Avodah Zarah 027

1:
Our present mishnah is concerned with the same issue that was the concern of the previous mishnah. Since the very beginning of our study of this tractate it has become clear that there was considerable trading between the Jewish and the non-Jewish inhabitants of Eretz-Israel in the Talmudic period. The task of the sages was, therefore, to define what was permitted and what was not.

2:
The problem with articles which are used as containers for food and drink is the material from which they are made. If a utensil has been made from absorbent material any foodstuff which is stored in it will be partially absorbed into the fabric of the utensil. If what was stored in the utensil was something that is forbidden by Jewish law its remnants would mingle with foodstuffs which are permitted by Jewish law, thus rendering them unfit for Jewish consumption.

3:
The previous mishnah was concerned with the storage of wine and so is the first part of our present mishnah. Two kinds of container were used mainly for storing wine: a leather bottle was used for smaller amounts of wine (and other liquids) whereas ceramic pots or jugs were used for storing larger amounts. The leather bottle was made from an animal's hide; sometimes the hide was also coated with pitch to make it more leakproof. Both animal skins and articles made from clay are absorbent: the animal skins are particularly absorbent when uncoated and the ceramic utensils are particularly absorbent when sunbaked and unglazed (as we have seen in the explanations of the previous mishnah).

4:
Our mishnah states that wine which has been stored in a leather bottle or a ceramic utensil is rendered forbidden if the container had previously belonged to a non-Jew. (The non-Jew was either the tradesman from whom the flask was bought or a neighbour from whom it was acquired.) While the wine has been rendered unfit for Jewish consumption because it has absorbed forbidden foodstuff which had previously soaked into the fabric of the utensil, Rabbi Me'ir, who seems to have a much stricter view concerning social interaction between Jews and non-Jews, says that it is also forbidden to derive any kind of material benefit from that wine – such as selling it to a non-Jew. However, his opinion is not halakhah because the rest of the sages saw no objection to deriving material benefit from such wine as long as it was not consumed by a Jew.

5:
In his commentary on this mishnah, Rambam, gives copious instructions concerning this halakhah – mainly how the situation can be saved so that a Jew may use the problematic utensil for his own legitimate purposes. Concerning leather bottles or ceramic flasks of non-Jews he writes:

All this which Rambam explains derives from the discussion in the Gemara [AZ 33a-b]. The three methods of 'kashering' such containers are, therefore, water or some caustic liquid or heat. Furthermore, they may be considered 'kasher' after a whole year without use. We must assume that these methods were considered sufficient to re-absorb or nullify the residual forbidden foodstuffs in the porous fabric of the utensil.

6:
Grapes acquired from a non-Jew are, of course, permitted. But if a Jew acquires only the pips and/or the husks (skins) of the grapes from a non-Jew they are forbidden. Once again, the more stringent opinion of Rabbi Me'ir is rejected. If the grape-pips and grape-skins are still fresh they are forbidden, but if they are already dried they are permitted. In the Gemara [AZ 34a] "fresh" is defined as less than one year having elapsed since they were removed from the grape and "dried" means that one year or more has elapsed.

7:
There was a delicacy called muries. This was made from the internal parts of a fish (fish hash) pickled in brine and made into a sauce which would be used to spice foods. When made professionally the cooks would add some oil and some wine, and it is these additions which render the muries forbidden if acquired from a non-Jew.

8:
Our mishnah also forbids Bithynian cheese. The Gemara [AZ 34a] explains:

The concern here is that after they have been sacrificed the stomachs of the animals will have been used to make rennet to create the cheese. Bithynia was an ancient region, at this time a province of the Roman empire, in the northwest corner of Asia Minor, modern Turkey. It had a coastline along the Black Sea as well as along the Dardanelles.