March 25, 2013
A Gentile’s Guide to Keeping Kosher for Passover
Matzo, the unleavened bread. Image courtesy of Flickr user Avital Pinnick
Updated on March 25, 2013 for the latest in Kosher for Passover news
The Torah couldn’t make things any clearer. From Exodus 12:14 and 15: “This day shall be for you a memorial day, and you shall keep it as a feast to the LORD; throughout your generations, as statute forever, you shall keep it as a feast. Seven days you shall eat unleavened bread. On the first day you shall remove leaven out of your houses, for if anyone eats what is leavened, from the first day until the seventh day, that person shall be cut off from Israel.”
But in the centuries since, food has gotten a lot more complicated, and the Jews who fled Egypt were fruitful and multiplied, melding their own traditions with regional customs. Today the rules governing keeping kosher for Passover aren’t as clear as they were in ancient Judea. Erik’s explainer on the Lenten fast taught me much about the Catholic tradition, so I’ll repay the favor with this guide for my Gentile friends on how American Jews keep kosher for Passover. I should preface this section by saying that even among the most observant Jews, there are disagreements over what is and what is not kosher for Passover. There are many foods, like jellies or butter, that should be considered allowable given their ingredients, but the equipment used to produce them is not cleaned and inspected by rabbinic observers. This is why you may see specially wrapped or branded products of everyday goods for those Jews who look for that extra degree of precaution. Consider this a brief slice of a very complicated discussion.
The Obvious No-Nos:
Wheat, spelt, barley, oats and rye. Known collectively as chometz, these grains are universally left out of diets during Passover week. This means no Apple Jacks, bagels, biscuits, cakes, cookies, danishes, empanadas, ficelles, gyros, hoagies, Italian bread, jelly donuts, knishes, lefse, muffins, naan, oatmeal, pasta, pizza, quiches, rugelach, strombolis, tacos, upside-down cake, Viennese wafers, waffles, yeast or zwieback.
Unfortunately, these rules also mean that all beer and most liquor is forbidden. The only alcohol allowed is wine, of which there are kosher-for-Passover varieties.
It is customary to clean all the chometz out of one’s house. Some totally cleanse the house, others board up closets, others sell the grains to their non-Jewish neighbors (you can help next year!) and buy it back at the end of the holiday, others sell their chometz on the Internet to a stranger and buy it back even though the food never moves.
The Generally Assumed No-Nos:
Rice and beans. The realm of kitniyot (legumes) is among the grayest of areas. Joan Nathan is the Barefoot Contessa of Jewish cooking and she says it best in her book Quiches, Kugels, and Couscous: My Search for Jewish Cooking in France:
In the Middle Ages, rice, lentils, chickpeas, and fava beans were all ground into flour, which in that state could be confused with the true grains. The list continued to grow after corn and beans came to the Old World from the New. In France, where mustard seeds grow, mustard was added to the list, because the seeds could be intertwined and confused with other plants.
The confusion principle is largely the reason why many American Jews abstain from eating any corn or rice products on Passover. According to Nathan, a biblical ruling was made in the 12th and 13th centuries that “any grain that can be cooked and baked like matzo [could be] confused with the biblical grains.” Therefore, not kosher for Passover. But this is a tradition that is mainly continued by Ashkenazic Jews, or those whose ancestors come from eastern Europe. Pre-Inquisition Jews from Spain never followed these rules, and thus Sephardim, who by definition are Jews descended from those who escaped Spain but also include those who are from South America, Asia, the Middle East and Africa, do not either. The vast majority of American Jews, 95 percent or more, are Ashkenazic.
Even now in an era of detailed FDA-mandated labeling, where such a confusion is nigh impossible, the tradition remains. This is why you see the fabled “Mexican Coke” make an appearance each spring. Made with cane sugar and not high-fructose corn syrup, the imported soda is good to go. UPDATE: Do you live in California? Tough luck, you can’t have kosher-for-Passover coke as a new California law forced Coca-Cola to change its manufacturing process lest the beverage be labeled as having a carcinogenic agent. The company has yet to find a way to manufacture kosher-for-Passover versions on the same machinery. Relatedly, what tastes better? Regular Coke or Kosher for Passover Coke? The New Republic did a taste test.
Matzo. For reasons that are unknown to most Jews, some people willingly eat matzo at other times of the year. These matzo boxes are labeled “not kosher for Passover” and should not be eaten as a part of observing the holiday. The difference? Rabbinic supervision to ensure that any matzo made for Passover is untainted by any leavening agents. There is also a debate over whether egg matzo is allowed. While clearly being verboten for the Passover seder (another Torah passage states that only the flour and water version may be used during the ritual), eating egg matzo during the rest of the week is left up to the observant.
Quinoa. The New York Times had a good wrap-up of the quinoa loophole, which is rather ingenious. Since the grain is a relative newcomer to Western diets, the grain wholly bypassed not only the Talmudic scholars but the “confusion principle” as explained above. Ashkenazic rabbis never had the chance to exclude it from the holiday, and so by default it became kosher for Passover. Now concerns are being raised over whether the manufacturing process is clean of any of the banned grains.
Fair Game:
Most everything else. All in all, keeping kosher for Passover isn’t all that difficult, especially if you have experience with the Atkins Diet. I find myself eating more healthy meals this week than usual, as I am forced to cook at home and use copious fruits and vegetables to fill out my diet. If I’m cooking meat, I make my own marinades or sauces, and if I’m eating a salad, my own dressings. Don’t put shrimp salad or a bacon cheeseburger on your matzo—the normal kosher laws still pertain: no shellfish, pork products or mixing of meat and cheese is allowed.
Cigarettes: According to the Associated Press, a rabbinic group in Israel has, for the first time, declared certain cigarettes as Kosher for Passover.
One last note:
If you re-read the passage from Exodus, you’ll notice that it declares that the holiday should be observed for seven days, as is done in modern day Israel, and not the eight customarily observed by American Jews. In the era before standardized calendars, Jews in the Diaspora (any area outside of Israel) added an extra day to ensure that their holiday overlapped with the official celebration. This is also why American Jews have two nights of seders, where in Israel they only have one.
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[...] Brian Wolly gave a “Gentile’s guide” to keeping kosher at Passover. Despite being non-Gentile (that is, Jewish), I found it helpful myself, since I grew up in a [...]
I am quite confused why you would throw out all the grains when it is only the yeast/leaven that is commanded to be removed from the house. Maybe I’m to child like in my thinking but we are commanded to make bread and grains are required to make bread. No specific commanded is given as to which grains are ok to make bread with; thus all are ok – with the only condition made that no leavening agents are used. Seems to me like some over thinking has happened here and that logic has left the building.
For Dumfounded I’ve been told that grains can have dormant yeast on them because yeast is air born and it would be easy to inadvertently consume leavening. If you have ever started a sourdough starter or had a liquid ferment You might have an idea as to how common leavening agents are.
Matzah is made from wheat, so why is wheat prohibited on Pesach?
Christians and Jews read and believe the same Torah, but with this difference. There are two New Testament defining scriptures for Christians regarding what can and cannot be eaten. They are:
Mark 7:14-23
Jesus called the crowd to him and said,
“Listen to me, everyone, and understand this. Nothing outside a man can make him ‘unclean’ by going into him. Rather, it is what comes out of a man that makes him “unclean.’”
[If anyone has ears to hear, let him hear.]
After he had left the crowd and entered the house, his disciples asked him about this parable…
“Don’t you see that nothing that enters a man from the outside can make him ‘unclean’? For it doesn’t go into his heart but into his stomach, and then out of his body.” (In saying this, Jesus declared all foods “clean.”)
Jesus defined what comes out of man that is ‘unclean’:
He went on: “What comes out of a man is what makes him ‘unclean.’ For from within, out of men’s hearts, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder,adultery,greed, malice, deceit,lewdness, envy, slander, arrogance and folly. All these evils come from inside and make a man “unclean.’”
When Jesus celebrated his last supper with his disciples at the Passover no doubt the meal was kosher, but the focus was not on kosher but on the bread representing himself the ‘living bread come down from heaven’, and the cup representing the new covenant he was about to inaugurate with his shed blood on the cross.
Beginning early in the history of the Christian church there was this ongoing food restriction.
Act 15:28-29
It seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us not to burden you with anything beyond the following requirements:
You are to abstain from food sacrificed to idols,
from blood, from the meat of strangled animals…
You will do well to avoid these things.
To dum-founded: Since any grain that gets moist will leaven itself (think sourdough bread) just eliminating yeast won’t do the trick.
The passover question was explained to me as not eating ‘any seed that would sprout’ – maybe because there was no time in Egypt to allow it to grow and become grain for bread? Hmmm…doesn’t make a lot of sense, now that I think back on it.
Like dum founded, I am so often confused by all the “contrictures” added by rabbinical “tradition” and oral law. As if G-d’s law needs to be embellished by men. I know, I know, the returning tribes of Judah, Levy, and the part of Benjamin that stayed in Judah vs. Northern Israel, didn’t want to commit further sin incurring the same penalty of deportation once allowed to return, but COME ON. This is legalism in it’s purest form, and no spiritual content at all. I do not believe sin begins with action, like a seed, the thought will bloom full into the action. So forget about it, you cannot legislate morality if it is not in the heart and mind, isn’t that what the Torah states?
Grains come from grass plants (botanically, monocots). Quinoa, chia, amaranth, sunflower seeds, sesame, and a few others are not grains, but seeds from broad-leaf plants. The cultural definitions, however, change over time and by tradition (religion and nutritional convention) and function. I always wondered why “dairy” included eggs. Then, “meat” may or may not include poultry and fish, depending on who you’re talking to.
great review! What is also special about kosher for passover flour and matza is that is has been watched 24/7 to be sure it is pure. It is correct that matza is made from wheat. But it is special wheat.
Sara,
Yes, there IS whole wheat matzoh but it is NOT “Kosher for Passover”. “Regular” matzoh is essentially flour and water, and may be salted or unsalted.
True about the differences between Ashkenazi and Sephardi Passover eating traditions. In Italy and other Mediterranean countries (not many Ashkenazi there!) we were allowed to eat legumes (beans and lentils soups became the first course of our dinner instead of the usual pasta). I’d like to add that matzah ball soup was unheard of, being an Ashkenazi dish, originated by Eastern Europeans.
Dear confounded:
During Passover. you can not eat anything that rises when cooked. Flour mixed with water starts fermenting (and therefore rising) within 18 minutes of being mixed (even withour yeast). Matzoh must be cooked within that time or it can not be certified Kosher for Passover. Kidnyot (rice, beans and other legumes) do not rise when cooked. They simply absorb the water in which they are cooked. People who do not eat kidnyot do so out of tradition, not out of Jewish religious law. The rabbis in the Israeli army have ok’d serving kidnyot to the troops during Passover, leaving it to the individual soldier whether to eat them or not.
Missing from all the foregoing information is the stricture that matzoh labeled “kosher for Passover” must be mixed and emerge from the oven within 18 minutes. (In Hebrew, the letters making “18″ are those that spell the Hebrew word “life,” giving it sacred significance.)
In reality, the time limit is short enough so that even grain with airborne yeasts (probably all grains) won’t have time for the fermentation to make the water-wheat mixture rise and thus the product is viewed as unleavened.
As with virtually all religions, traditions are bent to fit local traditions and family, clan, or regional senses of appropriateness. Sephardic Jews, such as Italians, don’t consider rice or pasta not kosher for Passover.
The common Israeli view that a political debate between any two Jews will yield at least three opinions can be increased geometrically (several times) when it comes when it comes to religiosity.
I’m not sure I understand. It says in the article that “Wheat, spelt, barley, oats and rye. Known collectively as chometz, these grains are universally left out of diets during Passover week.” So, what kind of flour is matzo made from if not wheat? Is wheat (but not whole wheat) flour acceptable, as long as it is prepared within the 18-minute guidelines?
Some Slivovitz (plum brandy) is clearly marked kosher for Passover.
You don’t mention all the products that are “kosher for Passover,” but imitate non-kosher items: brownies, cakes, chocolate candies, cold cereal, etc. To me those products undermine the essence of the Passover story. If the Israelites didn’t have time to grow the wheat or bake the bread that takes leavening, they surely wouldn’t have had time to pop into the grocery and pick up a pricey box of brownie mix or elegant candies….I guess modern Jews don’t have much tolerance for “affliction.”
Btw, I am Jewish.
All Brandies can be Kosher. Vodka made from potatoes can be kosher as is Tequilla. Only grain alcohol is not and cannot be kosher.
Just one question, “Why should a Gentile bother with being kosher during Passover or any other time?”