Avodah Zarah, Daf Samekh, Part 6

 

Introduction

Today s sugya deals with the case of the non-Jew who threw a cask into a vat of wine.

 

נטל חבית וזרקה [בחמתו] לבור זה היה מעשה [והכשירו]:

אמר רב אשי כל שבזב טמא בעובד כוכבים עושה יין נסך כל שבזב טהור בעובד כוכבים אינו עושה יין נסך

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If he took a cask and in his anger threw it into the vat this actually happened and [the rabbis] declared it fit [for drinking].

R. Ashi said: Whatever is rendered unclean by a zav makes wine [in a similar circumstance] nesek by a non-Jew, and whatever is not rendered unclean by a zav does not makes wine nesekh by a non-Jew.

 

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.

 

איתיביה רב הונא לרב אשי נטל את החבית וזרקה בחמתו לבור זה היה מעשה בבית שאן והכשירו בחמתו אין שלא בחמתו לא

 

R. Huna raised a difficulty against R. Ashi: If he took a cask and in his anger threw it into the vat this actually happened in Beth-Shean and [the rabbis] declared it fit [for drinking]! If he did this in anger it is [fit for drinking], but if he had not done it in anger it would not [be fit]!

 

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.

 

התם דקאזיל מיניה ומיניה

 

[R. Ashi replied:] There [it refers to the circumstance where the cask] was being rolled by him [the whole distance into the vat].

 

R. Ashi says that in the mishnah the cask was not thrown into the vat from afar. It was rolled in and the non-Jew still had contact with it when it touched the wine. This, if it were done not in anger, would make the wine nesekh, just as it would make the wine impure if done by a zav. Thus there is a similarity between the rules governing the case of yayin nesekh and the case of the zav.