In a classic scene from the eponymous Canadian novel, Anne of Green Gables forgets to cover the pudding sauce in the pantry and a mouse crawls in and drowns. When Anne discovers the dead mouse, she fishes it out but forgets to tell her legal guardian Marilla. Lo and behold, guests are invited to dinner and Marilla brings out the pudding and its sauce. Not wanting any of the guests to eat sauce contaminated by a dead mouse, Anne interrupts the dinner to confess her sins and Marilla is forced to pivot and come up with an alternative dessert.
I kept thinking of this story as I encountered the discussion on today’s daf about how and when a dead mouse contaminates household liquids. We learned in a mishnah back on Avodah Zarah 65 that if a forbidden substance (like a mouse) fell into a kosher mixture and negatively affects the taste, the mixture is still permitted. If it enhances the flavor, the mixture is forbidden. So what happens if a mouse falls into something which already has a funky taste? Something like vinegar?
Rav Hillel said to Rav Ashi: There was an incident in the study hall of Rav Kahana, and Rav Kahana deemed (the vinegar) forbidden.
If the vinegar is forbidden, should we assume that dead decomposing mice enhanced the flavor of the vinegar?
Rav Ashi said to him: That mouse was dismembered.
Rav Ashi explains that Rav Kahana wasn’t suggesting that a mouse enhances the flavor of vinegar, but that in this particular case, because the mouse had already decomposed into pieces, Rav Kahana was worried that someone might consume an actual chunk of dead mouse, not just the flavor it imparted to the vat of vinegar. But in cases where it is just a question of flavor, and not actual chunks of mouse, how much mouse contaminates the entire vat? Or to put it another way, how much liquid must be in the vat to nullify the flavor of the mouse?
The Talmud next cites a number of rabbinic opinions:
Ravina thought measured at 101 (times the volume of the mouse in order to nullify it).
Rav Tahlifa bar Giza said to Ravina: Perhaps it is similar to spice of terumah in a pot, whose flavor is never nullified.
Rav Ahai calculated the amount of vinegar at fifty.
Rav Shmuel, son of Rav Ika, calculated the amount of beer at sixty.
Finally, the Talmud concludes:
And the halakhah is that this and that (both vinegar and beer nullify the mouse) with sixty, and so all prohibitions in the Torah (are nullified in something that is sixty times its volume).
The amount of permitted food that it would take to nullify the flavor of a mouse is substantial — 60 times its volume. But even if you have a giant vat of beer, vinegar or pudding sauce, no one wants to discover dead rodents in their food. If we can learn anything from this story, it’s to always tightly seal your sauces before putting them in the pantry.
Read all of Avodah Zarah 69 on Sefaria.
This piece originally appeared in a My Jewish Learning Daf Yomi email newsletter sent on August 26, 2025. If you are interested in receiving the newsletter, sign up here.
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