In the last Mishnah, we spoke about the conditions needed to allow a Jew to store kosher (fit) wine on the property of an idol worshiper. We said it has to be in a house that is open to the street, so people can see in, and it also has to be in a town where both Jews and non-Jews live. That’s what we mentioned in the last Mishnah. We’ll add one more condition in this Mishnah.
The Mishnah says that, besides all of those conditions, in the following situation, somebody is preparing the wine of an idol worshiper to be kosher. He’s helping the non-Jew prepare kosher wine, and until he sells it, he’s storing it on the idol worshiper’s property. In addition to the conditions we mentioned in the last Mishnah, the idol worshiper has to write him a receipt saying, “I have received money from you as payment for the wine,” which gives the Jew the right to remove the wine at any point. In that case, the wine is mutar (It's permitted). The idol worshiper no longer has any real claim to the wine. Because he wrote a receipt that sort of showed he had no claim to the wine, he would be afraid to enter the building where it is stored, because people are going to look at him as possibly a thief. Therefore, he would never go and touch this wine, so it is permissible to store it on his property.
But if the Jew wanted to remove the wine and the idol worshiper told him, “No, you’re not allowed to do so until you give me the money, until you pay me what it’s worth,” then a case like this once happened, and the rabbis prohibited the wine. They said that since the idol worshiper has control of the wine until he’s paid, he thinks it’s his, that he owns it, and therefore he can do what he wants with it. Therefore, we say that the wine is prohibited because we’re nervous that he may have used it for a libation.
So basically, what we’re saying in this Mishnah is that if the idol worshiper signs away his right to the wine, even before he gets paid, he has no connection to it, and the Jew is allowed to store it on his property. But if the idol worshiper won’t sign away his right to the wine until he actually gets his money, and the money isn’t paid until it comes in from the customers, then the wine is a problem, because the non-Jew still thinks he has authority over it and may use it for an idolatrous practice of libation.