Chametz
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Chametz or Chometz (חמץ) is the Hebrew term for "leavened bread". The word is used generally in regard to the Jewish holiday of Passover. In Jewish law, the Torah prohibits one from owning, eating or benefiting from any chametz during Passover. The laws of Passover are mentioned in several places; for example the probition against eating chometz is found in Exodus 13:3. The punishment for eating chametz on Passover is karet (spiritual excision).
Generally speaking, there are two requirements for something to be considered chometz:
- It needs to be of one of the five primary grains (see below).
- It needs to have fermented in contact with water for eighteen minutes.
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[edit] The Five Grains
The concept of the five grains has applications to other areas of Jewish Law, including that they take a special blessing before and after their consumption. These are also the only grains suitable for the production of Matzo. The Talmudic enumeration (which has become the traditional list of those grains) is:
While oats are still generally accepted as the fifth grain, there is some linguistic and botanical evidence that what has been traditionally translated from the Talmud as "oats" is in fact a wild species of spelt. Although there have been no changes to normative Jewish law (in any denomination) to reflect this, some rabbis are stringent when the issue is biblical and discourage the use of oat matzo on seder nights, when there is a biblical obligation to eat matzo.
[edit] Fermentation (Hebrew: Chimutz)
Even products of the five grains are not considered chometz until fermentation has begun. When the dough is allowed to sit, this process is reckoned to take eighteen minutes. Some factors, like the addition of fruit juice or application of heat, are thought to speed up this process while others, like constant kneading, are thought to delay it.
In Jewish Law, only water is considered a fermenting agent. Technically, flour combined with pure fruit juice (that is, juice squeezed directly from the fruit, not reconstituted fruit juice), and no water, cannot become chometz, even if the bread is allowed to sit for hours and swells up to many times its size (though there may be rabbinic prohibitions involved).
Although any food of the five grains that has not undergone chimutz is Biblically permissible, by Rabbinic prohibition these grains may be consumed only in the form of matzo.
Once baked the matzo can no longer become chametz, nevertheless some Jews don't eat matzo which has become wet. Such matzo is referred to as gebruchts (see below).
[edit] Kitniyot
Among Ashkenazi Jews, the custom during Passover is to refrain from not only products of the five grains but also kitniyot. Literally "small things," kitniyot refers to other grains or legumes. Traditions of what is considered kitniyot vary from community to community but generally include rice, corn, lentils, and beans. Many include peanuts in this category as well. Sephardi Jews do not observe this prohibition.
The origins of this practice are not clear. Two common theories are that these items are often made into products resembling chometz (e.g. cornbread), or that these items were normally stored in the same sacks as the five grains and people worried that they might become contaminated with chometz.
While this practice is considered binding in normative Ashkenazi Judaism, these items are not chometz and therefore are not subject to the same prohibitions and stringencies as chometz. For example while there is a prohibition against owning chometz on Passover, no such prohibition applies to kitniyot. Similarly, while someone would not be permitted to eat chometz on Passover unless his life were in danger, the prohibition of kitniyot is not so strict. People who might be permitted to eat kitniyot include infirm people and pregnant vegetarians. Such dispensations are far more common in Israel where there is a large Sephardi population.
[edit] Gebruchts
At Passover, some religious Jews will not eat matzo that has become wet, including matzo balls and other matzo meal products. Such products are called "gebruchts" or gebrokts, a Yiddish word meaning "broken" referring to the broken or ground matzo used for baking or cooking. Instead of matzo meal, they use potato starch in cakes and other dishes. The Hebrew language term for gebruchts is "matza shruya," (מצה שרוייה, literally "soaked matza") although most Jews who actually observe the practice call it by its Yiddish name.
[edit] References
- Shailut U'Teshuvot HaRashba Vol. 1.
- Hilchot Pesach (Laws of Pesach) by Rabbi Shimon D. Eider.
