[Avodah] kitnoyot

[Zev Sero via Avodah]

On 04/04/17 09:23, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote:
>
> It seems the OU is more interested in literal kitniyot even if no longer
> makes sense and not all in products that have the same rationale as
> kitniyot but are not literally kiniyot.
>
> To my mind it is difficult to prohibit canola oil and allow cereals and
> bread sticks that look and sometimes even taste like the original.

It's very simple: `al zeh gozru ve`al zeh lo gozru.  We have no 
authority to make up our own gezeros, but we are bound by those our 
predecessors made.   Thus the machlokes acharonim about newly discovered 
legumes and pseudo-grains: was the original gezera only on certain 
species, or was it on the entire class?  Most acharonim seem to say it 
was on the entire class, but then argue about how to define that class, 
and thus how to decide what it includes.  But very few if any say zil 
basar ta`ma to include new things that definitely don't fall in the 
original definition of the banned class.

-- 
Zev Sero                May 2017, with its *nine* days of Chanukah,
zev at sero.name           be a brilliant year for us all