Q&A: Legumes on Passover, and Other Greens
Legumes on Passover, and Other Greens
Question
I read the Rabbi’s remarks in column 2 regarding legumes on Passover, and I couldn’t have agreed more.
My main question is: what is the difference between this and many other cases in which Jews adopted stringencies for themselves? (For example, adding another seven clean days, and in general all the stringencies we took on ourselves in the laws of menstruation, for example)?
And of course there are many more things like this.
Thank you very much!
Answer
I explained there what the difference is. Legumes are not a stringency and not a custom, but a concern. And when there is no concern, there is no reason to continue it.
Discussion on Answer
Does the Rabbi already eat legumes freely?
Absolutely. For several years already.
Every single legume that is eaten harms fear of Heaven! And indeed the deterioration can be seen openly. Do not read “and you shall be defiled by them” but “and you shall become defiled by them”—impurity in faith, impurity in opinion, impurity in thought! May God have mercy.
It really does harm fear of Heaven, and that’s why he also started saying selichot on the first of Elul.
It is indeed a concern, but the concern created a custom, just as every custom is the result of events that preceded it. Can it be annulled (I’d actually be happy if it were possible)?