The Questions (and Answers) of BDJ

View a printable version of this Q & A here.

Q: (RYK) The questions that came in this week were all about kitniyot. I’ll begin by answering the practical ones, and then move to the larger question (or bewilderment) around the entire Ashkenazic custom of not eating kitniyot (beans, seeds, legumes, rice) on Pesach. Published April 2025

A: (RYK)

1. The custom to refrain from kitniyot applies only to eating kitniyot. It does not apply to owning kitniyot or benefitting from them in other ways. We continue using kitniyot baby formula, for example, and simply maintain a separate brush or sponge with which to wash the bottles. We can also feed kitniyot to our pets.  
2. In terms of Asheknazi-Sepharadi marriages: The general rule typically followed, despite its patriarchal assumptions, is that a wife “relocates” into her husband’s home, and as such adopts her husband’s customs, whether for leniency or for stringency. However, Rav Henkin questioned the Halachik basis for this assumption and maintained that at the time of her marriage a woman can choose to retain her ancestral custom if this is what she prefers (as long as this does not create an untenable living situation within the married domicile.) Here is a really good, short essay about this issue. 
3. One of the very confusing things about kitniyot is how and why certain items get added to the list over time (e.g. peanuts), and others do not (e.g. potatoes) even though one could apply the rationales of the custom almost infinitely if one wanted to be a true kitniyot-zealot. I wrote about this when quinoa became popular and almost became kitnoyot… and then didn’t. Please take a look here!
4. OK, so on to the bigger question as to whether there’s any prospect of a halachic off-ramp for kitniyot. The question is understandable. As the practicalities of Pesach observance are already challenging, and as the distinctions between Ashkenazim and Sephardim (actually, everyone else :) blur and blend with migration and marriage, it feels like history is calling for kitniyot’s retirement. I unfortunately don’t have the time this week to write at length, but here are several points that I hope you will find meaningful:

a. The first mention we have of a custom to refrain from kitniyot on Pesach is in the 13th century writing of R. Yitzchak of Corbel, who was one of the Toasafists of Ashkenaz. He refers to it as a custom of the “early sages” who refrained from eating beans and the suchlike which were customarily ground into flour and used for baking, lest this flour or these baked goods become confused with chametz flour or products. (In subsequent centuries an additional rationale, namely that grains of wheat could be mixed in with various forms of kitniyot, was also advanced.) He also mentions numerous contemporary rabbis who did NOT observe this custom, including R. Yeruham who referred to it as a “stupid custom.”  The custom was rejected by R. Yaakov Turim in his code, and the Bet Yosef (R. Yosef Karo) says that no one accepts it “except for the Ashkenazim.” 
b. At the same time, the Rama confirms that the custom has become binding upon Ashkenazim, and no subsequent authority has challenged this basic reality / halachik fact.
c. There are many details about how the custom is enacted that have been challenged over the past many centuries, and especially in the context of the demographic blending in the modern State of Israel, these details are being reviewed and sometimes questioned. These details include whether or not oils derived from kitniyot should or should not be included (Rav Kook famously argued that sesame and other oils, which never come into contact with water while being produced, should certainly be exempted). Of greatest practical significance  is the position - which is exceedingly well-argued from a Halachik point of view - that when a product (a) contains no discernable kitniyot, and (b) the kitniyot content of the food is less than 50% of its total volume, and (c) the food was produced before Pesach began, that this food simply does not fall within the parameters of the kitniyot custom at all. And if (d) the food was produced for a marketplace of Jews the majority of whom DO eat kitniyot, it should be all the more so that Ashkenazim should be able to eat it. Last year, when our (Israeli) son asked whether he should bring chocolate from Israel that contains corn syrup, I enthusiastically said “yes”, and although chocolate usually falls outside my dietary restrictions, I ate some! I think this argument will, in the short-to-intermediate term, effect a big change in kitniyot practice. Please see here for an excellent discussion of all this. The author provides his own practical conclusions on page 6.

In broader terms, it’s important that we do respect our inherited customs and communal norms, as these are part of the scaffolding of our Jewish living. The kitniyot custom embodies a certain kind of seriousness with which our ancestors approached Pesach, and this is an important ethic that they programmed into our DNA. 

Everything in its time.