kitniyos

Avodah
1

RBen Waxman cited the following:

     "This morning the local rosh yeshiva (Rav Tawil) also
discussed eating chameitz. If a non-Jew were to offer you some chameitz,
it is fine. If you sold bread/chameitz before chag, RT basically said
that one can rely on Rav Ovadia's opinion that the bread would not be
muqtza on Shabbat and therefore it would be permitted to eat, if you
can deal with the Pesach keilim issue."

      Whether or not the bread is muktza, it certainly was not yet
repurchased from the non-Jew who bought it on erev Pesach; and thus, even
if there are no Orach Chaim questions about eating it, it would seem that
there is still a Choshen Mishpat problem.

EMT

2

Rav Tawil was basing himself on a psak given by Rav Ovadia Yosef, tz"l, which is summarized here:

http://halachayomit.co.il/he/Default.aspx?HalachaID=3938

KT

Ben

3

It seems that the Kitniyos ban may have been misinterpreted. The ban may
well only apply to cooked and baked Kitniyot but not to raw,fresh Kitniyot
such as sweet peas, sugar snaps etc.and peanuts and peanut butter.

INTRODUCTION
It is vital to recognise that the Kitniyos ban was initiated when
home-baking Matza [486:3] throughout Pesach was the universal practice.
This was not the overbaked, hard, cracker type that we are familiar with
but soft and chewy laffa type Matza. [456:3 457:2; it has tragically
emerged that today very many do not even believe that Matza can be Kosher
if it is soft and chewy. Perhaps the very fact that soft Matza is
essentially indistinguishable from the Chamets version is uncomfortable and
has supported the acceptance and dominance of hard cracker type Matza]

In those days everyone was familiar with the severity of Chamets and and
respected the need to complete the Matza manufacturing within ‘18 minutes’.
It would be unthinkable to have even the slightest concern that even the
most unlettered segment of the population would go anywhere near violating
this prohibition.
It seems strange then to suggest a credible risk existed that these same
people who were so exemplary and careful in baking their daily Matza,
ensuring that it not be Chamets, would somehow confuse Kitniyot with wheat
and barley, inadvertently producing Chamets.
This appears to be the problem the Poskim are grappling with when
explaining the foundation of the decree. [something that the Rama did not
bother with; and which leads to an interesting aside: how often do the
Poskim trouble themselves to explain the background for any of the Rama's
glosses?]

A careful reading of their writings [meaning by approaching them without
the preconceived notion that Kitniyos are banned in any shape or form]
indicates that the concern was prompted due to cooking Kitniyos [and some
add baking] but not to consuming raw fresh Kitniyot such as sweet peas,
sugar snaps etc.

And even regarding cooking, the MBerrurah finds it necessary to explain
that WHOLE GRAINS are not part of the actual ban but are included as Lo
Pelug [end of 6] – in order to retain consistency.
In what way are cooked whole grains not the primary focus of the actual ban?

Best,

Meir G. Rabi

0423 207 837
+61 423 207 837

4

It seems that the Kitniyos ban may have been misinterpreted. The ban may
well only apply to cooked and baked Kitniyot but not to raw,fresh Kitniyot
such as sweet peas, sugar snaps etc.and peanuts and peanut butter.

Some say the minhag extends the some of the treatment of grains to
qitniyos, and others, that qitniyos are an extension of the treatment

Those who are meiqil also include Shulchan Arukh haRav 453:5, and the
Chayei Adam (127:1). However, the Sho'el uMeishiv 1:1:175 and Maamar
Mordechai (#32) are machmir. They argue that since we aren't talking
about things that actually become chameitz, whether or not they are wet,
nevermind wet long enough for a grain to become chameitz, is irrelevant.

Can we say the Sho'el uMeishiv or Maamar Mordechai "misinterpreted"
the minhag?

I mean, maybe the fear was that mashed peas might be confused with a
dough, even without water. And then the minhag isn't not about mistakenly
making chameitz thinking you were working with pure pea powder, but
about eating chameitz thinking it was a pea product.

We don't even know if it's a machloqes, or if different regions practiced
similar seeming but different minhagim. You may either be picking sides
in a machloqes, or describing one community's minhag but not another's.

..

It seems strange then to suggest a credible risk existed that these same
people who were so exemplary and careful in baking their daily Matza,
ensuring that it not be Chamets, would somehow confuse Kitniyot with wheat
and barley, inadvertently producing Chamets.

And yet the Gra, who lived before most bought "matzah bakery" matzah,
offered just that as the *talmudic* point from which the minhag evolved.

    Rav Papi allowed the exilarch's manor's kitchen staff to thicken the
    stew with lentils. Rava said: is there one who permits this activity
    in a place where servants are common? Others say: Rava personally
    allowed lentils in the stewpot.
        - Pesachim 40b

Wether you take the first version or second version of Rava, the kitchen
staff shouldn't be allowed to make lentils on Pesach, whereas Rava
himself could.

The Gra suggests that the minhag of qitniyos grew from thinking we were
more like the kitchen staff than the reish galusa in the likelihood of
our making a mistake.

But this would justify the qitniyos may be confused with grains model. If
you are comparing qitniyos with dough...

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha