Yeast, or flour and water without yeast

[Guest guest]

> Surprisingly yeast is *not* the issue. Even without

> the addition of yeast

> the mixture of flour, water and more than 18 minutes

> IS Hommetz. While

> there is a Machlo'chet (disagreement / arguement)

> among the commentators if

> yeast by itself is Hommetz (if I remember correctly,

> Rambam - a major

> commentator, says that it is NOT). This would get to

> the issue of adding

> yeast to a non-flour dish for taste or " leavening " .

 

---It is worth remembering the reason that flour and

water and time was enough to make something hommetz.

Literally, that with enough time, flour and water

would become leavened in more than a legal sense.

Until this century, you couldn't buy yeast in a

packet. Everything was sourdough, or left out for the

local yeasts to drop in on. There is yeast all over

the place, and given enough time, it will find your

dough left out and make it rise even if you didn't

make it Hommetz on purpose.

 

---While I don't know my Rambam well enough to say

whether yeast is itself leavened, I suspect that it is

still going to be hard to get a rabbinic authority to

certify a yeast product as Kosher for Passover because

a) there are rabbis who would feel that yeast is,

well, leavening b) it isn't clear if you could use

that margerine in an unrisen dish because it contains

(dead) yeast, but leavening just the same. Thus,

while you don't need to add yeast for something to be

unkosher, pesach-style, because the yeast might add

itself, I expect many rabbinic authorities to consider

non-hommetz with added yeast to be too controversial

to be usable.

 

May the Matzah be with you, Jeffrey

 

 

 

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