Hey there, and welcome back to Take One, the podcast that brings you just one

Passover-ready podcast each day.

And on today's pages, Menachot 70 and 71, we encounter, in eerily perfect timing,

the most hotly contested Passover-related issue.

Can we, or can we not, eat rice on Passover?

Ask any rabbi, and they will tell you that there is no question more frequently asked,

or for that matter, more hotly and emotionally debated than that of Kitanyot. So before we welcome

our guest today, just a bit of splainan is an order. The basic laws of Pesach are that one may not

eat nor own any hamets or leaven bread,

and one must eat matzah or unleavened bread on the first night.

But that is already kind of tricky because both hamits and matzah come from the same five basic grains.

Weat, rye, oats, barley, and spelt, and that's it. Those grains become

chameats when they ferment. But does rice? That is the discussion on today's page of

Talmud. In the Shulhan Arach, perhaps the central text of halacha or Jewish law, Rabbi

Osifkaro, the author, specifically says that matzah cannot be made of rice or other type of

chitniot, usually translated as legumes or sometimes beans.

So if it's so clear-cut, why do so many Ashkenazi Jews still do not eat Kitniot on Passover?

Because many of the great Rishonim or early sages,

we're talking 11th to 15th century here, made a few good points about ketniote.

First, they said, if you cook barley and rice, they kind of look similar in the bowl.

Second, Kitniot are often grown in fields that are adjacent to those in which

chamez is grown. And these grains tend to mix together. So even if you try really, really hard,

...