Q&A: Legumes
Legumes
Question
Rabbi Michi, hello!
I am writing in great agitation.
Someone asked me to read your emphatic remarks about the custom not to eat legumes on Passover. Those remarks convinced her and greatly weakened her commitment to the matter.
I read them.
After some time I went over to our pantry and looked at a package of quinoa that we had bought (since I had decided to rely on the lenient opinions regarding quinoa, not to consider it a legume included in the custom). I discovered that the package explicitly says: "Allergen information: may contain wheat"! In other words, your decisive proof from the extreme caution practiced nowadays because of celiac patients has nothing to stand on.
In addition, regarding the product’s Passover certification, it says that for those who eat legumes it is kosher for Passover, except that it must be sorted three times. The righteous Orit sat down to sort it, and indeed found in it several grains of another cereal—apparently oats (we aren’t expert enough to identify them for sure).
I don’t have a package of rice at home to check what it says on it. But I can’t hold myself back.
Did you check what is written on a package of rice?
It seems that you did not check what is written on a package of quinoa, and that you did not sort even a single package of quinoa or rice. Maybe I’m mistaken.
But if I am right—how can you use such harsh disparaging language about someone who does maintain the custom, without checking? How can you claim that you never found wheat in a package of rice if you never looked? Do you know what an oat grain looks like, and how big it is? It is probably quite tiny.
Isn’t contempt for an old custom without proper examination also liable to cause a desecration of God’s name?
Happy festival!
Answer
Hello Rabbi A.,
I hope you are well.
Many thanks for your words, and I am glad that you wrote to me about this and fulfilled in my regard, "You shall surely rebuke." Incidentally, my remarks have already helped prevent a stumbling block of eating quinoa and leavened grains mixed into it.
Let me begin by saying that those remarks of mine were written several years ago, and they too were written in agitation, which explains the sharpness of the wording. I did indeed go too far in the sharpness, and I regret that, but I stand completely behind what I said. I was simply infuriated by this nonsense that takes up almost the whole "screen" for us on Passover, stirs up learned but baseless discussions, and causes endless hassle and major misunderstandings among the public. In any case, I stand by my position that this foolish custom should be abolished.
I wrote that I had heard the claims that packages of legumes contain leavened grains, and as I wrote, poor me, I did not find any in rice (I am not among the quinoa eaters). But I already wrote in my original remarks that this can happen (and not only with legumes), and still that does not explain this strange custom. If one is concerned about leavened grains, I would expect this to be forbidden to all Jews and not only to those who observe the prohibition of legumes. Beyond that, what room is there to distinguish between legumes that existed at the time this custom/concern arose and those that did not, or to distinguish between green legumes and others? Do packages of legumes that did not exist then, or pink legumes, not carry the same concern that wheat or oat grains may be found in them? You yourself wrote here that you decided to be lenient about quinoa because it is not included in the "decree." And I wonder: what does the definition of the "decree" have to do with concern for leaven? All these distinctions, leniencies, and stringencies that everyone keeps chewing over on Passover (an international desecration of God’s name, in my view) lose their meaning according to your claim. We should cancel all these halakhic discussions (the foolish ones) and declare that all legumes—and really all vulnerable packages, not specifically legumes—are forbidden as leaven, and not give them Passover certification. Is that what you are proposing? If so, then your complaint is not with me.
My claim is that if there is concern for leaven in a package of anything whatsoever, then let them kindly forbid it and not grant it Passover certification (if only to prevent the Sephardim—who, according to your approach, are happily gobbling up leaven on Passover—from transgressing), or let them tell everyone (including Ashkenazim) to sort before use (and really preferably before Passover, since during the festival there is the prohibition of "it shall not be seen," if it exists in less than an olive’s bulk, or at least a concern that one may come to eat it). And if, as you claim against me, people do not know the difference between wheat grains and oat grains, then the option of sorting does not exist and legumes should be forbidden to everyone (I assume you are not claiming that only little me understands nothing about this, while the rest of the Jewish people all know how to distinguish between true blue dye and fake indigo, and between rice and oats). We are really causing the public to stumble in the prohibition of leaven, no? So how is everyone silent?!
In short, none of this has anything to do with the custom of legumes or the "decree" (which I claim never existed and was never created, not even as a parable). And certainly there is no basis to forbid things that have some legume component mixed into them (a concern for legumes in cottage cheese) and other nonsense. These strange defenses, which reek of intense apologetics, constantly raised regarding the custom of legumes, are what angered me in the first place, because they involve a major desecration of God’s name. People understand that this is nonsense (and rightly so), and serious Torah scholars repeat it with a straight face and engage in casuistry over distinctions in the laws of legumes as if there were something substantial there. In my opinion this really turns Jewish law into a mockery, and that is exactly what I was fed up with when I wrote those remarks. The insane proportions this thing takes, vis-à-vis this colossal silliness (the rebbe of Gur’s broom becomes the essence of Passover), are in my eyes a grave desecration of God’s name, and point to a shameful petrification of Jewish law.
To conclude: your comment about the harshness of the wording I accept. But my claim is that the custom is a foolish custom and should be abolished. And if there is concern for leaven, then please handle it like any other concern for leaven and do not let half the nation eat leaven on Passover with premium certification. The one who causes the desecration of God’s name is the one who acts this way, much more than the one who warns about it (even sharply). The fact that people keep this going and are unwilling to admit a mistake—that is the greatest desecration of God’s name in my view.
Happy festival, and goodbye,
Discussion on Answer
To my dear friend, the mighty Rabbi A., may he live long. "Happy are you, Israel: before whom are you purified, and who purifies you" (for this one needs friends).
As for your points themselves, I would say the following (not in the order of your sections, but I hope I addressed them all):
A. As to the concern you raised: indeed, בעקבות your remarks I went back and saw that there are packages with warnings (some phrase it as gluten traces and some as concern for grains) and some without. For example, rice products such as rice flour and rice noodles are sold with no warning at all and with ordinary Passover certification for those who eat legumes (there one can no longer sort them). In any case, I am willing to admit that my claim that there is no concern whatsoever about grains being present because of celiac patients is incorrect regarding packages of grains. But that too, of course, has no connection to legumes. It could be true of many packages of many types, with no connection to legumes in their accepted Passover definition.
All this, of course, concerns the factual concern about grains being present. To get from here to a prohibition of leaven, one must also discuss the laws of doubts and nullification before Passover and during it.
B. In legume products (which cannot be sorted, such as rice flour or rice noodles), and certainly in products where there is concern about a mixture involving legumes, such as cottage cheese or dairy desserts and the like, there is absolutely no room to forbid them.
Now let us return to packages, which are the only thing under discussion here.
C. I sort rice once, because that sounds reasonable to me both on Passover and on an ordinary day. I am sure that if there are grains, then there can also be cases where on the fourth sorting you will find some grain, and there is no end to the matter. In my experience I have not found wheat or other suspicious grains. Of course, it is possible that I erred because of the similarity, or because my packages were clean (whether by chance or not), but if so then all Jews may err to the same degree, and it is not correct to permit eating on the basis of sorting. And even if you do it three times, it will not help someone who cannot distinguish between the grains.
D. The concern for leaven exists only if water came into contact with the grains, of course. But that itself is the concern that prevents leaving packages of wheat grains (or flour) in the house on Passover. If so, then with legumes it is no different, and one must be concerned that water touched them as well, which is why I wrote that they should be sorted before Passover. And indeed some halakhic decisors even forbade legumes on which water had not come, and those are truly astonishing statements (part of the same lack of proportion I described, in which legumes became an object of prohibition in themselves).
E. Everything you raised is not a reason to forbid legumes, but to be concerned about leaven. That is simply not identical with the prohibition/custom of legumes. And of course all the various distinctions between legumes that did or did not exist at the time of the decree/custom are irrelevant. The question is where there is today a concern for leaven and where there is not. That is all.
F. My distinction between custom and concern is between two categories that in the halakhic decisors can both be called "custom." Therefore their terminology is not proof. Even a custom based on a concern is called by them a custom (and as is known, sometimes they use such language because of the zealots who would come out against it), and of course there is also a custom that is merely a custom. My claim is that concerns are observed as long as the concern exists, and when it no longer exists, they are not—unless they were fixed in an enactment of an authorized religious court, in which case there are opinions that one needs a court greater in wisdom and number to repeal them even if the reason has lapsed. Though this too can be challenged, and this is not the place. It should be added here that this concern arose at a time when there was no longer authority to establish a prohibition in the matter, and therefore I do not accept either the terminology of a "decree" or its force once the reason has lapsed. I will note that the abundance of explanations for this custom indicates that there is nothing clear-cut here, and the various concerns indicate after-the-fact apologetics that we would never have entertained had we not needed to defend a custom whose time has passed. Rabbi Medan used to say that he knows 22 explanations for why we read Ruth on Shavuot, but only one for why we read Esther on Purim.
G. The difference between Ashkenazi and Sephardi communities is not in how they deal with concern for leaven, but in the custom of legumes. If there is a real concern for leaven, I do not see any community permitting such a thing. And if the concern is insignificant and very remote, there is no reason to worry about it in such proportions. As I wrote, my agitation is mainly because of the contrast between the intensity of the concern and the proportion of the attention given to it. Especially according to your view that the concern is not remote at all. After all, in a random package you checked in your home, you found leaven. So what room is there for different treatment by different communities? Do you really think there are halakhic decisors who would permit keeping wheat grains in the house? Many even forbid selling wheat grains to a non-Jew (obviously because of the concern that they got wet). And if people are suspected of not knowing how to distinguish (as you wrote regarding me), then of course there is no difference between Ashkenazim and Sephardim.
H. When I said it takes up the whole "screen," I did not mean that rabbis and halakhic decisors who deal with the laws of Passover touch only this or mainly this. But the Jewish masses deal mainly with this. Go and see what people check when shopping in a store or supermarket. Almost all the discussions and checking regarding Passover prohibitions (and I assume also a considerable portion of the questions you are asked) concern legumes. Beyond that, there are all the distinctions the halakhic decisors make in this non-topic, even though, as noted, it is not their main occupation.
I. The source of my remarks is the lack of proportion in treating something that is at most a remote concern, while the way it is handled hangs on distinctions some of which have no connection to the concern, and this is the main thing occupying the broader public with respect to Passover. All of this is utterly unreasonable in my eyes.
With that, we conclude:
1. There is no prohibition involving legumes as such; rather, there are cases where there is concern that leavened grains are present. These are two entirely different things, and there is no reason for differences between communal customs on this issue (apart from differences in halakhic rulings between them on legal questions, such as enriched matzah, etc.).
2. The concern is remote, and it exists only in products that are packages of grains.
3. We are talking about packages of grains that are not specifically legumes in the usual halakhic sense, but according to present-day reality. Therefore there is no point in discussing formal distinctions about the "decree of legumes" and what is included in it.
4. Even if there are grains, there is no reason to be concerned about a prohibition of leaven here, because of the laws of doubt and nullification, etc.
5. In the case of such a package, if one nevertheless maintains that there is a prohibition, then it applies to all Jews and not only to Ashkenazim—at least those who, like me, do not know how to sort oats from quinoa. And those who do know, even if they are Ashkenazi, are permitted. And if one is concerned about those who do not know, then again one must forbid it to everyone. It is a great stretch to hang the custom distinction on the law of "reawakening" on Passover, which in any case does not overlap with the Ashkenazi-Sephardi division of the legumes custom.
6. In products that are not packages of grains—that is, almost the entire supermarket (cottage cheese or dairy desserts with a concern for legumes, not to mention oil and legume products)—there is no basis for prohibition and nothing to discuss.
I admitted my mistake regarding the possibility of finding a grain in a package. Will you grant me the above summary?
I completely identify with the Rabbi’s arguments for abolishing the custom, especially since they extended it even to a derivative of a derivative of legumes.
Companies tend to write warnings like "Allergen information: may contain wheat" for reasons of legal protection, not because they genuinely suspect the presence of wheat. Like when the rabbinate of Modi'in once wrote on a bag of shelled walnuts that it was kosher for Passover for those who eat legumes.
By the way, the expression "those who eat legumes" itself sounds to me like "those who eat carcasses," God forbid.
Dear Rabbi Michi!
The cords of your tongue were pleasing to me.
Let me get to the heart of the matter:
1. If so, are you willing to admit that the central claim you made—that today this stringency has no factual basis, since manufacturing processes are free of concern for gluten because of celiac patients—that this claim is not correct?
2. Your claim about the disproportionate amount of discussion on this topic: I am perplexed. How can I continue the discussion without stumbling into this sin? In the halakhah sheet I distributed in my community before Passover, the topic of legumes took up a very small percentage of the space. So I suggest that, in order for us to continue the discussion, we split the blame equally. Let us say it as a general claim—the disproportionate discussion arises every year at least equally because of both sides. Therefore this is not a substantive argument. After all, the question of who is to blame for this improper discussion, or who causes a desecration of God’s name, is begging the question—whoever turns out to be wrong at the end of the discussion will turn out to be the one causing the desecration of God’s name. So for heaven’s sake, let’s leave that aside and focus on the issue itself.
3. The claim that this is a concern and not a custom—I do not understand that claim deeply enough. What is the source of this sharp distinction? The Rema writes that it is a custom. The Hatam Sofer writes that it is a communal vow that cannot be annulled. Are you making your claim on the basis of historical sources? Halakhic sources? Does it just seem that way to you? If it just seems that way to you, then that is at most one possibility, but it is legitimate (and not stupid) for someone to think differently from you. Do you have proofs that this is a concern and not a custom?
4. Let us assume that it really is a concern and not a custom. Why, then, in your opinion should it be handled identically by Sephardim and Ashkenazim? Maybe there really is a genuine concern, it still exists today (as I saw on the quinoa package), and different communities adopted different ways of dealing with it? (When I wrote "a genuine concern," I meant that it has a factual basis.) The particular way in which this or that community chose to deal with the problem becomes a custom worth preserving as an ancestral custom. It is like the custom of waiting a certain number of hours between meat and milk, or distancing oneself in various ways from polygamy. The concern at root is a real-world concern, even if remote, and different communities instituted different ways of being careful about it. Why should the way I practiced caution regarding this concern obligate the Sephardim? They avoided it by intensive sorting of legumes, whereas the Ashkenazim did so by refraining from eating them.
5. Your claim that one should sort before Passover is not clear to me. The grain in the package is not leaven. But if I cook it on Passover without sorting it, then I will violate "it shall not be seen." Therefore one must not cook it on Passover without sorting it. And in fact, according to Ashkenazi custom it is permitted to cook on Passover, and apparently the concern was considered so factually slight that they sufficed with caution against eating, which is a much more severe prohibition than the prohibition of "it shall not be seen" and "it shall not be found."
6. Regarding the difficulty of sorting—it really is difficult. Orit sorted the quinoa three times, as it says on the package. She found oats even on the second time! It took a lot of time and concentration. She also testified that if the children had been around her, she would not have succeeded in finding them. The practice of not eating it seems very understandable to me, at least as an option, certainly not a foolish one.
7. I still didn’t understand—did you check what is written on the rice package? Is there concern for gluten or not?
8. I still didn’t understand—did you sit and sort a package of rice three times before you wrote what you wrote?
Happy holiday and Shabbat shalom!