Avodah Zarah 060

1:
Our mishnah is concerned with certain kinds of contact that a non-Jew might have with wine during the wine-making process. Our mishnah seems to be composed of three clauses.

2:
The first clause of our mishnah concerns a non-Jew who is standing next to the vat in a winepress which belongs to a Jew. The issue that concerns the sages is the likelihood that the non-Jew, so near to the wine because he is standing at the edge of the vat, will touch the wine and thus render it yeyn nesekh. The ruling is that if the non-Jew is the creditor of the Jewish vintner then the wine in the vat is deemed to be yeyn nesekh and Jews may not drink it. In the Gemara [AZ 60a] we are told that this ruling is limited to a situation where the wine in the vat is the surety for the loan that the Jew received from the non-Jew. The reasoning is that the non-Jew will most likely relate to the wine as his own property since he expects to receive it in payment of the debt. Thus he will touch it and make it yeyn nesekh in all sorts of ways – some of which are described in the next clause. However, if the wine in the vat was not actually surety for the loan he would be careful not to touch it because he would not want to damage the chances that the wine could be the source for repayment of the debt.

3:
However, if the non-Jew standing next to the vat is not the creditor of the Jewish owner of the wine there is no real reason to suppose that he will touch the wine down in the vat. So, unless he is seen to do so, the wine may be presumed not to be yeyn nesekh and is permitted to Jews.

4:
In the next clause of our mishnah four occurrences are presented. In each of them a non-Jew makes contact in some way or other with the wine in the vat, and each of these occurrences, we are told, actually happened.

5:
The first case is that of a non-Jew who was standing on the edge of the vat and fell in! Our mishnah adds that not only did he fall in but he managed to climb out of the vat. Our mishnah rules that the wine must be sold. (We shall examine this more thoroughly later on.) In the Gemara [AZ 60b] this occurrence is somewhat circumscribed:

This interpretation of our mishnah seems to me to be problematic. Nothing in the language of the mishnah suggests that the man who fell into the vat was drowned and pulled out dead. The verb used is literally "if he rose" from the vat, after falling in. But if the simple understanding of the text is accepted then we have a problem with the ruling of the sages: by falling into the vat the non-Jew certainly came into contact with the wine (!) and therefore it is yeyn nesekh. As such it is forbidden for the Jewish owner to derive any benefit from that wine. So, how can the sages permit the wine to be sold? It seems, therefore, that the reasoning of Rav Pappa in the Gemara is an attempt to reconcile the incident described with the ruling of the sages. If the man was dead the wine is forbidden to be drunk by Jews but the owner may recoup his loss by selling it. However, if the man survived he would be so happy that the day would be like a heathen festival for him, and thus the wine in the vat is yeyn nesekh to all intents and purposes.

6:
The second occurrence is where a non-Jew thrust a measuring rod into the vat to see how deep it was. Possibly he intended to buy the wine and wanted to see how much wine there actually was in the vat. Be that as it may, the wine should have thus become yeyn nesekh, but the sages permitted it to be sold – as in the previous occurrence.

7:
The third and fourth occurrences are simple. On one occasion, it seems, that a non-Jew standing near the vat saw a hornet about to dive into the wine and used a rod that he was holding to flick the hornet away. The man was obviously trying to be helpful. The rod clearly came into contact with the wine, thus rendering it yeyn nesekh. Lastly, a non-Jew was near a barrel of wine and saw that it was frothing. So he tapped it with a rod that he was holding in order to decrease the froth. (Possibly, he intended to buy the barrel but wanted to see how much was wine and how much was froth.)

8:
In all these cases the sages say that the wine may not be drunk by Jews, but the owner may sell the wine to a non-Jew. Their reasoning is, presumably, that in all such accidental cases we cannot really say that there was any intended religious significance in the mind of the non-Jew. Therefore, although it has become forbidden for Jewish consumption the owner may recoup his loss.

9:
Rabbi Shim'on holds that in such cases the wine is not rendered yeyn nesekh at all and is permitted even for drinking. However, the accepted halakhah does not follow the opinion of Rabbi Shim'on.

10:
The last clause of our mishnah describes a case where the contact between the non-Jew and the wine was even more remote: the non-Jew, in a fit of fury, takes and empty barrel and throws it into the vat. In such a case the sages agree with Rabbi Shim'on and rule that the wine in the vat has not become yeyn nesekh at all.