Happy Days
From Sunday’s daf, Avodah Zarah 60b:
נָפַל לַבּוֹר וְעָלָה. אָמַר רַב פָּפָּא: לֹא שָׁנוּ אֶלָּא שֶׁעָלָה מֵת, אֲבָל עָלָה חַי — אָסוּר. מַאי טַעְמָא? אָמַר רַב פָּפָּא: דְּדָמֵי עֲלֵיהּ כְּיוֹם אֵידָם.
§ The mishna teaches that if a gentile fell into the wine collection vat and emerged, it is not prohibited to derive benefit from the wine. Rav Pappa says: The Sages taught this halakha only in a case where the gentile emerged from the vat dead. But if he emerged alive, the wine is prohibited. The Gemara asks: What is the reason that the wine is prohibited? Rav Pappa said: Since the gentile was rescued from death, he considers that day like their festival day, and he offers the wine as an idolatrous libation in thanksgiving.
Artscroll adds that the gentile need not emerge literally dead, but also if he emerges unconscious, that also works. The idea being that the concern is that, as he emerges alive and conscious, he will be happy; and since he is an idolator, he might flick the wine, effecting a libation. Think of it like a nochri’s version of birchat hagomel.
They cite Ritva for this, but this is not an entirely accurate rendition of Ritva (my translation):
לא שאנו אלא שעלה מת. פי׳ או מת ממש או כמת כלומר שהוא מטורף בדעתו.
[The Sages] only taught this [in a case] where [the gentile] emerged [from the vat] dead: To explain, either literally dead or as if dead, that is to say, muddled in his thoughts.
We could imagine that the shock of falling into the vat, or the nearly drowning, could make his mind unclear. The word מטורף is not necessarily the same level of literally unconscious.
A “fun” version of this is that the wine in the wine collection vat is what makes him have an unclear mind — he’s drunk! However, this wine is presumably not yet fermented, so would not intoxicate.
Otherwise, I would want to run with an old joke — as a kind of Torah UMadda — a letter from an Irish mother to her son, which contains the following:
Your Uncle Patrick drowned last week in a vat of whiskey in the Dublin Brewery. Some of his workmates tried to save him but he fought them off bravely. They cremated him and it took three days to put out the fire.
This would then give a totally different meaning to Rav Pappa’s claim that דְּדָמֵי עֲלֵיהּ כְּיוֹם אֵידָם. The standard explanation, given by Rashi, is that it is like the day of his festival because he survived. Now, an alternate explanation is that he is overjoyed that he got to swim in a vat of wine and imbibe.