This Mishnah talks about situations where there is a suspicion that an idol worshiper touched a Jew’s wine, which would make it yayin nesekh (wine of libation), but we have no certainty about it. How do we treat these various cases?
The Mishnah says that if the idol worshiper gave a loan to the Jew against the wine, and the wine was viewed as collateral that would be taken if the Jew did not pay on time, then it was asur—the wine would be prohibited. Because we could assume that the idol worshiper touched the wine in his mind: “I’m not getting paid. I have rights to this wine. So I’m going to take it, and I’m going to see what the story is with it.” But if there was no loan against the wine, then the wine is permitted because the idol worshiper has no connection to it and would be afraid to touch it. He would be afraid that he would be suspected of looking like a thief. Therefore, in that case, he wouldn’t touch it.
We’ll talk about other cases where the idol worshiper actually touched the wine, but it’s clear that he had no intention of making it into a libation. The idol worshiper fell into a Jew’s wine and died; he drowned in the wine. So there, since he didn’t come out alive—if he came out alive, it would be a different story—we would assume that because he came out, he thanked his idol and performed a libation. But here, he came up dead.
Or he measured the level of the wine with a reed. So he didn’t actually touch it; he tested it. Or there was a hornet on the wine, and he flicked it out with the reed. He never touched the wine with his hand in this case either. Or he was tapping with his hand on the opening of a barrel of wine that was foaming, to make sure the foam was knocked down. He didn’t want the foam to continue to rise.
All of these were actual cases that happened. When they were asked about this question, they said that the wine should be sold to idol worshipers. They permitted the owners to benefit from the wine by selling it because it’s clear that the idol worshiper didn’t perform a libation with this type of wine. But they didn’t want to allow drinking it in this situation because it had been touched in some way by an idol worshiper. So it wasn’t prohibited as yayin nesekh, and therefore benefit from it would be permitted. But the other reason for the prohibition—the fear of socializing between Jew and Gentile that would lead to marriage—still applied to wine that had been touched by a non-Jew in a way that wasn’t for a libation.
Rebbe Shimon even permitted this type of wine to be drunk in these types of cases.
An idol worshiper took a barrel of wine and threw it into a Jew’s cistern in a fit of anger. He was very angry. This was an actual case, and the rabbis said that the wine was kosher (fit for consumption). Everyone agreed that even in this type of case, it could be drunk. They said that there are two reasons to be lenient here. The idol worshiper didn’t intend to touch the wine. He was throwing the barrel, and he touched the wine only indirectly. Therefore, the wine would be permitted even for drinking in this type of case.