פירוש על עבודה זרה 120:7

The non-Jew held this wine inside the jug by holding the broken jug together. The force that he applies to the walls of the jug causes the wine to be prohibited but only for consumption. A Jew may still sell it.

If the split is lengthwise then when he held it together, the non-Jew did something that could not have been done by a heavy weight. But if it split cross-wise, and he just held the top down, then even a brick could have accomplished that. The wine remains totally permitted.

This story is really about kashering the wine press. If the non-Jew is standing in the press then he can be assumed to have touched the wine in the press. Does this wine go into the walls of the press? If there is enough moisture there that were one to moisten one’s hands with it then touch something else the moisture would be transferred then the winepress needs to be rinsed and rubbed dry to make it usable by a Jew. As we shall see on page 74b this process is done with ash. If the winepress is not that moist, then it only needs to be dried off.

If a non-Jew is seen standing next to a vat of wine we need to know if the non-Jew touched the wine. The mishnah teaches that if the non-Jew had loaned money to the Jew then the wine is prohibited. In such a case, the non-Jew has a lien on the Jew’s wine and might at some point say to the Jew, give me the wine and I will forgive you the loan. Since he has this financial connection to the Jew, and in some sense he has ownership over the wine, he will feel free to take some of the wine for himself. Therefore we must assume that he has come into contact with the wine. If, however, he has not loaned money to the Jew, then we do not assume that he had come into contact with the wine, and it is permitted.

This section lists all sorts of circumstances in which a non-Jew might come into contact with wine and yet it is highly unlikely that he used it to make a libation. Since in all of these cases we can be almost one hundred per cent sure that he didn’t do so, there is room to be lenient. The Sages, in front of whom cases such as these came, said that the wine could be sold to a non-Jew. In other words, it is forbidden to drink the wine but it is not forbidden to derive benefit from it. If it had truly been considered yen nesekh, then it could not even be sold. Rabbi Shimon is even more lenient and allows a person to even drink the wine.

If a non-Jew throws an empty cask into a vat of wine the wine in the vat is not forbidden at all. Since in this case the non-Jew certainly did not make a libation with the wine, it is permitted and a Jew may even drink the wine.

R. Ashi quotes another mishnah that proves that the wine is prohibited only if the non-Jew could take it to collect his loan. The wine in the second clause is essentially being held by the non-Jew as collateral for a loan. If the non-Jew will not let the Jew take the wine, then he has a lien on “this wine.” But if he lets him take the wine, then we can assume his lien is on other wine (or some other collateral). In this case the wine would be permitted. We will learn this mishnah in greater depth later in the chapter.

According to the mishnah, if a non-Jew falls into a vat of wine, the wine may be sold (R. Shimon allows it to be drunk). R. Papa says this is true only if the non-Jew dies in the vat (ewww, not sure I’d want to drink it after that). If he comes out then the wine is strictly prohibited because we can assume that he libated some of it. Surviving the fall into the wine vat is cause for him to celebrate as he would on a festival.

R. Shimon’s methodology is quite straightforward. When he permits, he permits the wine all the way—it can even be drunk. When he prohibits, he is also clear—the wine cannot even be sold.

A whole bunch of amoraim rule like R. Shimon—one can even drink the wine. But the anonymous voice at the end rules against him. He who rules last rules!

Rav Ashi tries to equate the rules governing the zav, a person with an unnatural genital discharge, with the rules governing wine touched by a non-Jew. If a zav throws something into a vat of liquid, the vat of liquid remains pure. This is a true comparison, as was noted by Rashi. The problem is that the comparison is not all that good beyond this. The main problem is that when a zav carries something, it becomes impure even if he does not touch it. But wine carried by a non-Jew is not yayin nesekh. For it to be nesekh he must touch it.

According to the mishnah, if the non-Jew throws something in to the vat in anger, the wine remains fit. By implication, if he throws it in not in anger, it becomes nesekh. But when it comes to the zav, it does not matter what his motivation is when throwing something into the vat—it always remains pure. So the analogy does not hold up so well.