daf bit: Avodah Zarah 58

We have previously learned that wine touched by heathens cannot be drunk by Jews, because of concerns about their use of wine in idolatrous practices. (There is an exception, in common use today, for wine that has been boiled, because that makes it unfit for idolatry.) The g'mara now tells a story: R' Yochanan b. Arza and R' Yose b. Nehorai were once sitting and drinking wine (from an opaque jug, it seems). A man entered and they said to him "come, pour out for us". After he had poured it in their glass, they learned that he was a heathen. One of them prohibited it for any purpose, and the other permitted it even for drinking. R' Yehoshua b. Levi said: they're both right! He who prohibited it reasoned thus: the heathen must have said to himself, "would it occur to rabbis such as these to drink beer? Surely it is wine!" and he then rendered it unfit. He who permitted it reasoned thus: the heathen must have said to himself, "would it occur to rabbis such as these to have me pour wine for them? It must be beer!" and he did not render it unfit. In this latter case, pouring wine was an unintentional action and we do not decree against unintentional actions. (58a-b)

The g'mara does not discuss the rabbis' own role in the incident (they told the man to pour), or whether it makes a difference if he did it on his own or was following instructions (maybe making him their agent).

Nor does it discuss the presumption that the heathen would know the halacha about restrictions with wine. In fact, the issue of heathens' (lack of) knowledge was an issue in an earlier discussion about kashrut. Remember that the talmud compiles the words of many individual rabbis, so "the talmud says X" and "the talmud says not X" does not mean the talmud is inconsistent. It can mean that two opinions differ (and you need to look up the final halacha if it matters to you), or that the situations were different in some important way. The talmud records all views; it doesn't speak with one voice.

(Today's daf is 59.)

another misguided recruiter

Like many others, I get lots of unsolicited email from recruiters who claim to have read my LinkedIn profile and have a great opportunity for me. They're almost always wrong about both. But I usually skim the tech-writing ones when they arrive, to (maybe) learn a little about the state of the field.

The latest one, about a "fast-paced innovative team", started off generic, as most of them do. (Hint to recruiters: if you want me to respond, give me a reason to. I'm not actively looking; you have to show me something interesting.) But the list of responsibilities included "work with architecture and UX teams to understand how best to organize and present the documentation" -- hey, they have a UX team! That's unusual (in a positive way). I kept reading.

Then I got to the requirements, which included:

• Experience with Cobol
• Strong working knowledge of Microsoft Office

Ha ha, no.

Also, it's in New Jersey and the ad doesn't say anything about remote employees. Bzzt.