At the turn of the 13th century, we are suddenly
introduced to a new prohibition emerging in certain areas of French Jewry. Rabbi
Isaac of Corbeil is the first to mention that some of his contemporaries do not
eat kitniyot – legumes – on Passover, though his brother-in-law Mordechai
remarks that Rabbi Yehiel of Paris was accustomed to eating white peas (pul
halavan) on Passover. Similarly Rabbi Simha of Pleize says he heard that Rabbi
Yehuda of Paris himself ate kitniyot, “and surely he did not err.” So, too,
Rabbenu Yeruham, in Provence, wrote that “those who do not eat rice and certain
types of kitniyot on Passover – this is a mistaken custom, and I do not know why
they took upon themselves this stringency.”
Later, Rabbi Ya’acov ben
Asher records in his Turim that “some forbid” the eating of kitniyot – adding,
though, that he himself sees this as an unnecessary stringency, and not to be
practiced.
By the 16th century, however, Rabbi Moshe Isserles writes that
“we Ashkenazim do practice this stringency” – i.e., do not eat kitniyot on
Passover. He was basing his comments on a number of earlier German authorities,
such as the Trumat Hadeshen and the Maharil, who even extended the prohibition
to include oil produced from kitniyot (as opposed to just kitniyot
themselves).
NOW, THE reasons given for this new prohibition – no trace
of which can be found prior to the 13th century – were varied: either that the
sacks in which kitniyot were placed for transport and storage were the same as
those used for grains forbidden on Passover; or that from kitniyot one could
make products that looked similar to hametz.
We may well ask why such
suspicions arose only in France and in certain areas thereof, during the 13th
century and no earlier. Several suggestions have been put forward. The most
convincing, I believe, is that certain changes in agricultural practice took
place in that period, with the discovery of the fact that planting legumes
revitalizes soil that has been exhausted by successive grain
harvests.
The result was that in the medieval three-field system – in
which formerly one field out of three was always left fallow for a year so as
not to exhaust the soil – in certain areas, every third year, one field in
rotation would now be used to plant legumes, thus reinvigorating the
soil.
This meant that when reaping a field of legumes, there would always
be residual after-growths of grains mixed in with the harvest, and therefore the
rabbis of those regions prohibited eating legumes, lest they contain small
amounts of possible hametz.
This very brief and sketchy historical survey
makes it clear that there was never a carte-blanche gezerat kitniyot, a formal
enactment prohibiting kitniyot on Passover. Members of the French and Provençal
Ba’alei Hatosafot had differing views on the issue. Some forbade a specific type
of legume; others rejected such a prohibition as a mistake to be ignored. But
somehow or other, the prohibition gained in force and expanded its area of
applicability in Ashkenaz, continuing to do so up to the present day and adding
even more stringencies to our foodstuffs. In the Sephardi and Oriental
communities, for the most part, the kitniyot prohibition is not
accepted.
NOW, IT is a basic halachic principle that one does not graft
one gezera (enactment) onto another, so that even if there had been such a
gezera – which, as stated above, is highly questionable at best – it could only
have been applied to those legumes specifically mentioned, and certainly only to
those known at that time. Consequently those legumes discovered along with
America in the early 16th century, such as soya beans, could not have been
included in this prohibition.
Furthermore, some of those newly discovered
legumes cannot be used to make cake-like products, because of their bitter
taste, and are used primarily for oil, such as safflower. We may add that
because of their size, shape and color, they are easily distinguished from wheat
and barley and other grains. Surely they should not be included in the
ever-growing list of forbidden kitniyot! We must further note that modern
food-production processes are so finely calibrated so as not to admit any
“foreign substances.” Indeed, food companies regularly, by law, note even the
tiniest of possible “admixtures” because of sensitivities, allergies,
etc.
Obviously they do so to avoid costly legal claims that people might
level against them.
So rather than pile up humra (stringency) upon humra
and even broadening areas of prohibition, should we not reconsider at least some
of the aspects of this so-called gezera, which certainly creates numerous
difficulties for vegetarians and vegans such as myself and adds considerable
expense to the dwindling number of products available with a “proper” hechsher
(kosher certification)? And we may add to these considerations that these
extensive stringencies can negatively effect the simhat hahag, the joyfulness of
the festival, which we should well remember is a requirement of biblical
authority.
Let us recall that in the early 18th century, the great Hacham
Zvi Hirsch Ashkenazi, the rabbi of Amsterdam (1660-1718), tried to annul this
prohibition, and greatly regretted his inability to persuade his colleagues to
agree to do so. He wrote that “he who does away with this practice, may my part
be with him; would that the great authorities of this generation in this region
agreed with me to carry out this great mitzva.” But instead, he laments, they
would even forbid the use of salt and sugar on Passover because they look like
flour! The Hacham Zvi’s entreaty was echoed by his son, Rabbi Yaakov Emden, with
the same lack of success.
The 18th-century cri de coeur of the Hacham Zvi
resonates even more in our own times, an age of newly developed products,
produced with scrupulous care and with detailed descriptions of their exact
components clearly printed on every package.
Perhaps our contemporary
rabbinic leadership should hearken to the passionate plea of the Hacham Zvi, and
facilitate the mitzva of repealing (at least some of the aspects of) the
supposed gezerat kitniyot. ■
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