Beans of Contention

By Gail Lichtman

Legumes separate Ashkenazim from Sephardim during Pessah.

It has been called the "Pessah divide" - differentiating Ashkenazim from Sephardim and creating chaos at the Seder tables of ethnically mixed families.

It is the issue of kitniyot and whether or not to eat them during Pessah.

Kitniyot are defined as legumes or pulses. They include rice, beans, corn, millet, soy, peas and buckwheat. In general, it is Sephardi custom to eat them during Pessah and Ashkenazi custom not to.

"The prohibition for Ashkenazim includes legumes and most vegetables that you can make flour out of, with the exception of potatoes," states Jerusalem Rabbi Moshe Dombey, who teaches Halacha at the women's seminary Neveh Yerushalyim.

Halacha prohibits Jews from eating hametz during Pessah. According to Halacha, hametz can occur in five grains - wheat, rye, oats, barley and spelt. Matza, which may contain only something that can become hametz, is made of grain flour and water.

Kitniyot, on the other hand, are not hametz. Maimonides writes that "there is no hametz in kitniyot" and "even if rice were ground into flour, and it were to rise like leavened dough, it is permissible to eat it as it is not hametz." The Talmud does include a minority opinion that hametz can also occur in rice, but the Halacha does not follow this opinion. However, Moroccan Jews do not eat rice on Pessah.

"Not eating kitniyot on Pessah is an Ashkenazi minhag," Dombey explains. "A minhag is a custom. Different customs develop in different communities and are binding on these communities only. Halacha is binding on all Jews."

Until the Moslem conquest of Babylonia in the mid-7th century, there was a central halachic authority for answering questions. "[After that] different communities developed different answers or customs. Kitniyot is a post-Talmudic custom," says Dombey.

According to Rabbi Shlomo Yosef Zevin, in his authoritative work Moadim Behalacha, the earliest reference in halachic literature prohibiting eating kitniyot during Pessah is found in the 13th-century book Sefer Mitzvot Katan ("A Little Book of Mitzvot") by the Ashkenazi sage Rabbi Yitzhak Ben-Yosef of Corbeil. Rabbi Yitzhak refers to the prohibition, not as a new custom but as one "from the times of previous sages," indicating that the custom was already well-established in his time.

The exact origins of the habit of refraining from eating kitniyot during Pessah among Ashkenazim are unknown and there are at least 11 different explanations. The most widely accepted links the practice to agricultural developments that arose in France and Germany in the 13th century.

In these lands, where there are significant summer rains and winters are not too harsh, it is possible to have both a summer and a winter crop. In the Mediterranean region, where there is no summer rain, this is not feasible. Therefore, in France and Germany, the agricultural cycle moved from a two-year rotation of crops to a three-year rotation - one year a winter crop, the second a summer and the third year fallow.

At about the same time, legumes began to play a more prominent role in the three-year rotation system. Because of their nitrogen-fixing properties, legumes could be used as natural fertilizers for fields depleted of their nitrogen by grains.

"When the wheat was harvested, certain stalks were always left behind," Dombey notes. "Some could take root. If in one growing season the field was used for wheat, and in the next for beans, there was the possibility that grain stalks could be harvested along with beans and mixed in with them. From there, the custom developed. In the Sephardi countries, there was no crop rotation, so there was no reason for this custom to develop."

Other scholars believe that linking the prohibition on kitniyot to crop rotation is a back formation, an attempt to link a custom that arose for entirely different reasons to the prohibition on hametz.

Rabbi David Golinkin, president and rector of the Schechter Institute of Jewish Studies, the Masorti (Conservative) Movement's graduate and rabbinical school in Israel, and current chairman of the Masorti Law Committee in Jerusalem, believes there was an entirely different reason for the origin of the minhag.

"The custom of not eating kitniyot was linked not to Pessah but to all holidays," he notes. "Kitniyot were considered the simple food of the poor, and lentils especially were the food of mourners. This was true in ancient Rome, and Austria and Germany in the Middle Ages. Therefore, in order to keep the festive nature of the holidays, kitniyot were prohibited."

Eventually, over time, the prohibition for the rest of the holidays fell away and only the one for Pessah remained. Since the custom was now associated with Pessah alone, it was assumed that it must in some way be linked to the prohibition on hametz.

Rabbi Ariel Holland, who teaches Talmud at MaTaN, the Sadie Rennert Women's Institute for Torah Studies in Jerusalem, thinks the custom may have been derived from a mistaken reading of a passage in which Maimonides writes about cooking in fruit juice.

Today, it is clear that Maimonides was talking about the five grains, but some scholars interpreted this to refer to kitniyot. This passage is the basis of the Sephardim eating matza ashira (enriched matza) which Ashkenazim also prohibit.

Because kitniyot are not hametz, Ashkenazim are permitted to eat them under special circumstances - in times of famine or distress - if cooked first in boiling water. On several occasions, including during World War II (Pessah 1942), the Chief Rabbinate of Eretz Yisrael issued a ruling permitting the eating of kitniyot for Ashkenazi Jews in distress.

Also, numerous arguments and divergences of opinions exist concerning the use of oils derived from kitniyot. Many rabbis interpret the ban on kitniyot to be on the legume itself and not on its derivatives, thereby allowing the use of kitniyot-based oils. When the first chief rabbi of Eretz Yisrael, Avraham Yitzhak Kook, was still chief rabbi of Jaffa, he caused a controversy by ruling in favor of using sesame-seed oil for Pessah. Earlier sages had ruled that oil derived from kitniyot could be used for lighting lamps during Pessah.

The prohibition on kitniyot has been controversial almost from its earliest days. Rabbi Samuel of Falaise, one of the first to mention the minhag, called it a "mistaken custom" and Rabbi Yeruham a "foolish custom." Many rabbinic authorities ruled to do away with the minhag, but it continued.

And not only did it continue, but it was extended at various times and communities to include garlic, mustard, sunflower seeds, peanuts, canola oil and more. "An interesting prohibition was the one issued by Hayei Adam [the popular compendium of Jewish laws by Rabbi Avraham Danzig (1748-1820)] on potatoes which classified them as kitniyot," MaTaN's Rabbi Holland notes. "His reasoning was that you can make flour from potatoes, so they should be prohibited. Today, no one follows this."

Twelve years ago, the Masorti Movement in Israel issued a responsum in which it stated that "both Ashkenazim and Sephardim are permitted to eat legumes and rice on Pessah without fear of transgressing any prohibition."

In reaching its ruling, the Masorti Movement cited the objections of various rabbinic authorities to the minhag as "mistaken" or "foolish," the fact that it detracts from the holiday joy by limiting the foods permitted, and that it emphasizes the insignificant (legumes) while ignoring the significant (hametz). Also, the Masorti Movement felt the prohibition "causes unnecessary division between Israel's ethnic groups."

Holland disagrees with this step. "I believe that whether it is a mistaken custom or not is not relevant. We are talking about a minhag of more than 700 years - one that spread all over the Ashkenazi world. The reasons for its origins are no longer relevant. This is now the Halacha and norm for Ashkenazi Jewry."

Dombey concurs with him. "Once a community adopts a custom, for whatever reason, that action is sanctified. There is a spiritual dynamic that gives significance to it. For those communities, the minhag is binding. Customs provide spiritual energy. They are a link between the generations. Until around 60 years ago, people did not move around.

"They lived in the same communities, with the same traditions for hundreds of years. With the upheavals in the Jewish world since World War II, people want to maintain their links with the past. One way is to follow the minhag of our fathers."

As to the claim that the minhag is divisive, Dombey says: "Things are only divisive where people do not respect each other's customs. Sephardim also have different minhagim. The Jewish people over the centuries developed different ways of expressing their Jewish identity. Kitniyot is just one small aspect of this. Different customs are not divisive; they just make Judaism more interesting."