Consider, for a moment, the humble drinking straw. In our day, the damaging environmental impact of plastic waste has led to a growing industry in biodegradable and multiple-use straws (I favor sugarcane and metal, respectively). If you think using straws is a modern practice, it might surprise you to know that in the ancient world, straws with filters to weed out sediment were commonly used in social gatherings where people sat in a circle around a tub filled with an alcoholic beverage and sipped together. (Learn more about this fascinating history here, and see images of the practice on a Sumerian wine jug here.)
This custom is helpful context for a discussion at the bottom of today’s daf about whether gentiles and Jews can drink together from the same vessel. At issue: the problem of backwash.
Mar Zutra, son of Rav Nahman, says: A vessel with tubes for several people to drink from is permitted. And this statement applies only where the Jew stops (drinking) first. But if the gentile stops (drinking) first, it does not.
Rabba bar Rav Huna happened to come to the house of the exilarch, and he permitted them to drink from a vessel with tubes. There are those who say that Rabba bar Rav Huna himself drank from a vessel with tubes.
The name of the vessel that we have translated here as “vessel with tubes” is kenishkanin, which Marcus Jastrow defines in his authoritative dictionary of the Talmud as “drinking tubes; a cup with tubes for several persons to drink from.” In other words, straws. Perhaps surprisingly, given the lengthy discussion in our tractate about forbidding Jews from drinking wine that gentiles have simply touched, even indirectly, Mar Zutra bar Rav Nachman rules that it’s permitted for Jews and gentiles to drink from the same kenishkanin simultaneously.
The Gemara immediately introduces a limit: It can only be done when the Jew stops drinking first because of a concern that the backwash coming through the gentile’s straw could introduce forbidden wine into the mix. But Rabba bar Rav Huna is then quoted as allowing the practice and there are some who say he even did so himself. What’s going on here?
It’s important to know that Mar Zutra bar Rav Nachman and Rabba bar Rav Huna are both high-powered rabbis within the Babylonian Jewish community who almost certainly had dealings with the gentile rulers. Mar Zutra is a leader of the talmudic academy at Nehardea and he’s wealthy enough that building a mansion outside the Shabbat limit earns him the ire of the rabbis because he allows gentile contractors to work on it over Shabbat (Moed Katan 12). Rabba bar Rav Huna, as the son of the leader of the talmudic academy in Sura, presumably would be used to joining his father and others at the house of the exilarch, the leader of the Jewish community. And at these gatherings, there were likely gentile leaders present who would join in drinking from the kenishkanin.
This isn’t the only place we see this practice. In a parallel story on Shabbat 62, Rabba bar Rav Huna’s permissiveness is raised not because Jews and gentiles are drinking together, but because it’s too festive an activity to continue following the destruction of the Temple. The story prompts the medieval commentators Tosafot and Rabbenu Chananel to posit that those who are drinking from the kenishkanin are all Jews, but Maimonides disagrees, since the story on our daf is smack in the middle of a discussion of wine forbidden due to the fear of idolatry.
On today’s daf, we’re left with the impression that it’s permitted for Jews and gentiles to drink together from a kenishkanin, regardless of the fear of backwash or the need to keep the Temple’s destruction in mind. And while it’s possible that such an implement was used primarily by the wealthy, it remains a fascinating sociological look into how Jews enjoyed socializing in similar ways as, and even together with, their gentile neighbors.
Read all of Avodah Zarah 72 on Sefaria.
This piece originally appeared in a My Jewish Learning Daf Yomi email newsletter sent on August 29, 2025. If you are interested in receiving the newsletter, sign up here.
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