Avodah Zarah, Daf Ayin Aleph, Part 1
Introduction
Today s section discusses non-Jewish soldiers do we have to assume that they opened casks of wine and drank from them.
מתני׳ בולשת שנכנסה לעיר בשעת שלום חביות פתוחות אסורות סתומות מותרות
בשעת מלחמה אלו ואלו מותרות לפי שאין פנאי לנסך:
If a band of non-Jewish marauders entered a city in a time of peace, the open casks are prohibited and the sealed are permitted;
In a time of war both are permitted because they do not have the leisure to offer libations.
If the marauders enter the city in a time of peace, the assumption is that they may make libations from wine in open casks. Nevertheless, wine that is found afterwards in closed casks is permitted. The mishnah is not assuming that the marauders will not open the closed casks. After all, we have seen over and over in the previous mishnayoth that we must suspect that the non-Jews will open the casks and take from the wine. Rather the reason that the wine is permitted is that if the marauders had opened the casks they would not bother to reseal them. Unlike the non-Jews in the previous mishnah who might have attempted to be sneaky and take a drink without getting caught, the marauders have no such concern.
However, if the marauders entered the city in a time of war, all of the wine is permitted, since they are too busy making war to offer libations.
גמ׳ ורמינהי עיר שכבשוה כרקום כל כהנות שבתוכה פסולות
GEMARA. Against this they quoted: A city which been captured by besieging troops, all the wives of priests in it are disqualified [to their husbands]!
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.
אמר רב מרי לנסך אין פנאי לבעול יש פנאי:
R. Mari said: [The soldiers] have no free time to offer libations, but they have free time to have intercourse.
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.