qahwat is not 7åme9

well, in response to a wry comment posed by one of the emilys who has a girlfriend who is being meticulously observant of the pesach mitzvah (me9wåh of peså7, to those of you internet semiticists) about not eating chametz (7åme9), here's what i learnt: although it is, indeed, a bean, coffee is not 7åme9.

the sweet-&-lowdown is basically this (emphasis & links mine):

There are two major mitzvot with which we are obligated on Pesach. One is to eat matzah on the first night. The other is not to eat chametz.

The gemara tells us that matzah can be made from five types of grain and only these five: They are wheat, barley, rye, oats and spelt. [...] The gemara then continues and tells us that chametz can only come from stuff that could have been used in the production of matzah, the five grains. Nothing else can be chametz. Rice, millet and kitniot [...] cannot become chametz and therefore may not be used for matzah.

that quote comes from an article by richard j. israel entitled "kitniot revealed". "aha!" you say. "but what about these kitniot, and what about the ban on eating everything vaguely grain-y from my girlfriend, nu?" well, mr. israel explains:

In general, kitniot are those small (kitniot - from katan) seeds or beans which look a little like grains and which need to be cooked to be eaten. Though frequently translated as legumes, aside from peas and peanuts, they are NOT legumes. And some legumes, like alfalfa leaves which can be used for salad, ARE NOT kitniot. Legumes are plants whose root nodules make nitrogen. Since "teensy-weensies" or "tinies" are not translations that are very likely to make it into ordinary English parlance, the most appropriate translation for kitniot, it seems to me, is kitniot. [...] Ashkenazic (though not Sephardic) Jews have accepted a great stringency regarding these products, despite the fact that they are not chametz, and despite the permissibility of these items documented by earlier sources.

The reason for the prohibition is based on a gezeirah, a preventive decree, from Ashkenazic rabbinical authorities. [...] The gezeirah was justified on the grounds that people can too easily confuse a product cooked with kitniyot with a similar product cooked with one of the five grains, and if the kitniyot product is allowed, one may come to allow a grain product, which is really chametz, as well.

Moreover, kitniyot are similar to the five grains in other ways too, including the fact that some people make bread out of kitniyot as they do from the five grains, and people who are not knowledgeable may end up making a mistake and eat real chametz.

Kitniyot are not like other vegetables which are allowed on Pesach because vegetables will never get confused with the forbidden grains, but most any product which could conceivably be confused with the forbidden grains has been added to the list of kitniot. Mustard was added since it is said, that it often grows with or is harvested with or is stored with the five grain species. And then sesame seeds and caraway seeds and still further, most any seeds which people eat.

Coffee was considered for prohibition, but the Ashkenazic sages must have liked coffee a lot more than they liked caraway seeds and it was allowed. And don't ask why we are permitted potato flour, because I don't know. The closest I can come to an explanation is noting that when there was a famine in Furth Germany in 1771, potatoes, which were otherwise prohibited on Pesach, were permitted on an emergency basis. Maybe someone forgot to cancel the prohibition. If so, we should keep quiet about it lest the people who like prohibitions find out that they have missed one.

anyway, like i said: you're a mezrå7iyåh ("mizrahi") anyway, which in this case means you follow the sephardic rules. that means see definition of chametz above: you can eat all the maize, mustard greens and every other thing that isn't wheat, barley, rye, oats or spelt.

boy, what an exciting post.