[Avodah] Machon Shilo Bet Din rules that ALL Jews in Israel may eat Kitniyot on Pesach

[Samuel Groner]

See http://www.machonshilo.org/

JERUSALEM, ISRAEL, March 20, 2007 (Nissan 1, 5767) -
"Beth HaWaadh, the beth din (religious court) of Machon Shilo, has
issued a religious ruling permitting all Jews in the Land of Israel to
consume Kitniyoth
(legumes) during the Pesah holiday. The signatories to this ruling
were Rav David Bar-Hayim, Rav Yehoshua
Buch, and Rav Chaim Wasserman, all of Jerusalem.

'The custom of refraining from eating Kitniyoth -- legumes such as
rice, lentils, beans etc. -- during the Pesah holiday has always been
a matter of debate' says Rav David Bar-Hayim, Head of Machon Shilo, a
Talmudic research institute, and president of the Beth HaWaadh
rabbinical court.

According to Rav Bar-Hayim, the custom grew up in some Jewish
communities during the Exile, but no one is quite sure how it began or
why. Some say it started in Medieval Europe as a response to sometimes
finding wheat grains in sacks of rice. This is a problem, as rice
cannot become Chametz (leavened) whereas wheat certainly can-and the
consumption of Chametz is
strictly forbidden during Pesah by the Torah. Others have suggested
that it was to avoid confusion with the
five grains that can become Chametz.

'This was a localized custom in parts of Germany, which later moved
eastwards to Poland and Russia with the waves of Jewish emigration',
states Rav 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 Rabbenu
Yeruham, called
it a 'foolish custom'.'

Over time, more and more items were arbitrarily added to the list:
beans and peas, and more recently soya beans and even peanuts. Few
Ashkenazi Jews
today would eat peanuts or use peanut oil on Pesah, 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 Kitniyoth, 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 Kitniyoth.

'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,' explains Rav Bar-Hayim. 'The custom
of abstaining from eating Kitniyoth during Pesah has never been the
prevailing practice among all Jews in Erets Yisrael, and is therefore
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.'

According to the ruling, the variety of customs forbidding different
foods creates divisiveness that the Torah prohibits. 'The Torah
specifically instructs us not to act in a divisive fashion; the Jews
in a particular place should follow the same customs' says Rav
Bar-Hayim. 'This is the opinion of Rambam and other authorities who
state that we should not have
more than one beth din (religious court) or groups practicing
different customs in the same city. This leads to a lack of societal
cohesion. Today we see that this is all too true. We hope that this
ruling will serve as the
beginning of a process that will unite the Jewish People.'

Kitniyoth are a Small Part of a Larger Issue According to Rav
Bar-Hayim, this discussion is part of a larger issue on whether the
customs and
practices of the Exile (Diaspora) should be maintained when the Jewish
people return to their Land where other practices have been followed
or even mandated by the
Torah. 'Everyone talks about Kitniyoth, but no one talks about the
Korban Pesah, the Pascal Sacrifice,'
continues Rav Bar-Hayim. 'Today, as always, we are commanded to bring
a Korban Pesah, but most people are under the mistaken impression that
we cannot since we are ritually impure from contact with the dead.'

Rav Bar-Hayim cites the Mishna and the Rambam that 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.

'While we recognize that sacrifices cannot be reinstituted in a time
frame of days or weeks - for political, not Halachic, reasons - we
hope that this
psak halacha will cause a paradigm shift from 'small talk' about
Kitniyoth to confronting the big issues such as the Pesah 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 Pesah 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.'"

About Machon Shilo
Machon Shilo seeks to promote the study of the customs and practices
of our forefathers and Rabbis, who lived in Erets Yisrael. Machon
Shilo believes that while the Jewish People have physically returned
to their ancestral
homeland, Erets Yisrael, they have not yet returned to the Torah of
Erets Yisrael, only to the learning of Torah in Erets Yisrael. For
more information visit www.machonshilo. org. The full psak (in Hebrew)
can be
found at http://machonshilo.org/PDF/Machon_ Shilo_Pesaq_ Qitniyoth_ 2.pdf.


Does anyone here know more about this?  Have other rabbanim or poskim
responded yet?

Sammy Groner