently in cases of Torah law (סָפֵק דְּאוֹרָיְתָא לְחוּמְרָא) and leniently regarding Rabbinic law (סָפֵק דְּרַבָּנַן לְחוּמְרָא). I think the 28 results include disputes regarding Biblical law, but what if the late nature of their disputes should produce a lenient result?
Scholastic Generation
In a previous article on the subject (“Rav Acha and Ravina”, July 22, 2021), I highlighted Ravina’s position as redactor as a potential reason to generally rule like, while here we’re considering the relative lateness of these Sages. In that article, we noted that Rav Acha and Ravina both lacked patronymics, so their identities were uncertain. Ravina might be Ravina I, spanning the fifth-generation (as Rava’s student) and sixth generation (as Rav Ashi’s colleague), or he might be that Ravina’s nephew, in the seventh-generation (as Rav’s Ashi’s student). As for Rav Acha without a patronymic, the two candidates are sixth-generation Rav Acha bar Rava and seventh generation Rav Acha bar Rav.
Rav Aharon Hyman, in Toledot Tannaim veAmoraim, analyzes several sugyot to prove that plain Rav Acha is the earlier Rav Acha bar Rava, based on interactions with sixth-generation Rav Ashi. From there, he identifies the disputant Ravina as Ravina I. However, as discussed elsewhere (in “Rethinking Rav Acha and Ravina”), I have examined and rejected these proofs, because they are based on faulty printed texts, where manuscripts give us a different Amora.
My analysis elsewhere undermines Rav Hyman’s definitive identification of Rav Acha as Rav Acha bar Rava, but doesn’t disprove it as a possibility. Instead, we would need to consider how the Rav Acha / Ravina pair interact with others, and their placement in the sugya, to see if we can conclude anything. These might be suggestive though not dispositive. For instance, in our sugya in Avodah Zarah 75b, the order of Amoraim making statements are sixth-generation Rav Ashi, then Rav Acha / Ravina, and then an unrelated אִיבַּעְיָא לְהוּ involving seventh-generation Mar bar Rav Ashi. Assuming the sequencing of Talmudic statements generally obeys chronological order, should we say that Rav Acha / Ravina follow Rav Ashi and are seventh-generation? Not necessarily, because they may be Rav Ashi’s contemporaries. The same is true in Avodah Zarah 33b, where Rav Acha / Ravina’s dispute follows Rav Ashi’s statement. Chullin 93b is suggestive, as their dispute follows a somewhat related statement by Mar bar Rav Ashi.
If Rav Acha / Ravina are seventh-generation Amoraim / first generation Savoraim, this might explain how we should always rule leniently in their disputes. Famously, Ravina and Rav Ashi are sof hora’ah, though it’s unclear whether that Ravina is Ravina I or II. If it’s Ravina I, as Rav Aharon Hyman maintains, then I could suggest that a dispute amongst Savoraim, and post this age of instruction, should not impose restrictions to prohibit something.
Manuscripts and Redactors
Why might Avodah Zarah 33 and 75 be exceptions to the general rule? Aside from it simply being the way other rabbis decided, two other possibilities occurred to me. First, not every vehilcheta is original to the gemara. Tosafot point out several vehilcheta that are pulled from post-Talmudic sources. Also, not every manuscript includes every vehilcheta. Indeed, in Avodah Zarah 75m while printings and manuscripts (Munich 95, JTS 15, Paris 1337) have the vehilcheta, a manuscript fragment, Graz, U: Fragm. 1703.193, omits it and proceeds to the next statement.
We should also consider the possibility that not every masechta was redacted by the same Sage or group of Sages. Here are two exceptions to the general rule, both in Avodah Zarah. Perhaps the redactors in Chullin and Pesachim held one way about Rav Acha / Ravina disputes, and other redactors in Avodah Zarah were unaware of or disagreed with that rule.