Money matters —especially this week

Every year as Pesach approaches, I’m asked the same question: Why is Pesach so expensive?

This year was no different. And although I wrote this before the holiday began, I’m confident that once Shabbat ends tomorrow night, I’ll hear it several more times — usually from people who have just realized how much money they consumed at their two sedarim, and at Shabbat dinner tonight, on matzah alone — and I mean “consumed” it more than one way.

Pesach is expensive. We all know it, we all feel it, and every year we brace ourselves as we approach the checkout counter. But knowing it’s expensive isn’t the same as understanding why. And no, the answer isn’t simply that it costs more to produce Kosher for Passover (KP) food.

(Before I continue, a brief digression is necessary. We are very fortunate. In the days leading up to Pesach, our worries were quite mundane — I hope that’s true for all of us. Worries like would the stores have everything we needed? Would our homes be ready by the time the seder begins? Would we still be awake when the seder ends? These are real concerns — but they are the concerns of people living in safety. The members of our extended family living in Israel are not living in safety. They are living with  the sound of sirens, the race to shelters, the uncertainty of what the next hour might bring. So let us pause for a moment and recognize the blessing of our relative calm. Then let us pray for this war to end swiftly and safely and that the skies over Israel and the entire region be filled, not with fear and not with missiles and bombs, but with a blessing.)

Take matzah. A box of KP matzah usually costs about three times the price of the year-round version. Yet despite the higher price, in the weeks before Pesach our local supermarkets will happily hand you a free four-pound box of KP matzah just for spending $75 on everything else in your cart. When a store can give away a product that is supposedly so costly to produce, it raises questions. (It used to be a five-pound package, so even the stores are feeling the pinch.)

A simple example: if we can’t go eight days without chocolate cake, we buy a KP cake mix. We buy it even though it costs several times more than the regular version, even though the ingredient list reads like a chemistry experiment, and even though what comes from the oven is something with the texture and taste of sweetened drywall. We buy it, but only because we feel we have no choice.

There is, however, another reason Pesach costs so much, and it may be the biggest one: the tendency of religious authorities over the centuries to turn simple mitzvot into complicated and costly projects. Many of these chumrot — these stringencies — were well intentioned. They were meant to protect us from error. But they have grown into full blown cultures of stringency that make Pesach far more expensive than it needs to be.

The Torah warns us three times not to add to or subtract from its commandments, and twice it insists that we may not to veer “to the right or to the left.” Jewish law is meant to be a straight path, not a maze. The word halachah itself comes from the root meaning “to walk.” It is supposed to guide us forward, not send us zigzagging through unnecessary obstacles.

Because rabbis are halachists, not economists, it is fair to ask whether they must consider cost when issuing rulings. The Talmud’s answer is clear and its formulation is memorable: yes, they must  consider cost, because “the Torah has pity on the money of Israel.”

The Talmud applies this principle in several places. In one discussion, the question is whether a shofar should be made of silver or gold. Use silver, the sages say, because it is cheaper. (See the Babylonian Talmud tractate Rosh Hashanah 27a.)

In another (see BT Yoma 39a), a Temple vessel may be made of wood rather than gold. In yet another discussion, expensive oils are deemed unnecessary for offerings. (See BT Menachot 86b.) The message is consistent: halachah must take cost into account.

Perhaps the most direct example is in BT Bechorot 40a, where Rabbi Akiva challenges a ruling by Rabbi Yochanan ben Nuri. Akiva permitted slaughtering a defective animal; Ben Nuri did not. Akiva’s response was pointed but practical: “When will you stop wasting the money of Israel?”

Ironically, this same Rabbi Yochanan ben Nuri tried to ban rice on Pesach. The sages rejected his view, noting that cooked rice was one of the two dishes placed before the leader of the seder. Said the sage Rav Ashi, “This shows that no one pays attention to Rabbi Yochanan ben Nuri.” One wonders what Rav Ashi would say today.

Ignoring the Talmud’s concern for cost is how the Festival of Freedom becomes the Festival of the Maxed-Out Credit Card.

And nowhere is this clearer than with matzah — especially both the handmade and machine-made versions of shemura matzah.

Shemura matzah is understandably expensive. In 2004, I paid $17 a box for handmade shemura, and since I usually ordered nine or 10 boxes (I gave some as gifts to others) I felt the financial pinch,  Today, handmade shemura can run $32 to $45 per pound. Machine-made shemura often costs $22 to $30 per box. For a large seder, the cost adds up quickly. Just how quickly and why will soon be apparent.

I try to eat only shemura matzah during Pesach, especially at the sedarim. I’ve done so all my life and I have often encouraged congregants to do the same. But it is still a stringency. There is nothing wrong with choosing the regular, more affordable option.

The real budget-buster is not the price of matzah but the amount some modern “halachic guides” insist we must eat.

The halachah requires us to eat a “kezayit” of matzah. A kezayit means “the size of an olive.” The Talmud doesn’t define the olive’s dimensions or otherwise define what is meant by “an olive,” but from the context of various talmudic discussions it clearly refers to weight, not volume. Depending on the olive, that is roughly 2 to 5 grams of edible flesh — about the size of a nickel. Not the size of a paperback book, or a paving stone. The size of a nickel.

Over time, however, the “size of an olive” shifted from weight to volume. By our day, we “eat an olive” translates as “eat a large sheet of matzah for each of the four mitzvot at the seder — and in one case, two sheets at once.”

The turning point came in the 18th century, when Rabbi Yechezkel Landau — the Noda BeYehudah — argued that eggs in talmudic times were twice the size of modern eggs. Since many halachic measurements are based on egg volume, he concluded that a kezayit must also be doubled. Later authorities added further stringencies, and the result was the laminated seder charts that assume olives were roughly the size of small fruit or tennis balls.

These charts instruct us to eat:

• Two large pieces of matzah for the motzi and matzah blessings.
• Another large piece for the afikomen.
• A sizable piece for korech, the “Hillel sandwich.”

Add it up and you are eating the equivalent of one-and-a-half shemura matzot before the meal even begins. Multiply that by a dozen people at the seder table and the cost becomes significant.

Some guides, trying to reconcile these oversized measurements with human anatomy, suggest breaking the matzah into small pieces and stuffing the mouth until there’s barely any room for chewing.

Most major halachic authorities today — across the spectrum — use far more reasonable measurements:

• A kezayit of matzah = ⅓ of an ordinary machine matzah.
• Korech = ¼ of a matzah, broken in two for both sides of the “sandwich.”
• Afikoman = ⅓–½ of a matzah

These are not leniencies. They are historically grounded to reflect the size of actual olives.

If matzah is the first great cost inflator, kitniyot is the second.

Kitniyot — legumes, rice, beans, corn, and certain seeds — were banned for Ashkenazim in 13th-century Europe and was immediately designated as a “minhag sh’tut,” a “foolish custom,” by many Sefardi and even some Ashkenazi authorities. However relevant the reasons may have been at the time, they are completely irrelevant today. But once a custom takes hold, it tends to persist because of “minhag avot,” because it’s what our ancestors did.

The Talmud knew nothing of a kitniyot ban. As noted earlier, the sages not only rejected banning rice, they insisted that it belonged on the seder table.

Sefardim have always eaten kitniyot. Many Ashkenazim in Israel now do so, as well, with the Chief Rabbinate’s approval. Some Modern Orthodox rabbis here are quietly relaxing the ban by allowing the use of vegetable oils and corn syrup. The Masorti movement in Israel formally permitted kitniyot in 1989.  The Conservative movement here did so in 2015.

The kitniyot ban creates an absurd situation: Two Jews follow the same Torah, the same halachah, conduct the same seder — one may eat rice and chickpeas while the other must rely on faux chametz products that don’t quite cut the mustard. It is both halachically questionable; and economically burdensome. Ashkenazim are forced to buy more expensive oils, sweeteners, snacks, and chemical-laden substitutes for simple and wholesome foods.

If the ban were lifted — or even narrowed — the cost of Pesach would drop significantly.

Rabbi Akiva’s question still echoes: How long will we waste the money of Israel?

None of this argues for carelessness or laxity. Pesach is serious. Chametz is serious. But the actual halachic approach is balanced. It commands observance, not excess. It doesn’t require invented burdens or budget-busting expense.

Pesach should be a celebration of freedom, not a financial burden that weighs us down.

There are many chumrot that bring satisfaction and even joy. But they are not required by Jewish law and must be chosen voluntarily. And we should not be told otherwise.

The Torah has pity on the money of Israel. It is time that we did, too.

Shammai Engelmayer is a rabbi-emeritus of Congregation Beth Israel of the Palisades and an adult education teacher in Bergen County. He is the author of eight books and the winner of 10 awards for his commentaries. His website is www.shammai.org.