רב אחדבוי בר אמי

Rav Achdavoi bar Ami was a Babylonian amora of the fourth generation, known above all for his halachic questions and for his complicated relationship with Rav Sheshet, who was his contemporary and his friend. Rabbeinu Chananel brings that Rav Achdavoi’s mother had nursed Rav Sheshet, and the Ramban and Tosafot follow him in this. The Gemara relates that after Rav Achdavoi wounded Rav Sheshet’s honor he was punished with the loss of his speech, and only when his mother came before Rav Sheshet and reminded him that she had nursed him did he agree to be appeased. Ulla said of him after that episode, “meshagesh archatei d’imei” — he brought turmoil upon his mother.

He asked and objected much, and the Gemara carries his questions in the language of “ba’i minei,” “matkif lah” and “meisiv.” Among them: whether tumah takes hold of an avodah zarah smaller than a kezayit, argued by comparison to the tumah of a sheretz and of a met — a question settled by Rav Avya (or Rabba bar Ulla), who proved from a beraita that an avodah zarah less than a kezayit carries no tumah; whether the rule that a debt is collected from the property of orphans only out of the ziburit applies as well to orphans who have come of age, which was ruled to hold for every orphan; and whether the flesh of a kid cooked in the milk of its mother before she had given birth falls under the issur of basar b’chalav, which he put to Rav Nachman, who decided that it is forbidden.