Avodah Zara 66: Taste, Smell, and OCD

The rabbis debate the difficulty of distinguishing the taste of grapes from that of wine or grape juice.  Taste is subjective and difficult to measure.  Other difficulties are suggested as well.  The rabbis determine that although the two are similar, they should not "join to forbid".  

Moving forward, if only very slightly, the Gemara considers whether or not vinegar might change the status of the fruit it touches.  The rabbis wonder about smell how that sense might help us to determine whether or not a spilled liquid might change a grape from permitted to forbidden.  Could the smell of wine benefit one who is forbidden to benefit from the wine?  What if the smell is coming from vinegar and not wine?  If a person believes that the smell is wine, should that have any effect? The rabbis disagree about whether or not smell is the same as taste.

We learn that a Gentile could suck wine through a straw place through a hole in the cork of a wine barrel.  That wine would be permitted, for the Gentile did not actually touch the wine; he used a straw.  This is an interesting distinction compared with the stringencies that we see today.  If a Gentile used a straw, some of what s/he sucked through the straw would return to the barrel.  I cannot imagine someone who is Torah-observant feeling comfortable with that leniency.

I have always wondered about Judaism and obsessive compulsive disorder.  The continual, unrelenting focus on tiny distinctions between what is good and what is bad; what is forbidden and what is allowed.  People who are comfortable with that level of scrutiny might also be inclined toward OCD.  I wonder whether the rates of that particular condition are higher in Jews than in the general population.