פירוש על עבודה זרה 141:11

The Talmud raises a contradiction which comes from a mishnah in Ketubot. The background to this mishnah is that if a woman is raped, she may not return to her husband if he is a priest. [I know that this is a difficult law. If you’re interested, read the first parts of Mishnah Ketubot]. The mishnah assumes that marauding troops will rape women. Therefore, the women in the city are forbidden to return to their husbands if they are kohanim. So why assume that soldiers at the time of war will have time to rape women but no time to offer libations.

The answer is indeed, soldiers have time to have intercourse (i.e. rape) but no time to offer libations. Perhaps we might add that soldiers might just be more interested in some things than others.

If a non-Jew who has hired a Jew to do some work for him, pays him with yen nesekh and actually gives the Jew the wine, the Jew cannot exchange the wine back for money. Once the wine comes into his possession it is actually his, and exchanging it with the non-Jew would in essence be selling yen nesekh, which is forbidden. If the Jew were to send back the shipment of wine before it reaches him then he may accept in its place money. Since in this case the non-Jew has never paid back his debt, it is not considered as if the Jew is selling his own yen nesekh.

A Jew can tell a gentile to go and try to come to a tax settlement with the king or his representatives, even if the agent ends up paying the taxes with wine that might have been used in libations. We should note that the sugya assume that wine is used to pay debts, and indeed we know that throughout history, wine was often used as a trade commodity.

If a Jew sells his wine to a non-Jew, he must make sure that he is not receiving money for what is now yen nesekh. If he measures out the wine to the non-Jew and then sets a price, he is actually receiving payment for selling yen nesekh, since the wine becomes yen nesekh as soon as it is in the non-Jew’s possession. Therefore, he must set a price before he gives over the wine. Note that once the price is set he need not receive the money, for the debt of the non-Jew is already established.

Both Amemar and R. Ashi agree that when Persians give gifts they do not retract. The question is why not? According to Amemar it is because according to non-Jewish law, meshikhah effects acquisition. Persians do not retract because gifts cannot be taken back. But R. Ashi says that this is simply due to their refusal to go back on their word. It is not a legal principle. They could retract if they wanted to.

Ashi attempts to prove that meshikhah does not effect acquisition for non-Jews from instructions that Rav gave to Jewish wine-sellers. Rav essentially told the Jews to first take the money from the non-Jew, or at least make the non-Jew obligated to pay back a loan, and only then to pour the wine into a container and give it to the non-Jew. Otherwise, the wine will still belong to the Jew up until the point that the non-Jew drinks it and when the non-Jew pays the money back, they will be paying the Jew for nesekh.
However, if simple meshikhah acquired the wine, then as soon as he poured the wine into the container and gave it to them, it would be their wine, but it would not become yayin nesekth until they touch it. Thus meshikhah must