Back on Friday, April 3, 2009 we ran an article from the Jewish Forward newspaper. The article was about dissent in Israel over the expanding kitniyot list there as well as the growing dissatisfaction with the whole notion as well.

The end of the article from the Forward contained this:

“People have been keeping this tradition for over 600 years,” former Sephardic chief rabbi Ovadia Yosef said in a lecture last month. “Those who kept it were great people. What, we should tell them to give up their traditions?”

Apparently, the good rabbi has stepped into a very important debate. Do we venerate sacred text or do we venerate great rabbis? According to Rabbi Yosef, we venerate great rabbis and community tradition- sacred text be damned! Perhaps some one should tell the rabbi that with his comment he has removed himself from the Orthodox world entirely. Wowzers! Those whom he would most severely impugn are those with whom he has now aligned himself!

Many years ago, a great American posek of blessed memory wrote that smoking must be ok, because great rabbis smoke. Yikes. Our survey says: BUZZZ WRONG!
Smoking is not ok. Smoking is a killer. Those rabbis who smoke may joke that they sell their lungs to the goyim, but offensive as that joke is, it betrays a startling lack of respect for science on their part, not to mention an incredible show of ignorance.

No, we do not venerate great rabbis over halacha. We do not accept community custom blindly over halacha. How many shuls allow people to drink a shot and eat a piece of cake in the rear of the shul on simchat torah? Guess what? It is totally, one gazillion percent against the halacha to do so. So much for community custom.

No one denies that kitniyot may have been an important custom in its time. No one also should deny that the rabbanut, in adding to the list almost every year, breaks with the original rule about the closed nature of the list. Hmmm, apparently we make up our own rules as we go along.

We are not saying that we should start to eat kitniyot here in the States. But neither should anyone be adding to the list.