[Avodah] Kitniyot

[Zev Sero via Avodah]

On 04/04/17 15:22, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote:
> We are not talking about eliminating Kitniyot laws but limiting them

We have no more authority to limit them than to eliminate them altogether.


> My personal observation is that very few of my friends avoid lecithin and
> many modern oils

What people do has no relation to what they have the right to do.


> RMF and others already allowed peanut oil and cottonseed oil

RMF (almost alone) holds that the original gezera was on particular 
species, and peanuts were never included.  The machlokes about 
cottonseed oil is precisely about whether it is a kind of kitnis or not.


> the reason to include canola oil is that it is similar to Kitniyot
> even though it or even corn oil did not exist at the time of the
> generation

Whether the oil existed then is lechol hade'os irrelevant.  If the 
species is included in the ban then all forms are included.  RMF however 
would presumably say that since rapeseed was not an edible species at 
the time, it was not included.  Most acharonim, who hold that the ban 
was on the whole category,  would presumably include it.


> So the question is why extend the minhagim to canola oil when the problem
> of the confusion doesn't exist but we don't extend it to non chametz cereal
> or breadstick where the possibility of mistakes is greater

Once again, because no individual rav or group of rabbanim have the 
authority to permit what is already forbidden, or to forbid for the 
entire people what is currently permitted.


> As previously mentioned rsza was against these chametz look a like products

That he was against something doesn't make it assur.

> as are several contemporary rabbis  OTOH the outside is nachman in lecithin
> in candies where there are many reasons to be making and they are making in
> chametz looking and tasting products where many are machmir

But what authority do they have for this?

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