Why aren’t coffee beans kitniyot?

Coffee beans are indeed kitniyot! They are seeds that are eaten and planted like any other bean (including soybeans or sunflower seeds).

The Chacham Tzvi and the Yabetz said that coffee beans are definitely kitniyot, but no one says that they are forbidden on Pesah as everyone knows that when the minhag of kitniyot was adopted in the land of Ashkenaz hundreds of years ago, coffee was unknown and therefore not included under the purview of the minhag.

In addition, everyone knew that anything else came along was not to be added to the list of kitniyot. Rav Bar-Hayim relates that Rav Shaul Yisraeli zt”l of Yeshivat Merkaz HaRav told him that he held this same reasoning for permitting the consumption of soybeans during Pesah.

Comments

Anonymous said…
Now that Rav Bar Hayim has had the courage to openly proclaim that kitniyot may be eaten on Pesach-maybe other bloggers can encourage other rabbis to come on board. There's quite a few rabbis who would "take the plunge" were they to know about Rav Bar Hayim's activities.
Anonymous said…
not.
It is a shame that overzealous enthusiasm so prevalent today among the so-called charedim also leads to burn-out and the abandonment of Torah. Were people to open their eyes, minds, and hearts to the rainbow of Living Torah--and relatively little black and white (pun intended)--they would be rewarded.
Michael said…
But let's just restate the important fact:
Coffee is OK, right?

If it's not, and my wife has to go without, I'm in for a rough week...
Coffee is fine; check out the psak halacha on kiniyoth in general at www.machonshilo.org
Can someone please explain to me what the problem with cotton seed oil is? In Israel, none of the "good" hecsheirim give a Koshel LePeisach hechsheir for it. The exception is the Rabbanut of Kiryat Malachi which is Chabad.
Moshe,
Maybe those who don't use cottonseed oil are concerned that a few stalks of wild wheat could have grown with the cotton and "contaminated" the oil. In the humble opinion of the KLF,just use corn oil with a Kosher LePesah hecksher.

Chag sameach.
Anonymous said…
Just FYI, coffee 'beans' are not "seeds that are eaten and planted like any other bean (including soybeans or sunflower seeds)". In fact you cannot grow a coffee tree from a coffee 'bean' - you need a live coffee cherry to grow a coffee tree. They are the pit of a berry/cherry in the Rubiaceae family. Soybeans are bean pods from leguminous plants. Coffee is more closely related to tomatoes, potatoes, olives and sesame (all pesadich) than to either legumes (actual beans) or sunflowers.

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