Our Gemara on Amud Aleph uses a strange phrase, הא דרב אשי בדותא היא, which translates approximately as, “We must conclude that this teaching of Rav Ashi was mistaken.”

The word בדותא translates into English with less contempt than the connotation In Hebrew. It is more than mistaken. It implies something made up without any basis (see Ran Nedarim 3a, “elah”, and Melachim 1:12:33.) It is difficult to understand how the Gemara can be so cavalier in regard to a teaching of such a great sage. It is also significant that this idiom appears in the Talmud almost exclusively in regard to Rav Ashi, and that Rav Ashi was one of the compilers of the Talmud.

There are a number of explanations for this phrase from various acharonim:

Yad Malachi (113) quotes a number of commentaries that actually have recorded the word as ברותא barusa, which means outside the accepted canon of teachings. This text is more respectful as the implication might be this is merely a private sevara of Rav Ashi, and does not carry the authority of a teaching from the mesorah. Since Rav Ashi not only served as a sage, but also a compiler and record keeper of the earlier teachings, this distinction is understandable.

The Margaliyos Hayam (Sanhedrin 17a, note 18) offers a creative peshat. Bedusa means one who come from Pedisa. Pedisa was a River, and the famous academy was in Pum-Bedisa, the mouth of the River Pedisa. Rav Ashi was the Rosh Yeshiva at Pumbedisa. The sages of Pumbedisa were notorious for there tortured analytic constructs and pilpul. So much so, that it is said of them, that they could pass an elephant through the eye of a needle (Bava Metzia 38b). Therefore the Gemara here means to say, “Rav Ashi’s position is built on a tortured logical argument that is not the straightforward understanding.” 

You can combine Yad Malachi’s peshat and the Margaliyos Hayam and understand the Gemara’s argument as Rav Ashi is not speaking from the authority of tradition but rather his own pilpul.

Regardless of how we understand this odd phrase, it is significant that the compiler of Shas is the one who gets the least respect, so to speak. In the quest for truth, we show no favoritism.

Translations Courtesy of Sefaria, except when, sometimes, I disagree with the translation

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