解:
$\begin{aligned}&\frac{a}{a - 1}-\frac{3a - 1}{a^{2}-1}\\=&\frac{a}{a - 1}-\frac{3a - 1}{(a + 1)(a - 1)}\\=&\frac{a(a + 1)}{(a + 1)(a - 1)}-\frac{3a - 1}{(a + 1)(a - 1)}\\=&\frac{a^{2}+a-(3a - 1)}{(a + 1)(a - 1)}\\=&\frac{a^{2}+a - 3a + 1}{(a + 1)(a - 1)}\\=&\frac{a^{2}-2a + 1}{(a + 1)(a - 1)}\\=&\frac{(a - 1)^{2}}{(a + 1)(a - 1)}\\=&\frac{a - 1}{a + 1}\end{aligned}$