Q&A: Is There Leavened Food Today?
Is There Leavened Food Today?
Question
Hello Rabbi!
Is the Rabbi familiar with the problem that, in today’s reality, dough made from leavened grain without yeast or other baking improvers never becomes leavened? Doesn’t that change the Jewish law? This question is not only about leavened food but also about matzah, since as is known, if something cannot become leavened one does not fulfill one’s obligation with it. How can this present-day reality be addressed halakhically?
Answer
I’m not familiar with this, and I didn’t understand the question. Is the claim that ordinary flour mixed with water does not become leavened?
Discussion on Answer
Are you serious? And if that were true, then reality was different in the past? The laws of chemistry changed?
I’m not a farmer and I haven’t tried it myself, but it’s a well-known fact, and I’ve also heard it firsthand from many people (they’ve been discussing this recently in the Haredi analytical discourse). As I understand it, reality changed because the wheat changed; as is known, all agricultural crops have undergone deliberate genetic changes, and apparently that is what changed the reality of rising.
I have no idea. I’ve never heard of this in my life.
Yes. It’s not so much a claim as more of a fact: knead flour with water, without yeast, and no change will ever occur in it (other than spoilage, of course). Apparently in the past reality was different, and the question is whether this could affect the halakhic conclusions, and if so, how?