Oved, the Galilean, has expounded that there are thirteen _vavs_ (i.e., the letter _vav_ occurs thirteen times) in connection with wine. _Vav_ in Syriac means woe.
The Rabbis have a curious Haggada respecting the origin of the culture of the vine. Once while Noah was hard at work breaking up the fallow ground for a vineyard, Satan drew near and inquired what he was doing. On ascertaining that the patriarch was about to cultivate the grape, which he valued both for its fruit and its juice, he at once volunteered to assist him at his task, and began to manure the soil with the blood of a lamb, a lion, a pig, and a monkey. "Now," said he, when his work was done, "of those who taste the juice of the grape, some will become meek and gentle as the lamb, some bold and fearless as the lion, some foul and beastly as the pig, and others frolicsome and lively as the monkey." This quaint story may be found more fully detailed in the Midrash Tanchuma (see Noah) and the Yalkut on Genesis. The Mohammedan legend is somewhat similar. It relates how Satan on the like occasion used the blood of a peacock, of an ape, of a lion, and of a pig, and it deduces from the abuse of the vine the curse that fell on the children of Ham, and ascribes the color of the purple grape to the dark hue which thenceforth tinctured all the fruit of their land as well as their own complexions.
At thirteen years of age, a boy becomes bound to observe the (613) precepts of the law.
Rabbi Ishmael says the law is to be expounded according to thirteen logical rules.
The thirteen rules of Rabbi Ishmael above referred to are not to be found together in any part of the Talmud, but they are collected for repetition in the Liturgy, and are as follows:--
1. Inference is valid from minor to major.
3. From the gist or main point of one text to that of other passages.
6. From a general, or a particular and a general, the ruling both of the former and the latter is to be according to the middle term, i.e., the one which is particularized.
7. From a general text that requires a particular instance, and _vice versà_.
8. When a particular rule is laid down for something which has already been included in a general law, the rule is to apply to all.