[Avodah] Ta'aroves of yayn mevushal

[kennethgmiller at juno.com]

R' Liron Kopinsky wrote:
> Why would the shiur that would pasul wine for use in the
> Beit Hamikdash affect its usability for AZ? The goyim don't
> follow our halachot.

to which R' Zev Sero responded:
> That is a long-standing puzzle.  Since they don't follow our
> halachot, why do we assume that cooking wine -- even boiling
> the life out of it -- would prevent them from using it for
> nisuch.  And yet that is exactly what we do assume.  I can
> only conclude that if it's pasul for our nisuch, then
> whatever they do with it doesn't count halachically as nisuch
> laA"Z, so we don't care. They can call whatever they do
> whatever they like, but we don't call it nisuch, so the wine
> remains permitted.

I too have been puzzled by this. I can't recall specific places, but on many occassions, when I've tried to learn the origins of Yayin Mevushal and related halachos, I often get confused by an apparent mishmash of what *we* consider pasul for nisuch, and of what *they* consider pasul for nisuch.

But my resolution of that puzzle is a bit different than RZS's. It seems that RZS is saying that "we don't care" what the AZ-niks actually do. My suspicion is that we *do* care, as logically we must, because if they'd be willing to do nisuch with yayin mevushal, then I can't imagine why we wouldn't worry about it. But that's only l'halacha. L'maaseh, RZS is correct that we don't need to study their religious laws, and the reason why -- and I must stress that this is only my own conjecture -- is that both we and they happen to have the same rules.

The concept of korbanos is ancient. It is from before Har Sinai, before Avraham Avinu, even before Noach, going back to Adam Harishon. It is not a particularly Jewish idea, but not a goyish idea either, but a human one. Of course, the Torah expounds on it, and gives many details. But if some of those details (like what kind of wine may or may not be used) happens to match what the AZ-niks do, I wouldn't be surprised.

Akiva Miller

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