Psak Halacha on Kitniyoth on Arutz-7

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Machon Shilo and its Beth HaWaadh have made the headlines at Arutz-7 (Israel National News) and was briefly the #1 item.

Kol hakavod to the Rav and the Machon for their efforts in fighting for truth and abandoning shtuth.

Jerusalem Institute Questions Post-Diaspora Kitniyot Abstinence

by Ezra HaLevi

(IsraelNN.com) The religious court of a Jerusalem Talmudic research center has taken aim at the Ashkenazi practice of abstaining from legumes on Passover in Israel.

The Beit Din (religious court) of Machon Shilo, headed by Rabbi David Bar-Hayim, issued the ruling, which permits the consumption of Kitniyot (legumes) by all Jews in Israel during the Pesach holiday. Co-signing the ruling were Jerusalem Rabbis Yehoshua Buch and Chaim Wasserman.

The article then went on to discuss the background and reasoning for the psak.

Unique to the article were interviews with Rabbi Zalman Melamed (Chief Rabbi of Beit El), Rabbi Avigdor Nebenzahl (Chief Rabbi of Jerusalem’s Old City), and Rabbi Nachum Rabinovitch (Rosh Yeshiva of the Birkat Moshe Hesder Yeshiva in Maaleh Adumim).

As expected, they did not endorse the psak, but neither were they too successful in refuting it:

Rabbi Zalman Melamed:
“We act in accordance with our tradition, which is that Ashkenazim are forbidden to eat Kitniyot on Pesach... One whose family has the tradition that they eat peanuts can eat peanuts.”

Rabbi Melamed stressed that while it is a desirable aim for the nation to move toward unity in their Jewish observance, such a shift must be done by a decision of a larger plurality of Torah sages, and not by individuals.

Rabbi Avigdor Nebenzahl:
“The Land of Israel belongs to all of the Jewish people and not just Sepharadi Jews. There are many customs and there is no minhag hamakom that prevails in Israel.”
Rabbi Nebenzahl conceded that an Ashkenazi Jew could conceivably take on Sephardi customs if he lives in a community that is wholly Sephardi.

Rabbi Nachum Rabinovitch disagreed with the assertion that there was no local custom – in theory.
“There was in fact a minhag hamakom in the Land of Israel. But when other communities arrived, they did not respect it and chose to continue their own customs…I presume the local custom was to eat Kitniyot.”

Rabbi Rabinovitch concluded that the matter of consumption of Kitniyot is a personal matter of observance and should be discussed individually with one’s rabbi.

See the full article at http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/121947

Comments

Anonymous said…
Of course, I could point out that our ancestor's minhag hamakom in France and Germany 1000 years ago was to eat kitniyot. Where that gets me though, I'm not sure.
March 26, 2007 3:49 PM
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