The justification for the practice of legumes in our time
Rabbi Michael, peace and blessings!
I received a question asking me to address your words regarding legumes, and I answered as I thought was right and true. It was not pleasant for me, but I saw no other choice. At least I have no desire to be a “secretly striking one’s neighbor,” so I am informing you of this. The words appear here: http://www.yeshiva.org.il/ask/103636
I omitted your name and the link to your article from the question, so that the discussion would be about the substance of things and not about the substance of a person.
And may we be worthy of aiming for the truth of Torah, and love truth and peace.
Rabbi Shmuel, Shalom Rabbi.
Thank you for the update. Your words are written gently in your way (unlike mine), and I see them as a substantive and important discussion, again in your way. On the other hand, I must say that my words on this matter were indeed written in anger, and therefore the style was definitely too harsh and I regret that. But the substance of the matter, even though you present it in a Totod way, the Mishnah has not moved from its place.
I will say up front that my main problem with this custom is that it has become something that overshadows the entire Passover and restricts us in a completely disproportionate way in relation to its weak and controversial tastes, if at all. Everything is forbidden for fear of legumes. This distant weakness shapes the entire Passover and presents us and the halacha as fools, and that is what has upset me about it. I would say that confusion between legumes and grains can arise precisely because of this custom that treats them in a similar way (forbidding both).
Second, what made this a “legislative decree,” when this “decree” is received at a time when there is no institution that can issue decrees (Sanhedrin). At most, a rabbi can issue a decree in his place. That’s all. It is clear that this is apologetics (although the term already appears in ancient times) that tries to prevent a necessary change. That is why I wrote that there is no decree here but a concern. I will clarify this further.
When there is a concern that an authorized institution decides to issue a decree because of it, it turns from a concern into a decree, and now even if its reason is null and void, it is difficult to revoke it (although it is possible). But when there is a concern that arises in a certain place and circumstances, in the absence of an authorized institution, then there is no obligation to continue it or even not to uphold it. There is only an obligation to fear where there is a concern. The difference is that when the fear is revoked, the law is nullified (this is in contrast to a decree) and there is no need to revoke the concern in the rabbinical court. Therefore, examples of customs and concerns in the Gemara are not relevant to the discussion. The Gemara is considered an authorized institution (like the Sanhedrin), and therefore its concerns are usually perceived as a decree and not as a concern (and the example of the “Hevri” in the rabbinical court is extreme in this regard).
As for the rest of your words:
1. I see no contradiction in my words. I wrote that the custom has no meaning today, but in the past it probably did (although I don’t know for sure what it was).
2. When there is a concern about chametz, it should be prohibited for everyone, regardless of custom or decree. It is a concern and has nothing to do with who used to prohibit it or not.
3. Those who defend this custom point to mixing chametz in a way that is actually forbidden (a clear chametz mixture that is forbidden at least by the law of recitation and shaking), and they would prohibit this in any other product. For some reason, in legumes, they only prohibited this for those who practiced it. Therefore, I do not accept these claims. Many also tell me the same thing about mixing grain with rice, and I, as a child, have never seen wheat in a bag of rice in our house.
4. The discussion about legumes that were in their time versus new, or green versus non-green legumes, about what comes out of legumes, etc., is not at all relevant to this concern. The statements of the poskim who deal with these distinctions prove that this is not a concern about chametz, but rather a custom of Belma.
5. The reason that they might mix legumes with grains should be applied according to the degree of similarity in appearance or shape and not according to “cutting out legumes.” This is not what is actually done. I’m not talking about ephifiot and other Passover products that look very similar to chametz. The fear that they might mix them is, in my opinion, a good idea.
Therefore, all of these seem to me to be excuses in retrospect, and they are not sufficient to defend such a foolish custom. Again, even if I am willing to accept that this custom has far-fetched reasons, the fundamental problem is that when such a custom assumes outrageous proportions in relation to its tastes (in my eyes, the proportion borders on madness), it must be abolished, because the blasphemy, the suffering, and the confusion that arise from it constitute serious harm that far outweighs the benefit (even if there is any). And several such decrees and concerns (which were decrees from the Gemara) have already been abolished due to similar considerations (see examples in the last chapter of Rabbi Gotal’s The Change of Natures). The crux of the problem is the proportion that this custom assumed (and the treatment of it as a decree), which is greatly exacerbated in light of the triviality of its tastes. This is what aroused my anger.
I posted this correspondence to my website, for the benefit of readers.
Peace and blessings!
I will not address every detail, but I will briefly make three main comments:
A. I do not understand your division between customs mentioned in the Mishnah and the Gemara and later customs. In matters that were forbidden in the Mishnah and the Gemara by law and regulation, there is indeed certainly a difference between the authority of the Sages to issue prohibitions and establish regulations for all of Israel and the authority of later sages. But here we are talking about things that the Mishnah and the Gemara did not prohibit. The Mishnah and the Gemara say that this is permissible by law, and they say that it was prohibited in certain places by local custom. There is no Sage regulation here that gave this validity, but the validity derives solely from the custom of the people of the place who behaved in this way. In this matter of local custom, there is no difference whether this custom was created during the time of the Sages or in later periods, the validity is completely the same.
B. You keep claiming that if there really is a concern about leaven, then it should be prohibited for everyone. And it is not. The Torah does not require us to be concerned about every concern that may arise. Halacha defines a certain level that we must be concerned about (for a minority, they are not considered, those who observe an isurah do not enforce it, etc.), and whatever is beyond that is permitted by law, even though the concern exists to one degree or another. But a decree or custom can certainly raise the bar and concern concerns that are beyond the level required by law. In such a situation, if it is a decree of the Great Rabbi or a sage, then everyone will have to be concerned about it even though it is a distant concern, and if it is a local custom, then only the people of that place will have to be concerned about it and not others. And this is the case with legumes, which were prohibited by custom.
C. Regarding your claim that this custom is out of proportion and overshadows all conduct on the holiday. This can be questioned, both in terms of reality and the halachic weight of this claim. But even if we accept the claim, there is a simple solution to this within the framework of the customs, which is to permit a legume mixture (i.e., anything that does not contain a majority of legumes, and the legumes are not visible in it). This permits all meat/milk/sweets, etc., even though they say “for those who eat legumes only,” and leaves only clearly legume foods off the menu. This has a solid basis in the Poskim, as we wrote in our book “Va’achlet ve’shavat,” and as several important rabbis have instructed (although there are of course also many who prohibit it, and I certainly understand their reasoning, and I agree).
A. First, I will preface by saying that your words about selling a small animal are not clear in the Gemara/Mishnah itself. It is possible that after they determined that where they practiced it was forbidden and where they did not practice it was permitted, it became a decree, that is, a law (but it is only for those places). And such is the case with doing work on the day of Av, etc. In particular, when such things appear in the Gemara, the poskim see them as a binding determination that deviates from the rule of custom (although I have no idea why this is so, and perhaps because the Gemara is considered a source for all Jewish communities, and not as local customs that are appropriate for their time and place. But in any case, this is only true with regard to the Gemara, which has a binding and general status, etc.).
Secondly, the custom of selling a small animal that you cited is itself an example of a contradiction. In the answer he wrote in a commentary (Yod S. Kana S.):
Where it was customary not to sell a lean animal to idolaters, no one sells it. And everywhere no one sells it to them, and not to the suspected Israeli who sells it to them, a coarse animal, unless through a pimp, or one who knows that he is buying it for slaughter. And now they have practiced permissiveness in everything.
You, you abolished this custom without hesitation, and in my opinion, it was well done, since it is a concern that was not established as a decree, but at most a custom to fear. And see there, in the subject of utensils, the explanation why this does not belong to the Idna or that the Idna needs to change, and in my opinion, these are weaker explanations than what exists regarding legumes. In any case, regardless of the explanations, this is evidence to contradict. In the Shul and Noach, they did not abolish it indirectly, but simply abolished it. Moreover, no one thinks of bringing it back today when some of the reasons and needs no longer exist.
B. Customs, for the most part, do not come to fear a distant fear. Usually, a custom is not founded on fear but on some other religious purpose. There is no point in fearing something that is completely halachically permissible (Damai is an opposite example, but there is also fear there, but it is a minority because most of the people of the land tithe. This is an example of a fear that has become a law and therefore is not abolished, and even the most relaxed version of it is that there is no fear, and so on). If it is permissible, then it is permissible. While there is room for a local custom to fear distant concerns that are not halakhically prohibited for various reasons that time and place dictate, it is only because in that place this distant concern is less distant or more dangerous (such as the regulation of the Bene Aleb in New York not to marry converts for fear of mixed marriages, and even that has already been discussed).
And in particular, taking such a custom out of proportion and establishing a permanent obligation on all descendants of their descendants (the Ashkenazim) is very problematic.
Beyond that, as I wrote, the concerns they are talking about were not necessarily distant. Apparently in their time they were significant concerns (and perhaps that is the meaning of the term “gizira” when used in this context), although in other times and places the concern is distant. Today it is distant and illogical to fear this, unless it were something symbolic (say, not eating rice, or leaving some marginal memory of this ancient custom, which I would not have objected to then). This is exactly what I argued, which is a concern and not a decree, and not necessarily a custom. After a while, it was perpetuated and became a custom through a strange process that I do not understand.
And especially since those who defend this custom bring hair-raising data about the concern about actual leaven (I have heard from several people that it is certainly leaven. After all, this is an unconvincing apologetic. According to this, they should have prohibited it halachically and literally).
C. When everyone invests so much in indirect methods – it is a sign that the people and the poskim understand that this is something anachronistic that actually needs to be abolished, but they do not dare to do so. To circumvent something that has no real basis in such convoluted ways, as if there were a deception here on a definitive law, is a hoka. And they are my words that this should be done on the table in order not to become a hoka.
Apparently he (surprisingly…) remained in disagreement.
All the best!
Regarding the rabbi's words about customs becoming laws, it's a bit difficult. Since I was a child, I've learned (basically) that there are two types of laws: laws and customs. And this is regardless of the level of obligation in them. If there is no obligation to customs, why even deal with them? Apparently, even without being laws, they have a kind of obligation on their part (otherwise, how can it be that "custom nullifies a law"?). Apparently, the source of the words of the one who taught me in elementary school is the Rambam, who divides the Toshva into five parts. The first four parts (which include decrees and regulations in the fourth part) are called laws and the fifth is called customs. I've seen people all over the internet asking where the expression "Israeli custom is law" comes from. And of course there is no such thing, but the expression is "the custom of Israel is the Torah." Besides, in the Halachah of the Two Books, the Rambam speaks again of decrees, regulations, and customs (created during the Sanhedrin period) that are forbidden to be transgressed upon, "do not deviate." And such as those that were intended to make a reservation to the Torah A, to cancel them even in the Book of the Law, which is greater than the Book of the Law and the Book of the Law. It does not seem that the work of the Bible and the small animal belong to these (these customs should spread throughout Israel, and do not belong to any one place), and it still seems from the words of the Mishnah that they obligate the people of their place. In short, a custom does not need to be turned into a law in order to obligate the people of the place where they practiced it. Indeed, it is not clear why today all Israel is forbidden to do work in the Bible (it does not seem that this custom spread because of the words of the Mishnah), and it is possible that the Rabbi is right. In this case, it is clear that not every custom is obligatory (one can engage in the context of spinning a spinning top and eating a donut on Hanukkah - one spin immediately after lighting candles and eating a donut every day).
Indeed, regardless of any connection, there is probably some mechanism that allows (obligatory) customs to be canceled, like a small animal. Perhaps the first to change the custom do indeed violate a prohibition, but after a critical mass of offenders has been reached (say 50%), then the custom is canceled. But I do not think that this is what happened in a small animal, and it seems that this custom was canceled in the Shofi (from the words of the Shulchan Ar-Rahman: "And now they have allowed everything." And he writes this quite calmly)
I didn't understand what your words refer to.
I'm sorry, that's my mistake. I was referring to your words in section A in the last response here in the thread about how the custom of not selling a small animal became a decree, that is, a law (in your language) for all of Israel (and also a work of the Bible). Many people also call the custom a law, meaning that it is also a binding custom, which is not correct. I wanted to comment on this and I didn't notice that the rabbi himself distinguished between the two concepts.
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