A first approach to Siman 133: the 7 seifim of the Mehaber and the Rama’s gloss, Hebrew text with a fluent English translation. The ten preceding simanim asked when wine becomes forbidden. This one begins with wine that already is, and asks a wholly different question: may one work around it? Hiring oneself out, renting one’s beast, one’s boat, one’s cellar; carrying another man’s barrels; serving, interpreting, offering a taste; guarding for free — and, at the very end, being paid to smash them.
Subject : The wage of work done around yayin nesekh — קנס, ים המלח, עיקר השכירות, שוה פרוטה, רוצה בקיומו Source : שולחן ערוך יורה דעה סימן קל״ג
Compiled by : הרב יוסף חיים סממה DAAT · daattorah.com
📑 The course of study
1.The text of the Mehaber: the 7 seifim, with the Rama’s gloss
2.Background: the mishnah of Avodah Zarah 62a and its gemara
3.Key concepts: קנס, שוחק וזורה לרוח, עיקר השכירות, שוה פרוטה, ממשכנים, רוצה בקיומו…
4.The summary table: the 7 seifim in a single grid
5.The Shach and the Taz: seven key entries
6.The Rama’s gloss (הגה): a single intervention, and its three limits
7.Modern practical cases: the carrier, the warehouse, the server, the interpreter
8.Synthesis and comprehension questions
1. The text of the Mehaber — the 7 seifim
Siman 133 changes the question. Simanim 123 to 132 asked in turn what renders wine forbidden — contact, force, mixture, vessel, seal, absence — and then, at siman 132, what may still pass from forbidden wine into a Jew’s hand as money. Here the wine is forbidden and money is no longer the subject: the subject is work. Seven seifim, describing seven ways of earning something around wine one may not use. The Rama intervenes only once, at the end of seif 1 — but his intervention bears on the whole siman.
Seif 1 — Wages from yayin nesekh, and what is done with them
שלא להשתכר ביין נסך ולא לעשות ממנו סחורה. ובו ז׳ סעיפים: כשם שאסור למכור סתם יינם וליהנות בו כך אסור להשתכר בו לפיכך ישראל שנשכר לעובד כוכבים לעשות לו מלאכה אפילו בסתם יינם או שהשכיר לו חמורו או ספינתו להוליכו בו או מרתיפו להניחו בו שכרו אסור בהנאה ואם נטל ממנו מעות בשכרו שוחק וזורה לרוח או מטיל לים נתן לו פירות יוליכם לים המלח או ישרפם ויקבור העפר בבית הקברות אפילו לקח בשכרו קרקע או בהמה שאינם נאסרים בהשתחוה להם ועבדן החמירו בהם לאסרם בהנאה: הגה ועיין לעיל סימן קכ״ג דבזמן הזה מקילין לענין היתר הנאה מסתם יינם ולכן אין להחמיר באלו הדינים רק ביין נסך גמור:
Heading of the siman:not to take wages from yayin nesekh, and not to trade in it; and it contains seven seifim.
Just as it is forbidden to sell stam yeinam and to derive benefit from it, so too it is forbidden to earn wages from it.Therefore a Jew who hired himself out to a non-Jew to do work for him — even with stam yeinam — or who rented him his donkey, or his boat to carry it in, or his cellar to store it in: his wage is forbidden in benefit.
And if he received money from him as wages — he grinds it and scatters it to the wind, or casts it into the sea. If he gave him produce — he takes it to the Dead Sea, or burns it and buries the ashes in the cemetery.
Even if he took land or an animal as his wage — which do not become forbidden even if one bowed to them and worshipped them — they were stringent about them, to forbid them in benefit.
Gloss of the Rama:and see above siman 123, that nowadays we are lenient regarding benefit from stam yeinam; therefore one need not be stringent in these laws except with actual yayin nesekh.
The siman does not ask what makes wine forbidden — it begins with wine that already is. Its question is one of work: may a Jew earn his living around this wine? And the answer of seif 1 is startlingly severe, because it reaches money already pocketed, produce already received, and even land — which in the law of idolatry never becomes forbidden. That is the sign that this is not a rule about the object but a penalty; the Gemara says it in a single word: קנס.
Seif 2 — When the hire was not “for the wine”
השכיר לו חמורו לרכוב עליו אע״פ שהניח לגינו של יין עליו או שהשכיר לו ספינתו להוליך בה סחורתו אף ע״פ שנותן בה גם מאכליו ומשקיו שכרו מותר כיון שעיקר השכירות לא היה בשביל יין נסך:
He rented him his donkey to ride upon — even though he placed his flask of wine on it; or he rented him his boat to carry his merchandise in it — even though he also puts his food and drink in it: his wage is permitted, since the essence of the hire was not for yayin nesekh.
Seif 2 is the exact counter-test of seif 1. The wine travels, the donkey and the boat are genuinely rented, the wage is genuinely paid — and yet it is permitted. What changes fits in four words: עיקר השכירות, the essence of the hire. The animal was not rented for the wine; the flask came on top. The Gemara supplies the working test: could the renter demand a discount if he did not put his flask on? No — so the flask is no part of the contract.
Seif 3 — A hundred barrels for a hundred perutot, or one barrel per peruta
עובד כוכבים ששכר את הפועל ואמר לו העבר לי מאה חביות של שכר במאה פרוטות ונמצאת אחת מהן יין שכרו כולו אסור כיון שיש ביניהם שוה פרוטה משכר היין נסך שאם היה פחות משוה פרוטה מותר בדיעבד ואם אמר לו העבר לי כל חבית בפרוטה ונמצא ביניהם חבית של יין שכר חבית של יין אסור והשאר שכרו מותר ולכתחילה אסור לעשות כן:
A non-Jew who hired a worker and said to him, “transfer for me a hundred barrels of beer for a hundred perutot,” and one of them turned out to be wine — all his wage is forbidden, since there is among it a peruta’s worth from the wage of the yayin nesekh; for had it been less than a peruta’s worth, it would be permitted after the fact.
And if he said to him, “transfer for me each barrel for a peruta,” and there was found among them a barrel of wine — the wage of that barrel is forbidden and the rest of his wage is permitted; and at the outset it is forbidden to do so.
Two wordings, two regimes. “A hundred barrels for a hundred perutot” is a lump contract: the wage falls due only at the end, it is one indivisible thing, and the forbidden peruta spreads through all of it. “Each barrel for a peruta” is a string of small contracts: only the peruta of the wine barrel is caught. Nothing changed in the work done — the sentence spoken at hiring decided everything.
Seif 4 — Working for free, and the pledge
היה עושה עמו ביין בחנם ממשכנים מנכסיו כנגד שכרו:
If he was working with him at the wine for free — a pledge is taken from his property to the value of his wage.
Working for nothing is no way out. The Jew receives nothing, and yet the beit din takes a pledge from his property to the value of what he would have earned. The reason, says the Taz, is that the non-Jew is grateful to him: that goodwill is itself a benefit. The Maharshal adds a second reading — it is not a benefit being seized but a fine being imposed.
Seif 5 — Serving, interpreting, offering a taste
לא יהא ישראל משמש ומוזג לעובד כוכבי׳ ביין נסך וכן אסור להיות תורגמן לעובד כוכבים למכור יין נסך וכן אסור ליתן יין בכלי ביד עובד כוכבים המכריז להטעימו שכיון שנגע בו העובד כוכבים נעשה יין נסך וכשמכריזו ומטעימו (ס״א ומראהו וכן הוא בב״י ובכל בו) נהנה הישראל מיין נסך:
A Jew shall not serve or pour yayin nesekh for a non-Jew.Likewise it is forbidden to act as a non-Jew’s interpreter in order to sell yayin nesekh.Likewise it is forbidden to place wine in a vessel in the hand of a non-Jew who is crying it for sale, so as to have it tasted — for once the non-Jew has touched it, it has become yayin nesekh; and when he cries it and gives it to taste (another version: and shows it; so it is in the Beit Yosef and in the Kol Bo), the Jew derives benefit from yayin nesekh.
Seif 5 moves from money to the act itself. Serving a drink, interpreting for a seller, handing the cup to the crier: in all three the Jew takes nothing from the wine — he renders a service that keeps the wine trade alive. On the interpreter the Beit Yosef adds the sharpest reason of all: he is like a broker, and it is through him that the wine is sold.
Seif 6 — Guarding for free, and רוצה בקיומו
אפילו אמר לו העובד כוכבים שמור בחנם חבית זו של יין נסך אע״פ שפטור אם נשברה או נאבדה מכל מקום מיצר הוא אם תשבר או תאבד מתוך שמירתו ורוצה הוא בקיומו ואסור:
Even if the non-Jew said to him, “guard this barrel of yayin nesekh for me for free” — although he is exempt if it breaks or is lost, nevertheless he is distressed if it should break or be lost while in his keeping; he therefore wants it to remain in existence, and it is forbidden.
Seif 6 names a benefit that has no monetary shape:רוצה בקיומו — wanting the thing to survive. The guardian takes nothing, and is not even liable; but he would rather the barrel stayed whole, and that is enough. The Ran, in the name of Rashi, gives the true ground: a Jew is commanded to destroy idolatry, and so he cannot wish it to remain.
Seif 7 — Breaking the barrels: ממעט בתיפלה
ישראל ששכרו עובד כוכבים לשבר לו חבית של יין נסך אע״פ שרוצה בקיומם שלא ישתברו מאליהם עד שישברם הוא ויטול שכרם שכרו מותר ותבא עליו ברכה מפני שממעט בתיפלה:
A Jew whom a non-Jew hired to break a barrel of yayin nesekh for him — although he wants them to remain intact, that they not break of themselves until he breaks them and takes his wage — his wage is permitted, and may blessing come upon him, because he diminishes idolatry.
Seif 7 overturns seif 6, and it is the finest page of the siman. Here too the Jew wants the barrels to survive — until he smashes them. But his wish has an end in view: their destruction. Rav Nachman rules in three words: ישבור ותבא עליו ברכה. It is therefore not the wish that is forbidden, but what it is aimed at.
2. Background — the mishnah of Avodah Zarah 62a and its gemara
The whole siman rests on the opening of the last chapter of Avodah Zarah, Hasokher et hapoel. The mishnah sets out two symmetrical cases — the worker and the donkey — and in each, a forbidden version and a permitted one. The Mehaber follows that order in his first two seifim.
The mishnah, in its first half, sets work done with the wine against work done elsewhere:
The Gemara then looks for the ground of the prohibition. It proposes a first — that the money follows the forbidden thing — and refutes it from orlah and kilei hakerem, whose price nonetheless betroths a woman:
It proposes a second — that wine “seizes its price,” like an idol — and refutes it from the sabbatical year, which does seize its price and yet does not forbid a worker’s wage:
Then the sugya of the flask set on the donkey. Abaye there gives the test that becomes the rule of seif 2: could the renter demand a discount if he did not put it on?
Finally, the peruta threshold of seif 3 comes from a line of reasoning of the Rashba resting on an entirely different passage — the last hammer-blow that completes an idol:
The Rambam had already gathered these rules in chapter 13 of the Laws of Forbidden Foods, and there he first sets down the exception that makes the whole siman possible: the price of something forbidden in benefit is ordinarily permitted — except for wine.
Why is the wage forbidden, when the price of something forbidden in benefit is ordinarily permitted? Because this is not a rule about money but a penalty against a man: קנס. The Gemara reaches it only after discarding two more natural explanations.
Why must the money be destroyed rather than simply given away? Because it is treated as the idol itself is treated: ground, scattered, cast away. The Rashba says so explicitly; the Rambam is content with the Dead Sea.
What makes a hire a hire “for the wine”? Not the presence of the wine — the flask is right there in seif 2. It is the contract: does the wine enter into the agreed price?
How can the same work yield a wage wholly forbidden or almost wholly permitted? By the sentence spoken at hiring. A lump contract: the wage is one thing, and the forbidden peruta infects it. Piece rate: each barrel is a separate contract.
Can one benefit from something forbidden while receiving nothing? Yes — twice in this siman: through the gratitude one earns (seif 4), and through the mere wish that the thing survive (seif 6).
This siman deals neither with contact (simanim 123-125), nor with mixture (siman 126), nor with guarding (simanim 128-131), nor with the price of the wine (siman 132). It deals with wages — that is, with the consideration for work. Its rules therefore cannot be deduced from siman 132: there the money was the wine transformed; here the money was never the wine. If it is forbidden nonetheless, it is by a decision of the Sages and not by the nature of the thing.
3. Key concepts of this siman
לְהִשְׂתַּכֵּר בְּיֵין נֶסֶךְ — “to earn wages from yayin nesekh.” The very heading of the siman. It is not about buying, selling or drinking: it is about being paid for work whose object is the forbidden wine. The Mehaber at once adds trade — סחורה — since both live off the same benefit.
קְנָס — the rabbinic penalty. The Gemara discards two substantive explanations before conceding that the prohibition on wages has none: it is a fine the Sages imposed. Every feature of the siman follows — its severity (it reaches even land) and its exits (it strikes only the one being penalised).
סְתַם יֵינָם · יֵין נֶסֶךְ גָּמוּר — a non-Jew’s wine, and wine actually poured in libation. The first is a rabbinic stringency; the second an idolatry prohibition. The Mehaber writes the siman for both together; the Rama, in one gloss, separates the two regimes for his own day.
שׁוֹחֵק וְזוֹרֶה לָרוּחַ — “he grinds and scatters to the wind.” The treatment reserved for the idol itself, applied here to coins. This is no mere abandonment: it is annihilation. The Rashba gives the reason — since the prohibition derives from idolatry, one treats the money as one treats it.
יָם הַמֶּלַח — the Dead Sea. The classic place for what must leave no trace. The Taz observes that the Mehaber does not require the Dead Sea for money — any sea will do — but does require it for produce, which stays visible and might be fished out.
בֵּית הַקְּבָרוֹת — the cemetery. Where the ash of the burnt produce is buried. The Beit Yosef sees a place nobody sows; Tosafot, a place nobody digs in for fertiliser. The Taz plainly prefers the second reason.
קַבְּלָנוּת · שְׂכִיר לְפִי מַעֲשֶׂה — the lump contract, and the piece rate. Two contract forms. Under a lump contract nothing is owed until everything is done: the wage is one block. At piece rate each unit earns its own price: the wage is a sum of parts. All of seif 3 lies in that difference.
שָׁוֶה פְּרוּטָה — a peruta’s worth. The smallest monetary unit that counts in law. Below it, forbidden wage mixed into the rest does not forbid — but only after the fact. The Rashba derives this from an entirely different passage; the Shach questions the proof.
עִיקַּר הַשְּׂכִירוּת — the essence of the hire. The criterion of seif 2. One does not ask whether wine travelled, but whether the wine was part of what was hired. The Gemara measures it by a question of civil law: could the renter claim a reduction if he gave up placing his flask?
לָגִין — the flask. The small wine vessel a traveller carries for the road. It is genuinely yayin nesekh and genuinely on the rented donkey — and yet it does not forbid the wage, because it was never in the price.
מְמַשְׁכְּנִים מִנְּכָסָיו — a pledge is taken from his property. The measure of seif 4, drawn from the Jerusalem Talmud. The beit din seizes a value equal to the wage the Jew did not receive. It is the clearest proof that we stand before a penalty and not a rule about money.
טוֹבַת הֲנָאָה — goodwill benefit. The gratitude the non-Jew feels toward one who served him for nothing. The Taz makes it the ground of the pledge; the Maharshal prefers to see a plain fine.
תּוּרְגְּמָן — the interpreter. The one who translates for the non-Jewish seller. He does not touch the wine, does not sell or buy it — and without him the sale does not happen. The Beit Yosef, in the Rashba’s name, calls him a broker.
רוֹצֶה בְּקִיּוּמוֹ — wanting the thing to survive. The subtlest benefit of the siman: a mere wish. The Ran, in Rashi’s name, gives its ground — a Jew is commanded to abolish idolatry, and so cannot wish it to remain.
מְמַעֵט בְּתִיפְלָה — “he diminishes idolatry.” The phrase that overturns everything in seif 7. The same wish — that the barrels hold — becomes permitted, and even blessed, once its aim is their destruction.
4. The summary table — the 7 seifim in one grid
Read together, the seven seifim all answer one question: does what the Jew receives come from the wine, or from something else?
Seif
The scene
The rule
The reason
א׳
Hiring out oneself, or one’s beast, boat or cellar, for the wine
Wage forbidden in benefit; money ground, produce burnt
The money is the consideration for work done on the forbidden thing
א׳ (end)
He took land or an animal as his wage
Forbidden in benefit all the same
Stringency: this is a penalty, not a rule of status
ב׳
Hire for riding or carrying goods, with a wine flask added
Wage permitted
עיקר השכירות — the wine was not in the price
ג׳
“A hundred barrels for a hundred perutot,” one of them wine
The whole wage forbidden
Lump contract: the wage is indivisible
ג׳
Same case, but less than a peruta of wine-wage
Permitted after the fact
Below a peruta the forbidden portion does not count
ג׳
“Each barrel for a peruta,” one of them wine
Only that barrel forbidden; forbidden to arrange it so at the outset
Each barrel is a separate contract
ד׳
He worked at the wine for free
A pledge is taken to the value of the wage
The non-Jew’s gratitude is already a benefit
ה׳
Serving and pouring, interpreting, handing the cup to the crier
Forbidden
The service keeps the sale of the wine alive
ו׳
Guarding a barrel for free, without liability
Forbidden
רוצה בקיומו — he wishes it to survive
ז׳
Being paid to smash the barrels
Permitted, and blessed
ממעט בתיפלה — his wish aims at their destruction
5. The Shach and the Taz — seven key entries
Shach s.k. 1 — the ground is not an analogy but a fine
« כלומר דל״ת כדקס״ד מעיקרא דש״ס ר״פ בתרא דעבודת כוכבים דהוי בעי למימר דיי״נ דמי לשביעית דמכירה אסור ושכרו מותר אלא לא דמי לשביעית אלא משום קנס החמירו ביי״נ דשכרו ג״כ אסור כדמסיק ש״ס התם » (ש״ך יו״ד קל״ג ס״ק א)
« וזה פשוט ודלא כהב״ח שנדחק מאד בביאור הש״ס ומתוך כך פי׳ דאם נטל שכרו קודם המלאכה שכרו מותר לאחרים ע״ש » (ש״ך יו״ד קל״ג ס״ק א)
summary: that is: do not say what was first supposed at the beginning of the last chapter of Avodah Zarah, where they wished to say that yayin nesekh resembles the sabbatical year — whose sale is forbidden but whose wage is permitted. It does not resemble it: rather, out of a fine they were stringent about yayin nesekh, so that its wage too is forbidden, as the Gemara concludes there. And this is obvious, contrary to the Bach, who forced himself greatly in explaining the Gemara and derived from it that if one took his wage before the work, the wage is permitted to others.
The Shach opens the siman with a correction of method. A quick reading of the Gemara finds in it a comparison with the sabbatical year; but the Gemara rejects that comparison. The detail decides everything: the Bach, who kept it, concluded that a wage taken before the work would remain permitted to others. The Shach refuses.
Shach s.k. 4 — the Rama’s leniency is not a licence to undertake
« מיהו לכתחלה ודאי אין להשכיר עצמו או ביתו וכליו לסתם יינם וכן כתב ב״י בשם א״ח בשם מהר״מ ע״ש » (ש״ך יו״ד קל״ג ס״ק ד)
summary: however, at the outset it is certain that one should not hire out oneself, or one’s house and vessels, for stam yeinam; so the Beit Yosef wrote in the name of the Orchot Chaim in the name of the Maharam.
This is the most important practical limit in the siman. The Rama has just written that we are not stringent nowadays about stam yeinam. The Shach does not contradict him — he defines the scope: the leniency concerns what has already happened, not what one chooses to undertake.
Shach s.k. 6 — for a lump contract there is no remedy
« ולא מהני הולכת הנאה לים המלח כדלקמן סימן קל״ד דהכא כיון שקבלנות היא כולי אגרא אחדא וחדא יהיב ליה וגם אפשר שאלו הודיעו מתחלה שאין מעביר לו אותו חבית שמא לא היה שוכרו כלל כן הסכימו רוב הפוסקים וכ״פ ב״י והאחרונים » (ש״ך יו״ד קל״ג ס״ק ו)
summary: and taking the benefit to the Dead Sea is of no use, as stated below in siman 134; for here, since it is a lump contract, he gives the entire wage for each and every barrel; and it is also possible that had he told him at the outset that he would not carry that barrel for him, he might not have hired him at all. So most decisors have agreed, and so the Beit Yosef and the Acharonim ruled.
Two reasons, and they do not say the same thing. The first is technical: in a lump contract each barrel carries the whole wage. The second is psychological: without that barrel the hiring might never have happened — the forbidden barrel is therefore the cause of the whole contract.
Taz s.k. 1 — for money, any sea will do
« פי׳ שוחק ומטיל לים וסתם ים משמע כל ים ואין צריכין ים המלח כמו דצריך גבי פירות לפי שהפירות הם בעין ובסתם ים הולכין ספינות ושמא ימצאם אחד ויהנה מהם » (ט״ז יו״ד קל״ג ס״ק א)
summary: that is, he grinds and casts into the sea; and “the sea,” unqualified, means any sea: one does not need the Dead Sea as one does for produce, because produce remains in kind, ships travel on the ordinary sea, and someone might find it and derive benefit from it.
The difference lies in what remains. A ground coin is no longer a coin; a jettisoned fruit is still a fruit. The place of disposal is chosen according to the risk of recovery — that is, once again, according to the possibility of benefit, and not by any ritual rule.
Taz s.k. 3 — the cellar, and the Maharam of Padua’s line
« בתשובת מהר״ם פדווא״ה סי׳ ע״ו מביא הגהות מרדכי שאסור להשכיר מרתף שלו לעובד כוכבים להשים בו יין נסך ואין חילוק בין בזמן הזה לזמן חכמי התלמוד אלא לענין ליקח יין נסך בחובו ולמזוג לעובד כוכבים יין נסך אסור אבל מיין שלנו מותר למזוג להם » (ט״ז יו״ד קל״ג ס״ק ג)
summary: in the responsum of the Maharam of Padua, siman 76, he brings the Hagahot Mordechai: it is forbidden to rent one’s cellar to a non-Jew to store yayin nesekh in it, and there is no difference between our time and the time of the Sages of the Talmud — except with regard to taking yayin nesekh in payment of a debt. And pouring yayin nesekh for a non-Jew is forbidden; but from our own wine it is permitted to pour for them.
The Taz draws the exact boundary of the leniency. What time has changed is the possibility of receiving wine in payment of a debt. What it has not changed: renting out the cellar, and pouring forbidden wine. But pouring our wine for a non-Jew remains permitted.
Taz s.k. 8 — the pledge: a benefit seized, or a fine imposed?
« פירוש הב״ד יקחו ממנו משכון בעבור הנאתו שיחזיק לו העובד כוכבים טובה על זה וכתב רש״ל קנסא בעלמא הוא » (ט״ז יו״ד קל״ג ס״ק ח)
summary: the meaning is that the beit din takes a pledge from him on account of the benefit he has, namely that the non-Jew is grateful to him for it; and the Maharshal wrote that it is a mere fine.
Two readings of one act. Either the gratitude is an assessable good that is seized; or there is nothing to seize and the beit din is punishing. Level 2 turns this into a machloket of principle, with practical consequences.
Taz s.k. 9 — why seif 6 does not speak of gratitude
« והא דלא אמר הטעם שיחזיק לו טובה על זה כמ״ש סעיף ד׳ נ״ל דעובד כוכבים אומר לו בפירוש מתחילה שלא יחזיק לו טובה בשביל זה » (ט״ז יו״ד קל״ג ס״ק ט)
summary: and as for his not giving the reason “that he will be grateful to him for it,” as he wrote in seif 4 — it seems to me that the non-Jew expressly tells him from the outset that he will not be grateful to him for it.
The Taz explains why the Mehaber changes his reason between seif 4 and seif 6. In seif 4, free work generates gratitude. In seif 6, gratitude is expressly excluded by the depositor — and a prohibition remains all the same: the mere wish that the barrel hold. That is the purest formulation of רוצה בקיומו.
6. The Rama’s gloss — one intervention, three limits
The Rama intervenes only once in the whole siman, at the end of seif 1 — but his gloss governs the reading of all seven, since it separates two regimes that the Mehaber had treated together.
« ועיין לעיל סימן קכ״ג דבזמן הזה מקילין לענין היתר הנאה מסתם יינם ולכן אין להחמיר באלו הדינים רק ביין נסך גמור » (רמ״א יו״ד קל״ג:א)
summary: see above at siman 123: nowadays we are lenient regarding the permissibility of benefit from stam yeinam; therefore one need not be stringent in these laws except with actual yayin nesekh.
First limit — at the outset, nothing changes
The Shach (ס״ק ד) writes it immediately: one does not hire oneself out, nor rent one’s house or vessels, for stam yeinam. The leniency bears on benefit already realised, not on an undertaking one enters into.
Second limit — the cellar and the serving remain in view
The Taz (ס״ק ג), through the Maharam of Padua, leaves the age only one difference: taking wine in payment of a debt. Renting out the cellar does not move; and pouring yayin nesekh for a non-Jew remains forbidden — though pouring our own wine is permitted.
Third limit — service at the counter, per the Pitchei Teshuva
The Pitchei Teshuva, in the one place he comments on this siman, sets it on the word “pouring” in seif 5, and brings the Radbaz: it is proper to be stringent even with stam yeinam. That is precisely the point the Rama’s leniency might have carried away.
« עבה״ט של מהרי״ט ז״ל ועיין בתשובת הרדב״ז ח״א סימן כ״ב שכתב דראוי להחמיר אף בסתם יינם עיין שם » (פת״ש יו״ד קל״ג ס״ק א)
summary: see the Baer Hetev of the Mahari”t; and see the responsum of the Radbaz, part one, siman 22, who writes that it is proper to be stringent even with stam yeinam — see there.
The three limits point the same way: the Rama lightens the consequence, not the undertaking. What happened without being sought — a wage already pocketed, a benefit already received — is no longer treated with the severity of actual yayin nesekh. What one decides to do tomorrow remains held by the siman.
7. Modern practical cases
Case 1 — The driver, the carrier, the warehouse hand
This is seif 1 in its most literal form: a Jew is paid to move wine that is not his. The siman does not ask whether the wine is good or bad, nor whether the carrier touched it — it asks whether the wine is what he is being paid for. And one must add the Shach’s point (ס״ק ד): the question arises not only once the wage is pocketed, but before accepting the job.
Case 2 — A pallet of wine in a truck loaded with other goods
This is seif 2, transposed. A carrier moves assorted goods; among them a few cases of wine. The criterion is not their volume but the contract: was the price fixed for that load? The Gemara’s test remains usable as it stands — if the client removed those cases, would the price drop? If so, the wine is in the price.
Case 3 — A monthly flat fee, or line-item billing
This is seif 3, and today it is the siman’s most operative distinction. A flat contract — so much a month, all included — is a קבלנות: the forbidden portion spreads through the whole. Line-item billing isolates each delivery. The Shach (ס״ק ו) adds that in the first case nothing is retrieved by “taking the benefit to the Dead Sea”; and the Mehaber himself notes that at the outset even the second case should not be deliberately arranged.
Case 4 — The rented warehouse and cellar
The Mehaber lists מרתיפו — his cellar — on the same line as the donkey and the boat. The Taz (ס״ק ג) makes it the case where the Rama’s leniency precisely does not reach, on the authority of the Maharam of Padua: renting premises to store forbidden wine does not change status with the age. The question arises today for premises, a unit, a storage space.
Case 5 — The server, the sommelier, the commercial translator
This is seif 5, with almost no transposition. Serving and pouring are named outright; so is the interpreter. The Beit Yosef gives, in the Rashba’s name, the reason that still holds: the interpreter is a broker — through him the sale is made. And on this very point the Pitchei Teshuva brings the Radbaz, for whom it is proper to be stringent even as to stam yeinam.
Case 6 — Doing a supplier a free favour
Seif 4 is the most counter-intuitive in the siman: receiving nothing is no shelter. The beit din takes a pledge to the value of what one would have earned, because free service generates טובת הנאה — gratitude that has value. The Maharshal, cited by the Taz (ס״ק ח), sees rather a fine.
Case 7 — Guarding, supervising, insuring
Seif 6 deals with guarding that is free and without liability — and yet the prohibition holds, on the strength of רוצה בקיומו alone. The Taz (ס״ק ט) even specifies that the non-Jew expressly said he would owe no gratitude: nothing is left but the wish that the goods not break. That is the outer limit of benefit.
Case 8 — Being paid to destroy a stock
Seif 7. A Jew engaged to destroy a stock of forbidden wine may accept, may be paid, and is praised for it. The reason is named: ממעט בתיפלה. The Beit Yosef puts it with a precision worth keeping: wanting the thing to survive is not forbidden in itself, but only when one wants it in order to return it to its owner or until it is sold.
8. Synthesis of Siman 133
In one sentence: when wine is forbidden, it is not only the wine that may not be used — it is also everything received for having worked around it; and since this prohibition is a fine and not a property of the money, it is measured by the contract rather than by the goods.
What the siman says
In Hebrew
To remember
The wage prohibition has no substantive explanation
קנס הוא שקנסו חכמים
It is a fine, not a status of the money
Hiring out oneself, one’s beast, boat or cellar
שכרו אסור בהנאה
The work is done on the forbidden thing
Money received
שוחק וזורה לרוח או מטיל לים
It is treated as the idol itself
Produce received
יוליכם לים המלח או ישרפם
It stays in kind: the Dead Sea is needed
The flask set on the rented donkey
עיקר השכירות לא היה בשביל יין נסך
The wine was not in the price
The lump contract of a hundred barrels
שכרו כולו אסור
An indivisible wage is infected entire
The barrel billed singly
שכר חבית של יין אסור והשאר מותר
Each barrel is a contract
Working for free
ממשכנים מנכסיו כנגד שכרו
Gratitude is already a benefit
Serving, interpreting, offering a taste
לא יהא ישראל משמש ומוזג
The service keeps the sale alive
Guarding for free
ורוצה הוא בקיומו ואסור
A wish suffices to make a benefit
Smashing the barrels
ותבא עליו ברכה מפני שממעט בתיפלה
The same wish, turned toward destruction
Comprehension questions
The Gemara discards two grounds before settling on a third. What are they, and why do the first two fail?
Why must money be ground, while produce must be taken to the Dead Sea or burnt? Where does the Taz explain the difference?
A flask of wine travels on a rented donkey and the wage stays permitted; a hundred barrels travel and the wage is wholly forbidden. What exactly changed?
What is the practical difference between “a hundred barrels for a hundred perutot” and “each barrel for a peruta”? And why does the Mehaber nevertheless add ולכתחילה אסור לעשות כן?
The Jew receives nothing in seif 4, and yet a pledge is taken from his property. What two explanations does the Taz report?
Seif 6 forbids and seif 7 permits, though in both the Jew wants the barrels to hold. Which formulation of the Beit Yosef resolves the contradiction?
How far does the Rama’s leniency for our time reach? Name the three limits set by the Shach, the Taz and the Pitchei Teshuva.