Avodah Zarah 032

5:
We are discussing the prohibition of the sages against eating bread baked by non-Jews. In the last shiur we quoted an anecdote in which Rabbi admits that the reason for the prohibition was social rather than religious: the sages wanted to curtail opportunities for the social intermingling of Jews and non-Jews "as a safeguard against intermarriage".

6:
The Gemara [AZ 35b] is rather shocked at this and seeks to re-interpret the incident. Rabbi had gone "out into a field" when "a non-Jew brought him a loaf". The Gemara suggests that this was the etiology of his outburst:

Presumably, the purport here is that since in a field – outside the places of habitual human socializing – there was little danger of promoting intermarriage why should the prohibition apply? The Gemara then explains that this must have been the reason why people thought (wrongly) that Rabbi had permitted the bread of non-Jews.

7:
Still rather shocked the Gemara now brings a completely different rendering of the anecdote.

Wriggle as much as the Gemara does it cannot avoid the fact that people (presumably not sages) did think that Rabbi had permitted non-Jewish bread.

8:
At this point the argument begins to fall apart and several situations are suggested in which it might be possible to partake of non-Jewish bread:

So, it seems that in Eretz-Israel at any rate (for both Rabbi Ĥelbo and Rabbi Yoĥanan were sages from Eretz-Israel) the prohibition against eating bread baked by non-Jews was losing much of its force. However, in the continuation of the Gemara it is made quite clear that the sages of Babylon did not falter in their adherence to the prohibition:

9:
The uncertainty about Rabbi's attitude regarding bread baked by a non-Jew does not apply to the issue of non-Jewish oil. Our mishnah states quite categorically that "Rabbi and his Bet Din permitted [non-Jewish] oil". (There are some modern scholars who are of the opinion that it was not Rabbi himself who removed the prohibition against non-Jewish oil but his grandson, a later Rabbi Judah who was President of the Sanhedrin. Given the discussion in the Gemara which we shall study in the next shiur it does seem rather certain that it was Rabbi himself who abrogated that prohibtion.

To be continued.

In AZ 028 I wrote something erroneously:

When an animal that was suckling its young died … they would remove the sour milk from the dead animal's stomach and add it to the fresh milk that was to be turned into cheese so that the sour milk would initiate the process of solidification. (See AZ 031 for the correct understanding.)

Juan-Carlos Kiel writes:

I was under the impression that only male animals were sacrificed at the Temple: The Tamid, se'irim, lambs, etc.

I respond:

This is not so. See, for example, Leviticus 4:28, 5:6. There are other examples. I think Juan-Carlos was referring only to the public sacrifices; but private sacrifices certainly included female animals.

Juan-Carlos also writes:

Were it not that the animal is sacrificed to an idol, would it then kosher to solidify the milk with the rennet of a kosher killed animal? May we have an authentic kosher Parmesan cheese?

I respond:

Kosher cheese is not solidified using rennet because that would involve a mixture of meat and dairy.