[Avodah] kitniyot

[Eli Turkel]

>
> Cottonseed is completely out of the question, because it grows on a
> tree, and everyone agrees that tree fruit are not included.

R Elyashiv prohibits cottenseed based on some gemara that cotten was
labeled as kitniyot

 And on
> peanuts RMF's opinion is not universally accepted, because it has a
> big flaw: corn, which *all* the poskim (including him) accept is
> included even though it wasn't known at the time of the original
> gezera.

RMF says explicitly that things depend on the minhag. As Zev states corn was
accepted by everyone. RMF would agree that if today peanuts are not
accepted that it is prohibited. His main point is that there is no
rule as everything
has an exception and so it boils down to what was accewpted in
individual communities


> Rapeseed was certainly a known crop, although inedible to humans.
> The original gezera did *not* ban individual species, but rather whole
> classes of species; mustard is explicitly included only because it
> grows in a pod, rather than for its own properties.  Nobody cooks
> mustard as a porridge, and yet it's forbidden because of how it grows.
> Therefore the gezera was against: 1) anything that is cooked as a
> porridge; and 2) anything in the same families even if it isn't used
> that way.  If you'd asked a Jewish rapeseed farmer 500 years ago whether
> his crop was kitniyos he'd have agreed that it was, and so would his rov,
> even though it was only a theoretical question.

Again, R Elyashiv agrees with you and states that we prohibit anything with the
name of kitniyot and so he prohibits cottenseed oil. RMF and others disagree and
say that only those kitniyot used by humans at the time  are included.
Anything not used by for human food is not included except if it was accepted
by communities. Hence, corn and soya were accepted by at least the vast
majority of Ashkenazim. Peanuts, cottenseed, canola was not accepted by many
communities. Again, it is a function of time and perhaps he would have changed
his mind about peanuts in todays society.


>
> On the contrary, the poskim all assume that there must have been an
> actual gezera at some point, even though we don't know when.  R Yechiel
> either disagreed with it or was unaware of it.

source? When the semak quotes R. Yechiel of Paris he does not say he knows
of a gezera which R. Yechiel didn't know. They were basically contemporaries
and so highly unlikely that the Semak knew of something that R. Yechiel didn't.
Also the language of the Semak is one of minhag.
>
>
> By the way, try coming up with a logical distinction between quinoa and
> buckwheat (which is lechol hade'os forbidden), and which also explains
> the universally accepted issur on corn.

again, precisely RMF point and so he concludes that the only thing
that counts is minhag



-- 
Eli Turkel