Something I never understood about Pesach dietary laws

[figmo]

The whole point of the dietary change during Passover, as I understood it, was to eliminate leavening (yeast) from the diet because they didn't have it when going through the desert.

Why, then, do we eliminate whole grains, which have nothing direct to do with the leavening? Why is it okay to make matzoh with whole grains, but only okay to eat foods made with crushed matzoh as a "grain" instead of the same types of grains used to make the matzoh?

This never made sense to me, and nobody has ever explained it.

Comments

[filkerdave.livejournal.com]

We eliminate any food made with the 5 grains (rye, wheat, oats, barley and spelt) that hasn't been carefully watched to see that it didn't get wet (and thus, potentially, start to rise). (We also eliminate certain foods that LOOK like them, but let's not go into that right now, shall we?)

Once the flour's gotten wet, you have 18 minutes to bake it. Once baked, it no longer rises when wet.

Judaism 101 has a reasonable write up as part of this.

[figmo.livejournal.com]

I'm confused. If you have 18 minutes to cook it, why wouldn't 5-minute oatmeal be okay? What about pasta, which isn't supposed to rise?

[filkerdave.livejournal.com]

If you've ever made pasta, you'll note that it gets wet from the very beginning; there's no way to make most pastas from flour in less than 18 minutes. I'm not sure how the Passoveer "pasta" is made, but it's disgusting anyway.

I'm not sure how oatmeal itself is prepared, but if it gets wet in the processing, then that counts. (And, of course, once it gets wet in the hot water, it would have to be consumed within 18 minutes or it becomes chametz. Anything left in the bowl would therefore become chametz and that makes the bowl and spoon unfit for Passover use.

Why 18 minutes? Not sure how they derived 18, but it's a common number in Judaism ;)

[cleverthylacine]

chai = 18 :)

[filkerdave.livejournal.com]

Well, yes, I know THAT. I'm just not sure why they chose 18 minutes aside from that, if there was any other reason.

I think we can safely say that the Hebrews did NOT time themselves that precisely.

[howeird]

The rules were not made by the Hebrews, they were made by various and sundry alleged scholars in the Middle Ages. Very few of the rules which exist today have any basis in what the Torah says the Hebrews did. The "getting wet" thing, not mixing milk with meat, wearing a head covering - all are inventions of the Medieval rabbis with no direct evidence they were ever followed in Biblical times.

[otherdeb.livejournal.com]

YEah, but from what I understand (admittedly not all that much; see below), Orthodox Jews often consider tradition to have all the force of law.

[howeird]

Orthodox Jews often consider tradition to have all the force of law.
Absolutely. Which is one major reason I don't practice anymore.

[dan-ad-nauseam.livejournal.com]

Rolled oats are steamed prior to rolling. I'm not sure about steel-cut.

[trinsf.livejournal.com]

As someone else says, it's because (among other reasons) oatmeal swells as soon as you add water, giving it the appearance it's rising.

[peteralway.livejournal.com]

Not meaning to be offensively stupid, but, uh, how does popcorn fit into all of this?

[figmo.livejournal.com]

There's nothing offensive or stupid about your question.

Popcorn is forbidden during Pesach if you're an Ashkenazic Jew but Kosher if you're Sephardic.

[trinsf.livejournal.com]

What she said. I actually don't know as much about this as most folks, because I'm just a theologian with a background in biblical Hebrew and a few friends who are hard core Talmudic scholars.

[otherdeb.livejournal.com]

As far as I know, this particular issue is only gemaine to Ashkenazim, and is in dispute even among them. fringefan was raised following those rules, for example; I was not. In fact, I had never heard of them until about 15 years ago. From what I have been able to gather, it has do do with the fact that these grains appear to "rise" - i.e., they swell when wet. And there are also whole groups of Askenazim that won't eat legumes during Pesach for the same reasons. I also have been told that it refers to the concept of fences....applying a set of rules even when something does not exactly fit, so that someone else observing you might not sin by thinking that you are doing something actually forbidden and copying you.

OTOH, not being more than nominally Jewish, and being very minimally observant (I was raised assimilated Americna Reform), I am willing to be corrected on any part of this.

[merlinpole.livejournal.com]

I keep thinking that Pesach food should really be stirfry--stuff for eating and running/eating on the run/fast prep time and cooking.

The level of encrusted encrustation after thousands of years makes barnacle-infested boat bottoms look clean and streamlined.

There have been attempts off and on to scrape off the encrustation infestations, such as I think the Haskalah movement some mere tends of decades ago.

A lot has to do with the environments and conditions of the times. Eating insects was allowed when in times of locust infestatios--the locusts having eaten everything else that was semi-edible, what was left for food was on of the locust forms.

After hundreds of years of fences and then fences fencing off the fencing, AND the people making the rules for food preparation not being the ones who had to -do- the cooking and cleaning, the weight of millennium of fencing off fences gets -extremely- onerous and tothe point of institutionalized idiocy in cases.

[kayshapero]

And now I find myself irrestiably reminded of Avram Grumer's "Banned from Egypt"...

"We left in such a hurry that the bread we baked was flat;
Descendants will eat matzo to remind themselves of that.
Now we can't help but wonder how things would have been, perchance,
If we had been so hurried as to not put on our pants."