Ula comforts Rav Hamnuna by saying that since he pays his taxes to Pum Nahara, it's as if he is from there, and so doesn't have any psul in his background.
It would seem to me that there are huge nafka minas if this was a halachic statement. I didn't see any discussion on it, so i am assuming it was just Ulla's way to take back his earlier comment, and there is no halachic implication.
is this correct?
Tuvya Marcus, Jerusalem, Israel
Dear Tuvya,
The simple reading of this Gemara is that Ula was just trying to repair the emotional damage he had caused to Rav Hamnuna by claiming that he was from Harpania.
Rav Aba Sha'ul, in his Sefer Or l'Tzion, comments that Ula, upon seeing how embarrased Rav Hamnuna was, became convinced that he could not be a Mamzer. He only asked him about the head tax to convince himself that he was right.
Either way, it seems that we do not rely on this fact alone to clear a person of a Chashash Mamzerus.
Kol Tuv,
Yonasan Sigler
This is not a Psak Halachah