Friday, April 06, 2007

Maybe he shouldn't have started with Kitniyot

Rabbi David Bar-Hayim, the rabbi who heads the Machon Shilo (no "connection" to my hometown) is being attacked for his psak, religious decision, that kitniyot, legumes, should no longer be forbidden to Ashkenaz Jews on Passover.

If the psak's "an attempt to make the culinary lives of Ashkenazim living in Israel a little bit easier," then it is a mistake. But if it's an advanced step in a long process of unification of the Jews in Eretz Yisrael, then it's good.

IMHO, of course.

8 comments:

Rafi G. said...

I agree and I believe he is not doing it because he has a desire to eat kitniyot or someone else does. I believe he came out with his psak because he felt it was emes.

Batya said...

To me the kitniyot isn't the separator. Within the communities which eat kitniyot there are many variations, so it was a problematic place to start. Also compromise, reaching a middle-ground is better.

Rafi G. said...

that's also true - but the way to compromise is to begin negotiations with an extreme request. right now kitniyot is banned. He says it is muttar. Now the debate has begun and maybe over time some middle ground will be formed and become acceptable.

Anyways, he says kitniyot is not really the issue. Rather, the main issue is one of accepting necessary change and not thinking and acting in eretz yisrael like "galus Jews", such as blatantly open second day yom tov minyanim, korban pesach (Noam Federman tried to "bring" a korban pesach on erev pesach and got arrested. The haredi opinion on this in the forums online is that who is he to do that and better that it not be done nowadays because it is just an unnecessary provocation that puts the Jewish community in danger.

In other words, people do not want to do korban pesach. People feel it is better not to sacrifice the korban pesach nowadays and who are we to renew something that has not been practiced in so long.

Do they consider that not bringing the korban pesach is equal to not circumcising your son? No, Because we Jews continue to think with a galus mentality.

That is really what he wants to change.

Batya said...

Eidat Eretz Yisrael-Lo Na'azov!

That would be it, no?
Many Morocans don't eat rice, nor dried kitniyot, for the same reasons as Ashkenazim. But they have no problems with the oils/derivatives and fresh beans.

My daughter is now Tunisian, so there's rice on the Pesach table for her husband and the kids.

Rafi G. said...

I agree - I do not know all the details of what he thinks should be done in Eretz Yisrael - I am not a talmid of his. I know he follows the yerushalmi a lot...

There are a lot of differesnces in customs among different sefardic communities, so I am not sure what he considers the original minhag eretz yisrael and how he comes t that conclusion. But again, kitniyot is really just a stepping stone and a side issue in his real goal of creating an eretz yisrael jew...

Batya said...

I discussed this with a rabbi, who doesn't like the psak, how it was done, publicized etc.

Anonymous said...

The issue vis a vis Rav Wasserman is not so clear despite a couple of claims that he wasn't involved. I have been in touch with people at Machon Shilo and there were some frank discussions and general agreement. Rav Wasserman has not made any attempt to contact them to remove his name from the psak.

Batya said...

I'm trying to get more info.
Thanks