In our premiere episode, Rav Elisha teaches us how to understand the ban of kitniot as fundamentally tied to the reasoning behind chametz. Join us in this hour long investigation into what's really going on behind the scenes.

https://www.sefaria.org/sheets/473986?lang=bi

*Despite or because of the academic scholarly debates over which specific poor people are called gerim in various Biblical books (see, for instance, Rolf Rendtorff, “The Ger in the Priestly Laws of the Pentateuch,” in Mark G. Brett, ed. Ethnicity and the Bible [Leiden: E. J. Brill, 2002], 85-86 and Clyde M. Woods and Justin Rogers, Leviticus and Numbers [Joplin MO: College Press, 2006],125 fns. 73-74), ger is best translated in the broadest sense of non-citizen – a term that covers peasant field workers, urban proletariats, and foreigner (Cf. Phillip Sigal, The Emergence of Contemporary Judaism, Volume 1 - The Foundations of Judaism from Biblical origins to the Sixth Century AD: Part 1 - From the Origins to the Separation of Christianity [Pittsburgh PA: Pickwick Press, 1980], 77; Shaye J.D. Cohen, From the Maccabees to the Mishnah [Philadelphia PA: Westminster Press, 1987], 50; and Ebbe Egede Knudsen, “Amorite Grammar: A Comparative Statement,” in Alan S. Kaye ed. Semitic Studies in Honor of Wolf Leslau, Volume One [Wiesbaden: Otto Harrassowitz, 1991], 866). In Exodus/Shemot 20:9 and Deuteronomy/Devarim 5:13, moreover, ger unmistakably refers to persons who show up at the city gates for work – such as rural peasants coming to the city as day laborers or as not-monied and non-citizen urban proletariats – persons did not own a house and rights in the city (as did the citizens [Leviticus 25:29-30]).