[Avodah] kitniyot

[Daniel M. Israel]

Quoting Eli Turkel <eliturkel at gmail.com>:
> Furthermore since kitniyot ae batel be-rov it means that many commercial
> items
> that contain kitniyot are allowed for Ashkenazim if it is less than 50% of
> the ingredients.
> Of course there is no problem for the company to make these products since
> 50%
> of Israelis are sefardim who have no problem.

For the record, I am not from the fans of extending these minhagim- I  
remember eating peanut oil on Pesach when I was younger, and I am not  
that old!  OTOH, looking for the kulos that TTBOMK were never used in  
previous generations doesn't strike me as correct either.  Why can't  
we just keep the minhag, after all that is what a minhag is.  Why do  
we have to have a new improved version every year.

That said, something strikes me as not quite right about the above  
argument.  By the same logic, in a majority Ashkenazi community a  
sh'chetia that has at least a 50% glatt production could throw all  
their meat into one production line and Sephardim could eat from it-  
after all pieces of meat are also batel b'rov.

-- 
Daniel M. Israel
daniel at cornell.edu