Bartenura on Mishnah Avodah Zarah

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1.1.1
לפני אידיהם של גוים – [the word אידיהם is] a byname of reproach for their holy days and festivals.
1.1.2
לשאת ולתת – to sell and to purchase. Because they go and praise idolatry on the day of their holidays.
1.1.3
להשאילן – cattle and utensils, things that return as they are.
1.1.4
להלוותם – [to lend them] money but it was not an adornment to the eye, for a loan is given [merely] for the expenditure.
1.1.5
לפורען – when they are collected, they go and give praise to idolatry on the day of their holidays.
1.1.6
מפני שהוא מיצר – on his money which they do not restore to him, and he does not go and give praise [to idolatry].
1.1.7
שמח הוא לאחר זמן – on the morrow [after] his holiday, he goes and gives praise [to idolatry]. But the Halakha is not according to Rabbi Yehuda, and specifically a loan [written in a] document is prohibited to collect from them, but an oral loan is permissible, because he is like saves it from their hands.
1.2.1
לאחר אידיהן מותר – And such is the Halakha. But in the Diaspora, where we are unable to contain ourselves from engaging in business with them, since the principal part of our sustenance is from them, and furthermore, because of fear, it is not prohibited [to do business with them] other than only on the day of their holy days alone. But nowadays, there is the general practice of permission [to engage in business interaction with them] even on the actual day of their festivals, because the Rabbis established regarding them that they do not go and praise [their deities]. [But those things that are forbidden in this Tractate speaks about idolatrous worship and actual idolatry].
1.3.1
קלנדיא – eight days after the winter solstice [begins].
1.3.2
סטרנורא – eight days prior to the solstice; since the first man (i.e., Adam) saw that the [length of the] day was gradually getting shorter. He said: Woe is me, lest because I sinned, the world is returning to become “null and void.” He stood and sat for eight days in fasting (and in prayer), since from the time that the solstice occurred, and he (i.e., Adam) saw that the days are gradually lengthening, he said: it is the nature of the world. He stood and made an eight-day festival. In the following year, they made both of them holy days and he established them [in honor of] the heavens, and they were established for idolatrous worship.
1.3.3
קרטסים – the day of taking hold of the kingship, and they established it as a holiday.
1.3.4
גינוסיא – the day when they appoint the king.
1.3.5
יום הלידה – the day on which the king is born
1.3.6
שריפה – where they burn the utensils in the manner that they burn them for kings.
1.3.7
יש בה ע"ז – that is to say, that selfsame day they have a idolatrous holiday, and from year to year all the days of his son, and all these we consider until now, they value and it is forbidden [for us to interact with them] three days before [their festivals].
1.3.8
אבל יום תגלחת זקנו – which is not a set time for the group, but each person, when he shaves makes that day a festival.
1.3.9
ובלוריתו – that he places his locks behind him all year long but does not sheer them other than on an annual basis, the day of his sheering he makes a holiday.
1.3.10
ויום שעלה מן הים – And he offers sacrifices to idolatry on account that he was saved. In all of these, it is not prohibited other than on that day and not beforehand, and they do not consider it all that much.
1.4.1
עיר שיש בה ע"ז – that the day of their festival the people of the city have a day for idolatrous worship who are in the city.
1.4.2
חוצה לה – and even very near the city, it is permissible to engage in business with those who dwell outside the city, for they are not drawn after that idolatry, and such is their practice. The day of their festival [of those in the city] Is not like the day of the festival [of those outside the city].
1.4.3
מהו לילך שם – in the same city on the day of their idolatrous worship.
1.4.4
בזמן שהדרך מיוחדת לאותה העיר – that the paved road from here to that city, is unique to that city alone, it is forbidden to go there, because it appears as one who is going there for idolatrous worship, and if there was a course of the road also goes to another city, it is permitted, for one who sees it states, “he is going to another place.”
1.4.5
היו בה חנויות מעוטרות – and the sign for them is that those stores are idolatrous, to collect taxes from them.
1.4.6
ושאינן מעוטרות מותרות – and those which are not wreathed, they don’t take taxes from him for idolatry, and they don’t bring to the idolatry any benefit from them, and to purchase from them something of value, is permissible on the day of their festival, for generally one who sells is sad [when he sells something he values] and does not go and praise [idolatry].
1.5.1
אצטרובלין – fruit of the cedar.
1.5.2
בנות שוח – it is prohibited for an Israelite to sell a kind of the species of the large white figs to an idolater.
1.5.3
ופטוטרות – with their stems (Talmud Avodah Zarah 13b) it is stated, meaning to say, with their stalks/peduncles by which they are suspended, for undefined, the idolater wants to offer them as a [sacrificial] offering to idolatry.
1.5.4
תרנגול לבן בין תרנגולין – an idolater bought from an Israelite many chickens, it is permitted to sell amongst them a white chicken and since another person took them, It was not for idolatry that he wanted them.
1.5.5
ופירושן אסור – if he explained/specified that it was for idolatry that he needed them, it is prohibited. And it was necessary for our Mishnah [to specify this] for you might think that I would say that this person wanted them not for idolatrous purposes, and when he said this, he holds that just as that this person clings to it (for idolatrous purposes), everyone also clings to it, and I would say this for [just as] he would give it to me, it to teach us [that the reverse is to be taught].
1.5.6
דקל טב – [fruits] of a superior date which are regularly used for sacrificial purposes to idolatry.
1.5.7
נקב – reeds that they make from them sugar.
1.5.8
ונקליהם – a kind of very superior herb/grass, and the Halakha is according to Rabbi Meir.
1.6.1
אין מוכרין בהמה גסה – for we decree that selling is on account of renting and borrowing, for it is the animal of an Israelite and the idolater will do work with it on the Sabbath and through a middleman, for they cannot exchange it through renting it, for the middleman does not lease it, but he is permitted to sell it.
1.6.2
שלמים ושבורים – for even the injured/maimed are appropriate for work for they grind/mill with them.
1.6.3
רבי יהודה מתיר בשבורה – but the Halakha is not according to Rabbi Yehuda.
1.6.4
בו בתירה מתיר בסוס – and even the horse that the hunters/fowlers bring upon them the birds that they hunt, for he holds that the living carries himself. But the Rabbis hold that that especially human beings carry themselves. Therefore, if it (i.e., the horse) did not have a special [purpose] other than to ride upon it, it is permissible, but to bring upon it a living creature other than a human being, it is prohibited. But the Halakha is not according to Ben Beteyra.
1.7.1
כל דבר שיש [בו] נזק לרבים – as, for example, military utensils, swords and spears.
1.7.2
בסילקי – a tall palace/villa where they sit to judge people and they cast them from there and they die (see Talmud Avodah Zarah 16b).
1.7.3
גרדום – one building and it is made to judge capital cases.
1.7.4
איצטדיא – a place of sport that they bring a goring ox and they kill a man.
1.7.5
בימה – a kind of short or tall tower made in order to push a person down from them and he dies.
1.7.6
דימוסיאות – buildings that are not for the needs of idolatry, nor to kill people.
1.7.7
כיפה – in the foreign language “Arkayultav;” it is the manner of idolaters to place idolatry in their bathhouses.
1.8.1
אבל מוכר הוא משיקוץ – that he should not sell it to him when it is attached [to the ground] but rather after it is cut away. But not all the while that it is attached. And the Torah stated (Deuteronomy 7:2): “And give them no quarter,” nor give them no chance of acquiring property (sell them no trees in the ground – see Talmud Avodah Zarah 20a).
1.8.2
אין משכירין להם בתים – it is a decree because of selling which is a prohibition from the Torah.
1.8.3
ואצ"ל שדות – for there are two levels of prohibition: acquiring property and exempting them from tithes.
1.8.4
ובסוריא – Aram Sobah which [King] David conquered and is not holy like the holiness of the Land [of Israel].
1.8.5
משכירין להם בתיים – and we don’t make the decree on account of selling and for alternatively, it would come to selling but he did not violate the Torah for just as it is written to not give them the chance to acquire property in the land of Israel, it is written, but however, ab initio not selling in the land of Israel because of selling of the land of Israel.
1.8.6
אבל לא שדות – because there are two levels of prohibition.
1.8.7
וח"ל – because of the distance, one cannot make a decree regarding selling for from there it does not lead to sale of the land of Israel.
1.8.8
מוכרין בתים ומשכירין שדות – but not the sale of fields because there are two [levels of prohibition].
1.8.9
רבי יוסי אומר כו'' -And the Halakha is according to Rabbi Yosi as long as one does not lease to three idolaters together so that they will not make a neighborhood of idolaters.
1.9.1
אף במקום שאמרו להשכיר – for Rabbi Meir in Syria especially, but not in the land of Israel and for Rabbi yosi even in the land of Israel.
1.9.2
לא לבית דירה אמרו – but rather to bring into there straw and wood and things like it.
1.9.3
מפני שהיא נקראת על שמו – because the idolater because he warms himself up on the Sabbath and they (i.e., people) will say “this is the bathhouse of so-and-so the Israelite where they wash in it on Shabbat” but it is not similar to a field of an Israelite where the tenant farmer is an idolater who does work on it on the Sabbath, for the field is worked for his tenancy and the idolater is a personal tenant farmer who is doing his own labor ( and not as the Israelite’s employee -see Talmud Avodah Zarah 21b). But a bathhouse is not for working as a tenant, and not everyone knows that he the Israelite leased it to an idolater and therefore, it is prohibited. But at the present time when it is manner to lower the tenant to the bathhouse for a year, for half, or a third or a fourth of the earnings, in the same manner that they bringing him down into the fields, they permitted to lease a bathhouse to an idolater, and even though [the idolater] does work in it on the Sabbath, people [surely] know that the idolater is a tenant there, for he he is doing his own tenancy while using it.
2.1.1
אין מעמידין בהמה בפונדקאות – that are made to harbor passers through there because idolaters are suspect of carnal connection with beasts and even females with females are prohibited because the idolaters are found with the wives of their friends and sometimes they don’t find her and they copulate with the beasts.
2.1.2
ולא תתיחד אשה עמהן – even the privacy between a man and a woman and something similar with an Israelite is permissible, such as when his wife is with him, [but] with an idolater, it is prohibited, since the wife of an idolater does not protect him.
2.1.3
לא תילד את העובדת כוכבים – because she raises a son for idolatry but with payment, it is permitted, for the sake of preventing ill-will.
2.1.4
אבל עובדת כוכבים מילדת את בת ישראל – at the time when other women stand by her, but not between him and her, for they are suspected of murder, lest she kills him.
2.2.1
רפוי ממון – his animal.
2.2.2
רפוי נפשות – his body; [but if he said] to him: a certain drug is fine for you, even if it is the healing of bodies, it is permissible to be healed by him.
2.2.3
אבל לא בינו לבינו – but if he looks into a mirror, it is permissible, for the idolater might say that since he is getting a haircut, this is an important person and he is afraid to kill him.
2.3.1
שהיה מתחילתו יין – to exclude where the heathen purchased vinegar from an Israelite where benefit was not forbidden; the reason why benefit was forbidden because perhaps its drink-offerings were for idolatrous purposes, but vinegar is not offered for idolatrous purposes.
2.3.2
וחרס הדרייני – Hadrian the Caesar/Emperor would knead plaster with wine and make of it utensils and would not smelt them in the furnace/kiln (see Talmud Avodah Zarah 32a) and they would carry them in battle, and when they wanted, they would place the earthenware in water, and they would be dissolved (or fall to pieces) there and the plaster would sink downward and the wine would remain mixed with the water. And the earthenware of Adria was named after Hadrian.
2.3.3
עורות לבובים – they would tear the animal while living opposite the heart a kind of round hole and remove the heart and sacrifice it to idolatry.
2.3.4
משוך מותר – for they do not make for idolatry other than round [incisions]. And the Halakha is according to Rabban Shimon ben Gamaliel.
2.3.5
היוצא אסור בהנאה – for it had already become a sacrificial offering [to idolatry – see Talmud Avodah Zarah 32b).
2.3.6
לתרפות – towards the errant idolatry [from afar: Rashi]. It is the place of lewdness of a woman which is called the house of debauchery.
2.3.7
אסור לשאת ולתת עמהם – for they go and admit [to idolatry and more] and purchase things that they need for offerings to idolatry. And the Halakha is according to Rabbi Akiba.
2.4.1
נודות – (bottles) of hides/skins.
2.4.2
וקנקנים – of earthenware.
2.4.3
אין איסורן איסור הנאה – and the law is such. If they are new, it is immediately permitted to place wine in them , but if the heathen placed wine in them for preservation, we fill them up with water and detain it in them for three days consecutively but that he empties the water each day every twenty-four hours of the three days, and places other water in their place. And afterwards, it is permitted to place wine in it. But if there are twelve months where there was no heathen wine in them, it is permissible immediately after one year without emptying it.
2.4.4
חרצנים וזגים – the refuse of the grapes and their seeds that are inside and the outer shells.
2.4.5
לחים – all twelve months they are forbidden to derive benefit.
2.4.6
ויבשים – after twelve months they are permitted even for eating.
2.4.7
המורייס – the fat of the fish and it was customary that they would mix in it wine, but if it was known of it that they did not mix wine in it, everyone does not dispute that it is permitted.
2.4.8
בית אינייקי – the name of a village where most of the calves that are found there are offered as sacrifices to idolatry. Rabbi Meir was troubled by a minority and held that even though most calves were a minority corresponding to the rest of the animals, we should concern ourselves with the minority. And all the cheeses that are found there, we state that perhaps that the rennet of the calves was curdled for idolatry. But the Sages were not concerned about the minority. But the Halakha is not according to Rabbi Meir in any of these three segments.
2.5.1
מפני מה אסרו גבינת של עובדי כוכבים – with regarding to eating, but the Rabbis require it because the milk of an impure animal one doesn’t have to suspect anything for we hold that the milk of an impure animal does not curdle.
2.5.2
שורפה חיה – it is a mere secretion (and no longer real milk – see Tractate Hullin 116b).
2.5.3
בקיבת עגלי עבודה זרה – and even though it is a mere secretion, it is prohibited, for idolatry is different, as it is written concerning it (Deuteronomy 13:18): “Let nothing that has been doomed stick to you hand,[in order that the LORD may turn from His blazing anger and show you compassion, and in His compassion increase you as He promised your fathers on oath].”
2.5.4
השיאו לדבר אחר – and he did not want to tell him the reason of the matter because twelve months had not yet passed from when they made this decree. For when the Rabbis make a decree, they do not reveal the reason until twelve months of a year until their decree will become widespread. For perhaps there is someone who doesn’t hold by this reason and will come to despise it, and the reason why they forbade the cheeses of idolaters is because they curdle it in the skin of an animal slaughtered by an idolater which is a carcass, but even though it is a small amount corresponding to all of the milk, since he curdles the milk and performs an act, it is not negated, and we hold that everything goes according to the one who curdles the milk. But because of meat with milk, he did not forbid it, for since the meat on its own is permitted, it is not forbidden with milk, even though he curdles it until he gives forth into it a taste , but I is a matter of something forbidden from its outset. He forbids something that is permitted, even though it does not give forth a taste while he is curdling it.
2.5.5
כי טובים דודייך מיין – The Holy One, blessed be He says this to the congregation of Israel.
2.5.6
אין הדבר כן – but rather the congregation of Israel stated before the Holy One, blessed be He (see Talmud Avodah Zarah 35a): “The words of Your beloved ones are a surety before Me,” meaning to say, the ordinances that the Sages have established and decreed are better than the wine of the Torah, from the principle of the Written Torah (as they supplement the Written Torah and complete it).
2.6.1
הפת והשמן [וכו'] – all of these are prohibited as a guard of intermarriage (between Jews and gentiles – see Tractate Avodah Zarah 31b) and the bread of bakers they permitted but the bread of house owners they did not permit other than those who were traveling or at a time of emergency. But regarding, they saw that their prohibition did not stretch and they resolved upon it and permitted it as they decided in the Mishnah.
2.6.2
ושלקות – everything that the idolaters cooked and even if they cooked it in the utensils of Israelites, and in their presence, for one would not suspect forbidden mixtures, and the cleansing of an impure vessel (by means of boiling water) by idolaters, they (i.e., the Sages) forbade this because of cooking done by idolaters and this is the case even where no Israelite helped out neither at the beginning nor at the end, but they did not prohibit this because it was cooking done by idolaters, but rather, because it is something that is not consumed when it is alive and ascends on to the tables of kings that is combined with bread but, if one of these was missing, there is no [concern] regarding that it is something cooked by idolaters.
2.6.3
וכבשין שדרכן לתת בהן יין – and their prohibition is not one where they cannot have benefit from it because the taste of the wine is not recognized/known but with regard to eating, it is prohibited.
2.6.4
טרית טרופה – [a species of] ritually pure fish that they chop very finely and are not recognized and are prohibited since they were taken from idolaters lest there are crushed with them an impure fish.
2.6.5
וציר שאין בה דגה – a small fish that is called stickleback (see Talmud Avodah Zarah 39b) and it is the manner that it grows in the midst of [the brine of] pure fish, but when there is brine of impure fish mixed with it, it will not grow stickleback.
2.6.6
והחילק – a species of pure, small fish and they lack fins and scales which they will eventually grow after a while. But small impure fish that are analogous to them are combined with them and are not recognized, even when it is not beaten. But salted/pickled fish, the impure kinds are not like it, and therefore, they are permitted since they are not hashed/beaten.
2.6.7
חלתית – this is its name in Arabic and they cut its particles with a knife and are forbidden because of the fatty/oily substance of the knife and along with the sharpness [of the assa foetida (an umbelliferous plant used as a resin or in leaves, for a spice and for medical purposes), the fatty/oily substance of the knife sweetens the taste of the fatty/oily substance that is absorbed in it.
2.6.8
ומלח סלקונתית – a salt that the gentry of Rome eat and they are accustomed to smear it in the fat of pigs (i.e., lard), and in the fat of impure fish and it is large and the mostly white.
2.7.1
וישראל רואהו – not exactly see him, but rather, since that if he is standing, he can see him even though when he is sitting, he cannot see him, but the idolater, who knows one another’s ways, are afraid (lest they be watched – see Talmud Avodah Zarah 22b) says: now I am standing and he sees me.
2.7.2
והדבדניות – the cakes when detach them out of receptacle wherein there is honey, even though thy drip, we don’t concern ourselves lest wine suspected of having been manipulated by an idolater was mixed in. Another commentary: clusters of grapes even though the wine drips from them, they don’t have any wine suspected of having been manipulated by an idolater and the law [of food rendered susceptible to uncleanness] by a liquid does not apply to them which would be susceptible to uncleanness and undefined for consumption, for it is not satisfactory for him with liquid dripping from them.
2.7.3
שאינה טרופה – and even though it is made into pieces, the head of the fish [remains] and its backbone exists and is recognized that it is pure.
2.7.4
עלה של חלתית – which is not torn with a knife.
2.7.5
וזיתי גלוסקים מגולגלים – olives are brought into a round utensil and are warmed and gathered together on their own and are made like round eggs like a roasted egg that had been warmed.
2.7.6
השלחין אסורין – if the olives were softened so much until the when one takes the olive in one’s hand, the seed within it comes out and falls on its own, they are forbidden, for on account of the wine, they became soft, but the Halakha is not according to Rabbi Yosi.
2.7.7
מן הסלולה – a kind of basket that is in front of the shopkeeper are forbidden, for when he sprinkles upon them wine in order that they soften.
2.7.8
מן ההפתק – from the place that they gather and store them there one on top of another are permissible, for he does not sprinkle upon them wine until they are placed before him to sell.
2.7.9
וכן לתרומה – and similarly, a Kohen who is suspect to sell priest’s due for the purposes of non-holy produce. All that is found before him is prohibited lest it is priest’s due. But that which comes from the storehouse is permitted, for they are afraid lest the Rabbis will hear and will make all of the stock in the store ownerless.

Bartenura on Mishnah, trans. by Rabbi Robert Alpert, 2020. Via Sefaria (sefaria.org), Sefaria-Export. Version source: http://sefaria.org Licence: CC-BY. Source.