For the source text click/tap here: Avodah Zarah 70
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According to the Mishna on our daf, when a boleshet – an army unit – entered the city, during peacetime we are concerned about open barrels of wine but not about closed barrels of wine. During wartime we rule that all barrels of wine are permitted – whether open or closed – since we assume that the soldiers will not have time for libations to their gods, since they are occupied with their fighting.
When Rav Mari declared on our daf that soldiers "do not have time to pour libations, as their passion for idolatry is not pressing at that time, but they have time to engage in intercourse, because their lust is great even during wartime," he articulated a psychological insight that would not be fully understood by Western science for nearly two millennia.
This remarkable statement, found in Avodah Zarah 70b, represents one of the earliest systematic attempts to understand the differential psychology of human drives under military stress—a topic that has only recently become the subject of rigorous scientific investigation.
We explore The Limits of Virtue: Moral Psychology and Military Conduct.