Thursday 5 April 2012

Qitniyyot, Stuck in the Middle - Without You! :-)

My understand from the Chok Yaakov is Simple and Centrist

1. We accept the Humra/Minhag of Qitniyyot

2. We are meiqil in all the "gray areas" because -

3. We are not Machmir on what is already a Humra.

To my leftist colleagues who wish to be m'vateil issur Qitniyyot, I say to them Al Titosh Torat Imecha [Chayyei Adam]

To my Machmir colleagues I cite this Chok Yaakov, that there is no need to be machmir on what is already a Humra.

The result? I get universally despised! :-)

Zissen Pesach!
Hag Kasher v'Samei'ach,
RRW

4 comments:

micha berger said...

Drift in how people observe qitniyos makes no sense. Mima nafshakh: Either you value theory over mimeticism, and you should abandon qitniyos altogether; or you believe that keeping the pragmatic tradition alive is itself of value, in which case you shouldn't be questioning how qitniyos was being observed until now.

Mighty Garnel Ironheart said...

The problem isn't kitniyos. The problem is that every year another food gets added to it.
Are we keeping in the traditions of our fathers when they make a specific decree and we go and expand it? By what right did we add quinoa, peanuts, soy, etc. to a specific list?

micha berger said...

MGI: You're repeating what I wrote about "drift in qitniyos".

However, it's not clear that the decree was specific. In Lithuania it was taken that way, which is why they ate peanuts. (As R' Moshe testifies about Pruzhan.) But further south, it was taken to be a general principal about legumes, other things people make into porridge, or other grain-like (mustard) foods.

The cRc's new position on quinoa is along these lines, but neither. It's not grain-like, but is often processed on the same equipment as wheat. Since we're buying KLP, that's not a real chameitz problem, they just decided to pasqen based on one of the reasons given for qitniyos. It's that kind of thing I said makes no sense -- application of logic to something only kept to preserve tradition (minhag avos).

micha berger said...

And yes, Galitzian and Southern Polish Jews didn't eat peanuts since shortly after they were first introduced to Eastern Europe.