Don't Toss That Sauce

Just Yet...

Many people won't sell chometz gamur. Does that mean i need to throw out a closed bottle of ketchup? Rabbi Yakov Teichman - Rabbinic Coordinator at the OK, helps us decipher those hard to read ingredient panels.

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R’ Yitzchok Hisiger: Hello everyone and welcome back to Let's Talk Kashrus presented by the Kashrus Awareness Project in conjunction with Torah Anytime. Today I am privileged to be joined by Rabbi Yakov Teichman, Rabbinic Coordinator at OK Kosher and a member of the AKO Post-Pesach Committee. Is that the right description?

R’ Yakov Teichman: Yes.

R’ Yitzchok Hisiger: So today I'd like to discuss with you a very specific topic and that is the topic of Chametz Gomur. We very often hear before Pesach, after Pesach people will say I sell chametz, but I don't sell chametz gomur. What is considered chametz gomur? and as a related question when people do get rid of products before Pesach as far as chametz gomur before Pesach, what items do they have to get rid of and what items may they mistakenly believe to be chametz when it's really not?

R’ Yakov Teichman: Ok so chametz everyone knows is only from the five grains. Five grains means wheat, barley, oats, spelt and rye. If you have buckwheat, kasha, that's not chametz. If you have rice, it's not chametz. Millet, none of these things are chametz. It has to be kept in mind what is actually chametz only from the five grains. Not getting involved in the machlokes of what is included in wheat and then you can go to the matzah bakeries and find out. Einkorn, not einkorn, that we leave on the side but let's assume these five grains and whatever their subsidiary is exactly what's included in these five grains.

Obviously if you have the five grains and they're made into bread, cookies, cereal, spaghetti, all those things are 100% chametz gomur. In America you have a lot of products or anywhere you have a lot of products and a lot of ingredients and you look at the ingredient panel and you usually get a cross-eyed after two lines. Usually about five, six, seven, eight lines. Most people can't even read them or understand what the ingredients are.

So how much of these are chametz gomur? So we have to keep in mind where are you located. If you're located in America, a lot of the vinegar that's coming, most, 99% of the vinegar in America is not chametz derived. It's coming from corn. If it's corn derived, so corn is kitniyos.

You don't have to sell kitniyos, you can keep it, you don't have to sell it. Somebody's choshesh, maybe there's a little bit of chametz gomur in there, fine, so you could sell al hachashash. Let's say you have a certain type of mustard and in there it says barley extract. I don't even know if barley extract exists in mustard, but let's just say.

It's a second class ingredient. It's a taruves chametz. Rov of this for sure is going to be kitniyos or innocuous legabei Pesach. There's no reason why somebody shouldn't be able to sell it.

No reason you have, you know, in Costco closet you may have many, many closed bottles of ketchup, mustard, mayonnaise,

R’ Yitzchok Hisiger: even vinegar, even plain vinegar, which you're saying is predominantly not made from grain.

R’ Yakov Teichman: Not from five grains. Corn is also grain. So not from the five grains and you could assume in America that's where it's made from.

Therefore, there's no reason not to sell it. You probably don't even have to sell it. You're not sure, so you can sell it. A lot of people sell kitniyos, they want to be 100% sure.

But chametz gomur, it definitely isn't. You have to look at everything. Everything that you get. How much, what's the percentage of it that's chametz and what's the percentage of it that's not chametz.

You're going to have a rov of kitniyos, there's a big tzad, that's not considered chametz gomur. If you have, let's say, a lot of schnapps, as long as it's 51% corn, even though the other 49% might be from wheat or from rye or whatever it is, so it's not chametz gomur and you could sell it.

R’ Yitzchok Hisiger: I think this is an important conversation. You know, I'll tell you a Hatorah Chassa Al Mamonum Shel Yisrael, and people, well-meaning people, very often before Pesach, they'll go to their fridge for sure, especially if it's open, they don't want to leave it over Pesach, that I understand.

But they'll often go to their garage or their closet, wherever they store things, and they have closed bottles of ketchup, mustard, mayonnaise, so on and so forth, condiments, and they see vinegar in the ingredient panel, and right away they panic and say, oh, we have to get rid of it, and they throw it out. And really, as you're saying, it's not necessary. At worst, you could include it as part of your mechira. At best, it's not chametz at all.

It might be kitniyos, in which case you could just leave it, maybe cover it up so that people don't mistakenly use it on Pesach. But I think this is a very instructive conversation for people to know, so that they could be aware of.

R’ Yakov Teichman: So let's say you have something like oatmeal, right? So quick oats, like people, they have oatmeal and they want to use it in their baking or whatever it is. So how are oats made? Obviously, they grow from the ground, but how are they processed? So they use water to cut them and to parboil them or whatever it is.

Those are going to be chametz gomer. That's chametz gomer, right. So even if you get, you know, usually you see beans or dry beans, you assume that nothing happened to it. Oats, even though it's dry and it's coming in a can, it touched water already.

It touched water. In a serious way, and therefore it's going to be chametz gomur.

R’ Yitzchok Hisiger: Right, so oatmeal is chametz, obviously, like you said, bread products, pretzels, we'll call them bonafide chametz products. Another common topic, which may be a whole separate discussion, but I'll mention it here, about people who don't sell chametz gomur is schnapps.

Because schnapps is something that even people don't feel comfortable selling chametz, but they do sell schnapps. Why is that?

R’ Yakov Teichman: So there are one or two reasons. Either they want to sell because they don't want to be someich on mechirah unless it's a hefsid merubah. And for schnapps, they consider it hefsid merubah its more of an expensive item.

You know, they might have got it as a present, an expensive bottle, and they don't want to spill it out, or they don't have a neighbor to give it to. That's one reason. Another reason is that there are some shittas that hold that if it's only zeya ba'alma, that it's not considered chametz gomur. It doesn't mean that you can go and eat or drink it on Pesach! That's not what we're talking about. We’re talking about whether it’s included in the din of chametz gomer, legabei the din of selling it over Pesach. Very good.

R’ Yitzchok Hisiger: Thank you, Rabbi Teichman.