Rabbah bar Avuhah Questions Eliyahu HaNavi
Rabbah bar Avuhah meets Eliyahu HaNavi in a non-Jewish cemetery, asks him about collecting a debtor's assets, and asks how a kohen may stand among graves.
Rabba Bar Avuha asked Eliyahu HaNavi about a scenario where Beis Din enforces a monetary judgment and confiscates the debtor’s assets. Do they leave the debtor with some essentials such as cows to plow with? (According to some Rishonim) Eliyahu HaNavi answered there is a way to derive that law from the Torah that some of the debtor’s assets are exempt from collection. Yet, Rabbeinu Tam rules that those assets are not exempt from collection. If Rabba Bar Avuha asked Eliyahu this question, then we should accept his answer. Tosfos explains that Eliyahu was not deciding the halacha. The question has sages on both sides of the issue. The real question was what could be the Torah source of that law? Eliyahu answered what the source could be but didn’t mean to favor one side of the issue over the other side.
Rabba Bar Avuha then asked Eliyahu HaNavi why he was standing in a non-Jewish cemetery. He reasoned that since Eliyahu is a kohen he cannot stand there. Eliyahu HaNavi responded that gentile graves do not transmit tumah via ohel.