Was Rava a Student of Rabba? (article summary)
My article for last Shabbos is available here: (HTML, flipdocs, paid Substack)
In the image below / flipdocs / HTML, in my haste, I somehow wrote that Rava was second-generation, but that is an obvious error. He was fourth-generation.
A quick summary in outline form.
Many times in the gemara, you have a dispute between Rabba, third-generation head of Pumbedita, and Rava, fourth-generation head of Pumbedita. Assuming other factors such as refutation, level of Tannaitic support, other Amoraim weighing in aren’t present, is there a klal hora’ah we apply to say who wins?
Rif (ad loc) and Rosh (on the earlier instance of the sugya, not Bava Kamma 20a but earlier, I think 9b) discuss this. There are competing rules. We rule like a teacher over a student, but also rule like the chronologically later amora - hilcheta kebatra’a. Also, there is a brayta supporting Rabba and Rava, but Rabba’s is attributed to a single Tanna’s position, so the halacha follows the majority. Different posekim latch on to each of these.
Also at play is that hilcheta kebatra’a only kicks in at the fourth-generation. Rosh is somewhat inconsistent in whether in the pair of (earlier generation, later generation), it is the first of the pair or the second of the pair that has to be fourth-generation and on. In other words, would fourth-generation Rava win against third-generation Rabba? Or we wouldn’t say it because one party was third-generation?
By the way, some manuscripts flip which position was said by Rabba and which by Rava. See first image. This may be influenced by knowledge of how we practically act coupled with a sense of who should win in this fight.
Regardless, the teacher-student relationship should not be ones of mere relative scholastic generation. We seek the situation that A actually taught B, or that B often will cite A’s halachot and regards him as a rebbe. Is this true for Rabba and Rava?
I don’t think so. While Abaye certainly deals with his uncle Rabba in this manner, we don’t ever see Rava in this way. He doesn’t cite Rabba. And he grew up in Mechoza, not Pumbedita.
There is a famous story where young Rava and Abaye, minors, in the house of Rabba were asked who we daven to, and where He lives, and argued even back then. That would establish a student-teacher relationship and place Rava where we want geographically. However, several manuscripts have Rava bar Rav Chanan, a fourth-generation Pumbeditan Amora. See second image. No one would randomly emend it to add “bar Rav Chanan”, because the story is so perfect otherwise. So this isn’t evidence.
Therefore, it seems unlikely that Rava was Rabba’s student. This can have pragmatic halachic impact, for all those sugyot where Rabba and Rava disagree. It strips away a reason to prefer Rabba. We are left with a possible hilcheta kebatrai, and a consideration of the respective merits in the local sugya and global assumption adopted through the rest of the gemara.