Gedol, I don’t see anything in rashi there or the lashon of the gemara that goes against my diyuk. The fact that there’s a machlokes about it doesn’t mean that rebbe yochanan heard about it from the almana and changed his mind – all she did was ask “are there not schar pesios?” Rebbe yochanan could have just said no – he already knew the idea, which, how could he have not heard of it if it was a hotly debated topic in the beis medrash? Moreoever, it was such a common machlokes that even an old almana had heard of it! And she probably knew that rebbe yochanan was knowk for holding of it. Her story didn’t introduce him to the concept; again, he didn’t say he learned about it from her, rather he learned about kibul schar, the extent to which one should go for such things – that was the chidush that he was maskim to.
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