Vos Iz Neias is reporting that 30 leading Rabbis in Brooklyn have signed a religious ban on price gouging for Pesach items. Sounds like socialism to me, but I won’t point any fingers because I like it, well really it makes no difference to me – because all I eat on pesach is fruit and chocolate and sometimes some sardines.
But for once it seems that the Rabbis have banned something which makes everyone happy, besides for the bourguoise, it seems like the masses will finally welcome this ban. I was surprised that they haven’t banned machine made matzo yet because its so goyishe, but don’t get me started on ridiculous bans. For now I will relish in this moment of victory for the poor folks who can’t afford kosher for pesach products made by religious companies and buy regular old OU-P products which are probably considered treife by many.
Oh wait theres more…. the following was taken from the article on Vos Iz Neias
Unlike many rabbinical decrees where rabbis’ names are added without their perusal or consent, this kol koreh was read and signed personally by each rabbi listed. Following is the list of rabbis who have affixed their name to the ban:
WTF?!?! Does this mean that its exactly like the congressional earmarks and pork barrel legislation that gets thrown in by high paying lobbyists. How are we to trust these so called Rabbis is they are just signing onto anything that gets thrown into their lap by a high paying doner or someone who claims to be pious.
I found the news to be great until I read that, that just scared me into one of my conspiracy laden moments of the unspoken about tyrannical motives of these “kol korehs” signed by people who have no idea what they are signing.
Check back later in the week for stuff I think the Rabbis should ban
btw, your comments about machine matzos sounds like you are missing some great mahlokes (fighting) in jewish history stemming from Machine Matzos.
It goes back like 200 years, albiet not electric, but still mass produced matzos.
It is a BIG machlokes haposkem, and if you talk to some old German jews, they will tell you all about it, and how some were makbid (made it a point) to only eat machine matzos.
That’s the obvious reason why rabbonim in our times dont try to touch something that has long been fought out.
I am interested in sending in a ban on signing bans that have not been read… I also have $1,000 donation that can accompany the letter. I just need to find the address to send it to.
Perhaps they do read them all, but this is the only bad that is not such crap that they are using it to cover their butts on some of the bans that were not received as well? If there are bans that these rabbis did not really mean, they should tell everyone which ones they are. If not, assume that that line is a throwaway.
So they make really bad bans and once in a while to keep their power they make a good one. Sounds awfully sneaky to me
The rabbi’s have banned bans!
Ban the craziness of Pesach preparations! The food is tasteless anyway, and not worth anything they’re charging. It’s the paranoia of everything, even nonfood items, being Chometz that drives me crazy.
You can avoid most of the gouging if you follow the ultra machmir minhagim of not eating any processed foods on Pesach, of course that leaves you without the use of many staple items. Still, many people people I know survive the chag, even though they use chicked fat to fry their eggs.
The real gouger is shmurah matza, you might be able to save 50% by buying Israeli or Ukranian matza at the expense of breaking your teeth trying to chew. We get ultra thin crispy ones here, but they cost $24 / lb.
So in the long run, this ban is virtually meaningless, since most of the people following these rabbis aren’t likely to purchase most of the processed products that are likely to inflated Pesach prices to begin with. Furthermore, big hasidic communities do communal orders, where the members pay wholesale prices, so they don’t even shop in the stores for most items.
The ban makes the Rabbis look good, the stores don’t really lose much business, everybody wins.
Good. Finally they decide that religion should be used to make people better human beings, not just ever more servile followers of increasingly arbitrary decrees. I salute them for this.
Let’s be serious for a moment….
The Children of Israel didn’t keep their wheat in special jars for a year before spending precisely seventeen and a half minutes mixing and rolling it with mashgiachs running up and down checking to see if they had the required number of pricks in the surface. (These days the pricks are usually the ones running up and down doing the checking 🙂
And THEIR MATZOH WASN’T CRISPY SHEETS WITH LINES OF HOLES IN IT.
The unleavened bread in those days was like tortillas or chapatis. It was flat cakes yeastless dough baked for a few minutes so it was still soft or slapped on the inside of something a lot like a tandoor. That’s how they made bread back then. That’s how the Sephardim still make matzoh today. What we call matzon how is more like what you make in “muffin top” muffin tins. The crispy stuff was considered the good part, so over the centuries we changed the way we made the stuff in order to just have the treat.
Maybe we’d be better off going back to making our own matzoh the REAL Torah-days way at home.
I bet you they were eating pizza dough back in the day as matzo
Hesh,
It’s similar to pizza dough, there is a company in the U.S that makes it, check: http://www.softmatza.com/
What gets me every year is the “Hillel sandwich” we make at the seder. In all probability, Hillel used soft matza, roasted lamb and hot peppers as the ingredients, so it was probably more like one of those Israeli Laffas, not the cracker and chrain imitation/commemorative version we do today.
I never get why the Earl of Sandwich gets all the credit. Hillel was doing it 1700 years before him!
People have been doing it that way since we invented bread – about 10,000 years ago.
I don’t see what’s all the fuss about… Breakfast you eat corn bread (W/O flower) and some apple butter. For lunch peanut butter and jelly on ashira matza and dinner have some Spanish rice and green peas.
Doesn’t cost much at all for pesach
Frum Sarire,
Concerning the supposedvalid “signitures “, they must be referring to the sheets dished out by lubabs with every rebbe in the world’s “signiture” confirming that the rebbe is indeed mashiach.
I dont see anywhere it saying how much things can cost, all I see is it shouldnt be too high. What determines expensive? 75$ matzoh?
Rentsy, considering what Matzah used to be like, Hillel didn’t actually invent the sandwich…
Hillel invented the Burrito! Or a Shawarma Lafa. Either way.