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cellioPesach is in a few weeks, and this week at services Rabbi Freedman gave his kitniyot rant (as he described it).
Kitniyot is a class of food that isn't, strictly speaking, forbidden during Passover, but the Ashkenazi world has a long tradition of banning it as a fence. This includes foods such as rice, legumes, corn, peanuts, and their derivatives. (This is, for example, why you'll be able to find special Coke in the stores in a couple weeks. Corn syrup is kitniyot, but some bottlers produce Coke with real sugar for Passover. Even if you don't keep kosher or care about kitniyot, this is a score for taste reasons.)
Rabbi Freedman believes that kitniyot has made things so complicated that less-committed Jews just throw up their hands and don't try to do kosher-for-Pesach at all. So he is encouraging people to eat kitniyot and focus the energy they save on the real issues, the 5 grains and leavening. Eat the peanut butter and don't worry about the Coke, but really clean out the bread and cakes and beer. A worthy goal; I wonder if anyone who was there will actually follow up.
My personal practice thus far has been to not stress about kitniyot but not offer it to guests (in case they keep that stringency). And I avoid "deliberate kitniyot" -- that is, corn syrup in the Coke is ok but I probably won't actually cook up a pot of rice and beans.
Kitniyot is a class of food that isn't, strictly speaking, forbidden during Passover, but the Ashkenazi world has a long tradition of banning it as a fence. This includes foods such as rice, legumes, corn, peanuts, and their derivatives. (This is, for example, why you'll be able to find special Coke in the stores in a couple weeks. Corn syrup is kitniyot, but some bottlers produce Coke with real sugar for Passover. Even if you don't keep kosher or care about kitniyot, this is a score for taste reasons.)
Rabbi Freedman believes that kitniyot has made things so complicated that less-committed Jews just throw up their hands and don't try to do kosher-for-Pesach at all. So he is encouraging people to eat kitniyot and focus the energy they save on the real issues, the 5 grains and leavening. Eat the peanut butter and don't worry about the Coke, but really clean out the bread and cakes and beer. A worthy goal; I wonder if anyone who was there will actually follow up.
My personal practice thus far has been to not stress about kitniyot but not offer it to guests (in case they keep that stringency). And I avoid "deliberate kitniyot" -- that is, corn syrup in the Coke is ok but I probably won't actually cook up a pot of rice and beans.
Re: Derivative of a fence
Date: 2002-03-12 06:50 am (UTC)