[Avodah] Kitniyos

[Micha Berger]

On Mon, May 13, 2024 at 09:40:23AM +1000, Rabbi Meir G. Rabi via Avodah wrote:
> It seems that the Kitniyos ban may have been misinterpreted. The ban may
> well only apply to cooked and baked Kitniyot but not to raw,fresh Kitniyot
> such as sweet peas, sugar snaps etc.and peanuts and peanut butter.

Some say the minhag extends the some of the treatment of grains to
qitniyos, and others, that qitniyos are an extension of the treatment
of chameitz. As I wrote on Apr 22nd:
> This assumes the minhag is to treat qitniyos like one of the five
> grains, and not like a pre-dough mixture.

> R Melameid is meiqil (9:6) but he does note that there are machmirim.
> Those who are meiqil also include Shulchan Arukh haRav 453:5, and the
> Chayei Adam (127:1). However, the Sho'el uMeishiv 1:1:175 and Maamar
> Mordechai (#32) are machmir. They argue that since we aren't talking
> about things that actually become chameitz, whether or not they are wet,
> nevermind wet long enough for a grain to become chameitz, is irrelevant.

Can we say the Sho'el uMeishiv or Maamar Mordechai "misinterpreted"
the minhag?

I mean, maybe the fear was that mashed peas might be confused with a
dough, even without water. And then the minhag isn't not about mistakenly
making chameitz thinking you were working with pure pea powder, but
about eating chameitz thinking it was a pea product.

We don't even know if it's a machloqes, or if different regions practiced
similar seeming but different minhagim. You may either be picking sides
in a machloqes, or describing one community's minhag but not another's.


..
> It seems strange then to suggest a credible risk existed that these same
> people who were so exemplary and careful in baking their daily Matza,
> ensuring that it not be Chamets, would somehow confuse Kitniyot with wheat
> and barley, inadvertently producing Chamets.

And yet the Gra, who lived before most bought "matzah bakery" matzah,
offered just that as the *talmudic* point from which the minhag evolved.

    Rav Papi allowed the exilarch's manor's kitchen staff to thicken the
    stew with lentils. Rava said: is there one who permits this activity
    in a place where servants are common? Others say: Rava personally
    allowed lentils in the stewpot.
				- Pesachim 40b

Wether you take the first version or second version of Rava, the kitchen
staff shouldn't be allowed to make lentils on Pesach, whereas Rava
himself could.

The Gra suggests that the minhag of qitniyos grew from thinking we were
more like the kitchen staff than the reish galusa in the likelihood of
our making a mistake.

But this would justify the qitniyos may be confused with grains model. If
you are comparing qitniyos with dough...

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger                 Today is the 26th day, which is
http://www.aishdas.org/asp   3 weeks and 5 days in/toward the omer.
Author: Widen Your Tent      Hod sheb'Netzach: When is domination or taking
- https://amzn.to/2JRxnDF       control just a way of abandoning one's self?