Originally appeared at GenerationJ.com, April 17, 2000

Passover is just around the corner, and the shelves of your local supermarket have filled up with Passover products. Jews around the world are getting ready to change their diets for eight days, ditching bagels and sandwiches for matzah, matzah, and more matzah. That means it is time for me to renew my yearly crusade on behalf of Sephardic Passover laws.

"Sephardic Passover laws?" you ask. "I didn’t know there was more than one set of Passover laws." Well, there are, but there shouldn’t be. That’s because even the rabbinical authorities in Israel have made the decision that the Ashkenazic Passover laws are absurd.

Lets back up in history for a second. While the real origins of Ashkenazic Passover laws are a bit obscure, it seems that around a thousand years ago Jews in Eastern Europe were commonly confusing a multitude of products that were not banned for Passover (corn, rice) with products that were banned for passover (wheat, barley). The Ashkenazic rabbis noticed that Jews were mixing up sacks of Pesadic (allowed on Passover) grains with non-Pesadic grains, and that, even worse, some were making bread-like foods from corn and other non-banned grains, in violation of the spirit of the holiday.

The solution that the Ashkenazic rabbis came up with was to ban a number of foods which were causing confusion. These foods, known as kitniot, were all added to the list of non-Pesadic products, and this included corn, rice, and all legumes, a category that includes beans and peanuts.

The problem for modern times is not just that corn, rice, and beans are all prohibited. The problem is that any product which is derived from corn, rice, and beans is prohibited. Do you know how many products are made from corn syrup and peanut oil? This is the reason why you find a number of Passover-only products in the supermarket... mayonnaise, chocolate, jellies and jams, and the famous one-week only non-corn syrup Coca Cola, to give a few examples. And if you look at the prices for these products, you will have had an elementary lesson in supply and demand. Supply of Kosher for Passover ketchup is low; demand for Kosher for Passover coffee cake is inexplicably high. Anything higher than "zero," to be honest, is inexplicably high.

Most Jews reading this know what I am talking about, but there are some who think this is absurd. This is because while the Ashkenazic rabbis in Europe were prohibiting a whole list of foods, the Sephardic rabbis in the Middle East and Spain were doing no such thing. If you buy a Sephardic cookbook, you’ll notice that the Passover section will feature a number of dishes that revolve around rice and beans. At the same time, Ashkenazic Jews are spending money hand over fist to make sure they don't get "corn syrup" Coke.

Of course, Ashkenazic Jews avoid rice and beans, they will eat any number of ridiculous "fake bread" products. Maneshewitz and Rokeach have created an entire annual economy rotating around these "unbreads" made of matzah meal, like matzah meal cereal, matzah meal cakes, and even matzah meal bagels. But besides being fairly tasteless, don’t such "fake breads" destroy the whole point of the holiday? We aren't supposed to be pretending to eat bread, we're supposed to be avoiding it.

The Rabbinical Assembly of Israel finally delivered a decision a few years ago concerning the eating of Kitniot on Pesach, written by Rabbi David Golinkin. They decided that eliminating the Ashkenazic custom is not only permitted by the Talmud, it is probably obligatory because these rules are in direct contradiction to an explicit decision in the Babylonian Talmud. Nearly all the Talmudic-era sages, with one exception, oppose this custom, and the rabbis couldn’t even explain the reasons for it themselves. As a result, Rabbi Samuel of Falaise, one of the first to mention it, referred to it as a "mistaken custom" and another rabbi called it a "foolish custom".

The rabbis pointed out that the Ashkenazic practice causes exorbitant price rises which result in "major financial loss" and, they quote the Talmud when it says, "The Torah takes pity on the people of Israel's money." Well, even the Talmudic rabbis probably never had to pay through the nose for a small jar of Kosher for Passover mayonnaise. The rabbis also point out, of course, that the customs single out the insignificant (corn, rice, beans) instead of the grains which are truly prohibited on the holiday. Thus, the custom "causes people to scoff at the commandments in general and at the prohibition of hametz in particular. " Certainly this is a situation many Jews experienced in elementary school while trying to explain their peanut butter-and-jelly on matzah to fellow lunching students.

My father, who is a rabbi himself, has offered a compromise solution, suggesting that Ashkenazic Jews avoid corn, rice, and legumes, but allow themselves to eat derivatives like corn syrup and peanut oil. This would eliminate the need to buy a number of the products that drain your wallet on Passover, while keeping the Ashkenazic tradition.