Volume 52 Number 02
Produced: Wed May 3 6:13:35 EDT 2006
Subjects Discussed In This Issue:
Baking Soda, Baking Powder, and Yeast on Passover (4)
[Perets Mett, Orrin Tilevitz, Sammy Finkelman, Ira L. Jacobson]
The Chofetz Chaim did not have payehs (2)
[SBA, Carl A. Singer]
The Chofetz Chaim did not have payehs - a Pesach Message
[Shimon Lebowitz]
Kiddush Cup of the Chafetz Chaim (2)
[<rubin20@...>, Ben Katz]
Supplement to the Haggada
[Nathan Lamm]
Supporting the family
[Perets Mett]
Tradition Journal Launches New Website: www.TraditionOnline.org
[Yonatan Kaganoff]
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From: Perets Mett <p.mett@...>
Date: Mon, 17 Apr 2006 16:24:08 +0100
Subject: Baking Soda, Baking Powder, and Yeast on Passover
Janet Zangvil wrote:
> As Orthodox Jews know, all baking soda is kosher for Passover; baking
> powder is KLP as long as it is made with acceptable ingredients like
> potato starch instead of cornstarch;
Just to note that baking powder needs a hechsher all year round. It
typically contains cream of tartar, a by product of making wine.
PM
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From: Orrin Tilevitz <tilevitzo@...>
Date: Mon, 17 Apr 2006 20:18:42 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: Baking Soda, Baking Powder, and Yeast on Passover
Janet Zangvil asks the source of the "urban legend among non-Orthodox
Jews that baking soda, baking powder, and yeast are inherently not
kosher for Passover." She also writes: < I believe that Red Star yeast
was on R Eidlitz's Passover list; it is still on R Abadi's Passover
list.>
To the extent this myth exists - and I don't know anybody who thinks
baking soda and baking powder are inherently not kosher for Passover -
it may be a result of the widespread mistranslation of the word "se'or"
(see, e.g., Exodus 12:15). Beginning with the King James and continuing
through the original JPS and the current Art Scroll translations, the
word is rendered as "leavening", which could include baking powder and
soda - or, for that matter, egg whites. I once spoke to an Orthodox
rabbi who told me that "se'or" meant yeast, and therefore yeast was
inherently prohibited on Pesach. (My response was to ask whether he
drank wine on :Pesach, a question lost on him because he seemed not to
understand what fermentation was.) But se'or doesn't mean any of these
things. It actually means "sourdough starter" (see, e.g., Rav Saadia
Gaon's commentary, and the supercommentary on it, in Torat Chaim), which
is a mixture of flour, water and yeast spores from that air, that is
left to ferment, in the process of which the yeast grows. AFIK, until
recent times sourdough starter was the leavening agent in bread; bakers
in chazal's era did not have yeast as a separate product.
However, AFIK yeast is problematic because the nutrients are either
chametz or kitniyor. Either way, at least Ashkenazim could not use it
on pesach.
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From: Sammy Finkelman <sammy.finkelman@...>
Date: Sun, 18 Apr 06 00:03:00 -0400
Subject: Baking Soda, Baking Powder, and Yeast on Passover
Janet Zangvil:
JZ> There is an urban legend among non-Orthodox Jews that baking soda,
JZ> baking powder, and yeast are inherently not kosher for Passover.
So that explains why someone asked me this year (via e-mail) whether he
could eat wheat germ for Passover, adding by way of explaination that it
does not contain any yeast! (He also said he would ask a Rabbi)
I had no idea what wheat germ is. But I found on the Internet, various
sites, that it a cooked, and so much chometz that it wasn't said
outright it was chometz. I wrote him back first (when I thought it might
be somethinbg like flour) that it is not something to have or something
to that effect and later that it was chometz.
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From: Ira L. Jacobson <laser@...>
Date: Mon, 17 Apr 2006 15:03:21 +0300
Subject: Re: Baking Soda, Baking Powder, and Yeast on Passover
Janet Ginger <j.zangvil@...> stated:
There is an urban legend among non-Orthodox Jews that baking
soda, baking powder, and yeast are inherently not kosher for
Passover.
Obviously, this myth comes from overgeneralization of the
concept of "leavening", but does anyone have more specific
information about the origin of this myth?
The Karaites understand that hametz refers to sour foods. For this
reason, there is a custom among some Jews to eat borscht on Pessah,
specifically to debunk this misinterpretation.
IRA L. JACOBSON
mailto:<laser@...>
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From: SBA <sba@...>
Date: Tue, 18 Apr 2006 11:51:23 +1000
Subject: The Chofetz Chaim did not have payehs
From: Carl A. Singer
> "The Chofetz Chaim did not have payehs" -- may sound like a
> non-sequitur. But it's true, again the same source. But you've seen
> the pictures - I'm told they've been doctored.
I own a copy of the sefer "HaChofetz Chaim - Chayov uPeolo" by Rabbi
Moshe Meir Yashar.
Artscroll's website describing their English language edition of that
sefer:
"First published in Yiddish in 1937 and considerably enhanced in a 1946
edition, the biography was published in Hebrew in 1959 with much
additional material. Rabbi Yoshor's classic continues to be the
sourcebook about the Chafetz Chaim's life."
http://www.artscroll.com/Books/chsh.html
I checked my Hebrew language edition, published nearly half a century
ago, some decades before doctoring and 'upgrading' the frumkeit of
gedolim was in vogue, and it has as its main [in black and white]
photograph of the Chofetz Chaim [on p. 3 ] the standard one that is used
by all these days [though with a hint of him wearing a necktie] - and it
clearly shows that he did have peyos.
SBA
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From: Carl A. Singer <casinger@...>
Date: Mon, 17 Apr 2006 23:09:49 -0400
Subject: Re: The Chofetz Chaim did not have payehs
I'll take the first person account from someone I've know for over two
decades over the photos that I've seen, probably the same one you've
seen which basically shows a puffy white beard, very full below the ears
-- but that doesn't mean payehs.
http://www.kehillastorah.org/chofetz-chaim.html <<<< see this website for photo
http://www.yarzheit.com/chofetzchaim.htm <<<< the "standard" photo
http://www.aishdas.org/avodah/vol04/v04n006.shtml#10 -- search text for
discussion of his photo
A gutten Moed
Carl
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From: Shimon Lebowitz <shimonl@...>
Date: Mon, 17 Apr 2006 17:27:59 +0300
Subject: Re: The Chofetz Chaim did not have payehs - a Pesach Message
> "The Chofetz Chaim did not have payehs" -- may sound like a
> non-sequitur. But it's true, again the same source. But you've seen
> the pictures - I'm told they've been doctored. But in today's frum
> world would it be politically correct to depict a gadol otherwise?
Didn't someone write here some years back that the pictures are "ah
sheine yid, but not the chofetz chaim"?
Does anyone else remember such a claim?
I also remember seeing what was supposedly an absolutely reliable photo,
and it showed a small face with a little pointed beard, not like the
face over my "shur yomi" book. (And yes, that picture shows payes too).
Shimon
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From: <rubin20@...>
Date: Mon, 17 Apr 2006 08:02:24 -0400
Subject: Re: Kiddush Cup of the Chafetz Chaim
From: Martin Stern <md.stern@...>
> The becher which he used for making kiddush still exists but is rather
> smaller than the shiur currently in vogue and would be frowned upon by
> most latter-day saints!
This is not entirely true, and pointless in any event. I personally
measured the cup, and it was VERY close to the Chazon Ish shiur. But the
Chofetz Chaim felt that using such a large Becher was 'Baal Taschis' on
the wine. But it is pointless because at that time, large portions of
Lithuania were so poor that they made kiddish on Challah, as did the
Chofetz Chaim at times. So obviously they were not going to be machmir
on shiur of wine to use, and then use challa the next week. (the lack of
wine is why the Mishna Berura allows the use of rasin wine).
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From: Ben Katz <bkatz@...>
Date: Mon, 17 Apr 2006 07:17:43 -0500
Subject: Re: Kiddush Cup of the Chafetz Chaim
There is an article "The Lost Kiddush Cup" which I belive is
referenced in Chaim Soleveitchik's classic article on Orthodoxy (titled
something like Rupture and Transformation, published either in Tradition
or Torah Umada about 10 years ago) that I was able to track down. There
are those of course who dispute its validity ...
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From: Nathan Lamm <nelamm18@...>
Date: Mon, 17 Apr 2006 07:04:58 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: Re: Supplement to the Haggada
Martin Stern comments:
> [The supplement] disappointed me in that it was not based on the
> continuation of the text of the Sifri but rather an eclectic selection
> of midrashim...We are not on the level of the Tanaim to construct our
> own midrashim."
>
> In all fairness, the text of the Haggada is not precisely that of the
> Sifri. But the point is well taken.
>
> When the Beit HaMikdash is rebuilt...I would presume that it would be
>that section which would be added to the standard Haggadah"
Perhaps this question is related to the fifth cup some drink, relating
to the fifth word of geulah, v'heveiti- which also is discussed in that
pasuk. There would therefore be precedent for including it today.
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From: Perets Mett <p.mett@...>
Date: Mon, 17 Apr 2006 16:05:04 +0100
Subject: Supporting the family
Batya wrote:
> And I agree with Mordechai that there's an inherent hypocrisy in the
> chareidi world, which tries to cloister their women, but expect them
> to support their families simultaneously.
Can you please explain what hypocrisy is involved in staffing girls'
schools with women?
Who else do you suggest should do it?
PM
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From: Yonatan Kaganoff <ykaganoff@...>
Date: Tue, 2 May 2006 12:41:06 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: Tradition Journal Launches New Website: www.TraditionOnline.org
After half a century of stellar Orthodox Jewish scholarship in print
format, the venerable quarterly journal Tradition, sponsored and
published by the Rabbinical Council of America (RCA), has now become
part of the online public square.
With the launch of TraditionOnline.org, the online version of Tradition:
A Journal of Orthodox Jewish Thought, Tradition is now accessible to
anyone worldwide with the click of a mouse.
In this form, Tradition will enable a larger audience to become familiar
with its mix of academic scholarship, Torah learning, reviews of recent
halachic (Jewish legal) literature, and a wide spectrum of historical,
philosophical, and literary research and analysis.
The quarterly print edition, under the estimable new editorship of Rabbi
Shalom Carmy, will continue to be sent to subscribers.
The online edition will permit wide public access to recent issues of
Tradition, as well as online response and debate. In addition,
TraditionOnline will contain selected archival presentations and links
to other sources deemed worthy of reader review and online discussions,
moderated by Rabbi Yonatan Kaganoff.
While access to the current issue will be limited to paid subscribers
for a period of time, earlier issues will be available to all.
Tradition was founded in 1958 by Rabbi Dr. Norman Lamm, formerly
President and currently Chancellor of Yeshiva University and its
affiliate Rabbinical Seminary, RIETS. Its subsequent editors were the
late Rabbi Dr. Walter Wurzburger, a leading Orthodox Jewish theologian
and philosopher; Rabbi Dr. Emanuel Feldman, a prominent congregational
Rabbi and renowned author; and Rabbi Dr. Michael Shmidman, Dean of the
Graduate School of Jewish Studies at Touro College.
Tradition's current editor, Rabbi Shalom Carmy, is Professor of Bible
and Jewish Thought at Yeshiva University and a widely published thinker
and scholar.
In its five decades in print, Tradition has published on a vast range of
topics including theology, history, biography, sociology, politics, and
ethics, and has featured seminal articles by the Rav, the late Rabbi Dr.
Joseph B. Soloveitchik, the preeminent leader of twentieth century
Modern Orthodox Judaism, as well as other important leaders of Jewish
thought and Torah scholarship.
Since 1935, the RCA has been advancing the cause and voice of the
Rabbinic tradition by promoting the welfare, interests and
professionalism of Orthodox Rabbis around the world. Membership in the
RCA is held by close to 1000 ordained rabbis, ordained by many dozen
Yeshivot and spread throughout fourteen countries, who serve as
congregational Rabbis, teachers, academicians, military and health-care
chaplains, organizational professionals and other roles in service to
the Jewish people. During the past 80 years, the RCA has been in the
forefront of many issues, movements, ideas, and initiatives intended to
enhance the status and impact of the many facets of Torah on Jewish life
in its interactions with the world around it.
For more information about Tradition visit www.TraditionOnline.org. For
more information about the RCA, visit their website, www.rabbis.org.
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End of Volume 52 Issue 2