התגר ומנהגים פגניים סוריים-ערביים הנזכרים בתוספתא: עיון בראליה תלמודית

According to the Tosefta Avoda Zara I 21 (ed. Zuckermandel, pp. 461-462), it is permitted to sell pigs and wine to a travelling merchant (tagar) because there is no fear that he will use them for idolatrous purposes (i.e. sacrifices and libations). This halakhic text proves that the Rabbis were very well acquainted with the pagan rituals of the oriental vendor in the second century CE. This ruling indicates that the Sages were not referring to Greek or Roman merchants, since in ancient Greece and Rome pigs were sacrificed in many cults (as for instance that of Demeter/Ceres), and especially for the purification of sacred fields, the sanctuary and the house of the priestess. In Graeco-Roman religion, the pig was one of the cheapest and most common of sacrifices, and libations of wine were extremely important. In fact, from an ethnic point of view, the travelling vendor in the Roman orient was usually of Arabian or Syrian extraction. It is interesting to note that in the cult of the nomad Arabic deity called Shai'-al-qaum (the Greek Lycurg), it was absolutely forbidden to make wine libation on the altar, as we learn from a Palmyrene votive inscription uncovered at Palmyra in 1901, which reads: 'to Shai'-al-qaum, the good and bountiful god, who does not drink wine'. Moreover, in many Syrian cults it was absolutely prohibited to offer pigs as sacrifices, such as in the cults of Jupiter Heliopolitanus, Jupiter Dolichenus, Jupiter Beelferus, Aphrodite Ourania, among others. To conclude, the ruling that it was allowed to sell pigs and wine to travelling merchants most probably referred to Arab and Syrian mechants, since there was no fear that they would use them for ritual purposes. The ruling thus proves that Eretz Israel Sages had wider and deeper knowledge of pagan oriental religions than is commonly believed.