[Avodah] Pie Crusts, Pas Paltur, and the Aseres Yemei Teshuva

[Akiva Miller]

I've never understood the relationship between Pas Habaa bKisnin and Pas
Palter. The whole concept of PHbK is that it is a snack food, and NOT a
staple of the meal. This leads me to two questions:

1) As regards intermarriage, is PHbK any different than other snack foods?
Are cookies and cake more prone to intermarriage than potato chips and
popcorn? Why include it in the halacha of Pas Akum?

2) If PHbK is included in Pas Akum, why allow it the kulos of Pas Palter?
Pas Palter was relaxed because it was difficult to get Pas Yisroel, and
obtaining a staple like bread was a dealbreaker. Did they consider PHbK to
be a staple also? Why be lenient?

I expect the answer will be something like making a Lo Plug for both kinds
of Pas. But the whole point of PHbK is that it is different than Pas Gamur.
<< Insert here several days of pondering how to continue that train of
thought. >>

If Chazal had wanted to, they could very easily have chosen to legislate Lo
Plug: Washing, Hamotzi and Birkas Hamazon for ALL types of pas. But
instead, they recognized PHbK as a very different sort of food, and they
gave it all the leniencies of cooked grains, *provided* it is eaten only as
a snack, and not as a meal.

In choosing *not* to go with the "lo plug", they've allowed room for loads
of shailos and confusion. The biggest ones, of course, are "what defines a
meal in this context" and "is xyz Pas Gamur or is it PHbK", and then goes
on to many others. Like what's a meal for Kiddush bMakom Seuda, or eating
cake in the sukkah, etc etc etc, and so on until this thread about Pas
Palter.

So I guess I could phrase my question like this: It seems that in many many
areas of halacha, Chazal were content to consider PHbK as distinct from Pas
Gamur, provided it is eaten as a snack. But for Pas Palter, they seem to
consider  PHbK as identical to Pas Gamur, *even* when eaten as a snack, and
they did this both l'chumra (avoid cookies hacompanies during Aseres Ymei
Teshuva) and l'kula (allow cookies hacompanies the rest of the year). Why
did they (apparently) choose to be inconsistent?

Akiva Miller
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