After well over a year, I have decided to stop with the Beatle song titles for each of my blog posts. It was just kind of a joke for me to see if I could do it, and I think with over a year of posting, I can say that I succeeded! For the time being I am going to back to descriptive titles and if something comes to mind, I might come up with another theme.
It’s hard to believe but we are now just over two weeks away from Passover! Passover begins Monday night, March 29th. Last year I posted about our menus and some of what we are doing for the holiday. Much of what we are doing this year is similar, so you can click here some previous posts about Passover. Last year, Avi was not with us for Seder as he was in a psychiatric hospital. Thank God he is with us this year and has made so much progress from where he was last year!
Passover is very early in the secular calendar this year and it is too bad that we now change our clocks the second Sunday in March. Had we still been doing so on the first Sunday in April, the Seders would have been before we change the clocks and it would have been better with the start times for the Seders. Each Seder is supposed to start with candle lighting. On the first night this year, that would be at 7:03 pm. This of course means that we would not get to the meal until close to 8 pm, which is a bit late for the kids. The second night is even worse, when candle lighting has to be after the first day ended (about 42 minutes past sundown) which would be just after 8 pm (with the meal not coming until 9!). Our solution to this is that once everyone is seated we serve the first two courses of our meal (fish and soup). This allows people to have some food in them (but not Matza!) and pushes the start time of the actual Seder.
None of that is really controversial of course (I know a number of people who do that). Over the next few posts I want to write about some Passover practices that, while maybe not controversial, get a lot of discussion. Today, I want to talk about the granddaddy of all of these discussions, Kitniyot. Some of my friends know that I have done a lot of research on Kitniyot over the past few years, and I would like to share some of my thoughts here. First off we need to define the word. In Israel today, the word Kitniyot is used for legume. The problem with this definition in terms of Passover is that most of the list of items that Ashkenazi Jews refrain from eating on Passover (Jews of Sephardic descent do not have this custom) does not contain legumes. There are even legumes that are permissible for Passover. Alfalfa leaves, which can be used in salads, are permissible, and alfalfa IS a legume. So for Passover purposes, I need to find another definition. The word kitniyot comes from the root קטן which of course means small. Kitniyot are the small things that we don’t eat on Passover.
I could go into the Halakhic discussions here as to where this list comes from and who agrees with it and who does not. Rather than doing that, here is a link to an article that covers all of that in nice detail. I will say that there are many reasons that can be discovered as to why we do not eat Kitniyot on Passover. Often, when the Halakhic literature brings some many different reasons it is quite likely that no one really does know the reason why we do this. My biggest problem with Kitniyot is not the concept (although I would be happy to do away with the prohibition) but the fact that the list of items that are considered Kitniyot seems to grow year after year. One of the earliest modern examples is corn. Corn was unknown in the time of the sages. Korn is a Yiddish word for rye, and perhaps that is how it got mixed up? Wild rice is on the list, but it is neither wild nor rice (it is a grass) so why can’t we have wild rice pilaf? While Quinoa is allowed by some sources (and we do have Quinoa at our Seder) I have found that the OU suggest against eating Quinoa on Passover because there could be other grains that came in contact with the Quinoa!
Bottom line, of course is that I am not a Rabbi and I am not looking to make a Halakhic decision. We still refrain from eating Kitniyot in our house on Passover and probably will always do that. A friend has taken a novel approach. He went to the earliest list he could find and does not eat what is on that list. Anything that was called Kitniyot after that, he does eat in his house. I am waiting to hear back from him for that list, and as soon as I have it, I will edit the post and add the list. I think that sounds like a great compromise to this issue.
Enjoy!