|
 The religious court of a Jerusalem Talmudic research center has taken
aim at the Ashkenazi practice of abstaining from legumes on Passover in
Israel.
The Beit Din (religious court) of Machon Shilo,
headed by Rabbi David Bar-Hayim, issued the ruling, which permits the
consumption of Kitniyot (legumes) by all Jews in Israel during the
Pesach holiday. Co-signing the ruling were Jerusalem Rabbis Yehoshua
Buch and Chaim Wasserman.
The
Beit Din explains in its ruling that the custom of refraining from
consumption of Kitniyot on Pesach began due to purely logistical issues
such as phenomenon of wheat grains being found in sacks of rice. The
ruling and customs affect mostly Jews from Ashkenazi descent, as
Sephardic Jewry never adopted the customs.
Rabbi Bar-Hayim heads Machon Shilo, a Talmudic research institute
seeking to reestablish the religious customs and practices of the
pre-exile Jewish communities in Israel in place of those adopted in
Babylon and Europe.
"[Refraining from eating Kitniyot] was a
localized custom in parts of Germany, which later moved eastwards to
Poland and Russia with the waves of Jewish emigration," explains Rabbi
Bar-Hayim. "The explanations offered for the custom are unconvincing.
You don't find wheat in rice today. It was never accepted by Jews
worldwide. Whatever the origin of the custom, Ashkenazi Jewish
commentators have struggled to find good reasons for the ban. Some
authorities, such as Rabbeinu Yeruham (Provence, 14 c.) called it a
'foolish custom'."
The Machon Shilo ruling goes to far as to
insinuate that financial incentives contributed at certain times to the
addition of other foods to the category of Kitniyot. “Over time, more
and more items were arbitrarily added to the list,” Rabbi Bar Hayim
writes. “Beans, peas, and more recently soya beans and even peanuts.
Few Ashkenazi Jews today would eat peanuts or use peanut oil on Pesach,
but as recently as 40 years ago peanuts were permitted by all
Rabbinical authorities. Often there were economic interests at work
behind the scenes, pushing for ever more stringent definitions of
Kitniyot, in order to create a market for a particular product.
Products that were previously kosher were banned. Very expensive oils
such as walnut oil replaced other oils that were previously acceptable
and the focus of the holiday shifted from avoiding Chametz to avoiding
Kitniyot.”
Rabbi Bar-Hayim says he understands the importance of
preserving customs, but that the Talmud itself explicitly instructs
Jews how to relate to the customs passed down to them. "We learn from
the Mishnah and the Talmud that customs are connected to a particular
place. When one moves permanently to another locality, one is to adopt
the local custom," Rabbi Bar-Hayim says. "The custom of abstaining from
eating Kitniyot during Pesach has never been the prevailing practice
among all Jews in the Land of Israel, and therefore is not binding upon
Jews living in Israel. A person may choose to continue adhering to his
custom, but no one has the right to enforce his custom on others."
Rabbi
Bar-Hayim says that Kitniyot is just a symptom of the fractured nature
of Judaism in Israel since the forced exile two millennia ago. He
laments the status quo whereby Ashkenazi and Sephardi neighbors do not
eat at one another’s home on the Pesach holiday, meant to be a time of
unity for the Jewish people, who would ascend as a nation to Jerusalem
in Temple times. “We hope that this ruling will serve as the beginning
of a process that will unite the Jewish People."
Even more
critical, says Rabbi Bar-Hayim, are the results of retaining the
customs picked up during an exile during which many now-relevant
mitzvoth (commandments) were superfluous. “When a Jew lives in
accordance to the Judaism of Minsk or Dvinsk, there is no place in his
worldview for bringing the Korban Pesach (the Pesach sacrifice of a
lamb, as was done each year starting with the Exodus),” laments Rabbi
Bar-Hayim. "Today, as always, we are commanded to bring a Korban
Pesach, but most people are under the mistaken impression that we
cannot since we are ritually impure from contact with the dead."
Citing
the Mishna and the Rambam, which state that if a majority of the people
is ritually unclean the Passover sacrifice is not postponed and is
brought in a state of impurity, Rabbi Bar-Hayim says the only reason
not to reinstate the Biblical commandment is the political climate
preventing Jewish religious access to the Temple Mount. "We hope that
this psak halacha (Jewish legal ruling) will cause a paradigm shift
from 'small talk' about Kitniyot to confronting the big issues such as
the Pesach sacrifice. I am aware that some people, even some religious
Jews, are uncomfortable with the subject of animal sacrifice; this is
something that we need to discuss and internalize. The Pesach sacrifice
was one of the annual highlights of Jewish life in the Land of Israel
during the First and Second Commonwealths. The Jewish People has come
home; we need to start acting like it."
The full Machon Shilo ruling can be viewed (in Hebrew) by clicking here.
The
Machon Shilo ruling remains a minority opinion. Arutz-7 contacted a few
of Israel’s leading Religious Zionist rabbis to comment on the issue.
Rabbi Zalman Melamed,
Chief Rabbi of Beit El, said that Ashkenazi Jews are forbidden from
consuming Kitniyot on Pesach. “We act in accordance with our tradition,
which is that Ashkenazim are forbidden to eat Kitniyot on Pesach,” he
said.
Asked whether that applied to more recent additions to the
Kitniyot classification, such as peanuts. Rabbi Melamed said, “One
whose family has the tradition that they eat peanuts can eat peanuts.”
Rabbi
Melamed stressed that while it is a desirable aim for the nation to
move toward unity in their Jewish observance, such a shift must be done
by a decision of a larger plurality of Torah sages, and not by
individuals.
Rabbi Avigdor Nebenzahl, Chief Rabbi of
Jerusalem’s Old City, also said that it is forbidden for Ashkenazi Jews
to eat Kitniyot. He took issue with the assertion that the minhag
hamakom (local custom) in Israel is to eat Kitniyot. “The Land of
Israel belongs to all of the Jewish people and not just Sepharadi
Jews,” he said. “There are many customs and there is no minhag hamakom
that prevails in Israel.”
Rabbi Nebenzahl conceded that an
Ashkenazi Jew could conceivably take on Sephardi customs if he lives in
a community that is wholly Sephardi.
Rabbi Nachum Rabinovitch,
Rosh Yeshiva of the Birkat Moshe Hesder Yeshiva in Maaleh Adumim,
disagreed with the assertion that there was no local custom – in
theory. “There was in fact a minhag hamakom in the Land of Israel. But
when other communities arrived, they did not respect it and chose to
continue their own customs…I presume the local custom was to eat
Kitniyot.”
But Rabbi Rabinovitch says he does not understand why
anybody should be bothered by the customs of others. “Who does it hurt
that Ashkanazim today refrain from Kitniyot? They can in fact eat at
their Sephardi neighbors and just not eat from the Kitniyot foods.”
“There
are many congregations today,” he added. “There is no longer a single
community without two rabbis…and just as you wouldn’t want to make
everyone dress the same way, we should not force everyone to give up
their customs…many of which offer a connection to their previous
generations.”
Rabbi Rabinovitch concluded that the matter of
consumption of Kitniyot is a personal matter of observance and should
be discussed individually with one’s rabbi.
This article was originally published at http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/121947 .
|
