please give me a crash course in hilchos Yoshon

Hashem_Yaazor

Wed, Feb 20 2013, 10:05 am

Yoshon is grain that is old: from before the time the omer was brought on the second night of Pesach.
Chodosh is grain that is new: harvested after this time.

Any of the 5 grains listed above is what the Torah considers grains.

If it was harvested before Pesach time (simplistic), it's yoshon and can be consumed. Otherwise it's chodosh till the next Pesach comes around.

BTW, I find it's more like 8 months of worrying about yoshon. By August, you have to be worried about freshly baked goods, and Pesach usually comes in April (earlier this year)...

questioner

Wed, Feb 20 2013, 11:51 am

working hard wrote:

As far as the obligation to eat Yoshon in America: When Yiddin first came to America there was no way of tracing the wheat and being makpid unless you grew your own. Therefore, the Rabbanim permitted eating what was available.
Rabbi Herman was learning Gemara with Reb Yaakov and they learned about Chodosh/Yoshon. Rabbi Herman asked why don't we keep this in America and he answered 'We Don't?". Rabbi Herman asked if he should be Makpid and was told yes. He obtained some files of flour sources and codes from Bais Shraga, began ordering 50 pound sacks of flour from the mills and baking his own bread. That was the beginning of what became the guide to Chodosh. R' Yaakov Kaminetsky gave Haskomo to the guide but was careful to say that is not a Psak that one must keep Yoshon.
Source: Rabbi Herman

I don't know that the heter has anything to do with America - the Rema and the Bach, among others, permitted chodosh in chutz l'aretz far earlier than that. (However, it is pretty clear according to the majority that the heter is predicated upon the hardship of getting yoshon flour rather than being a l'chatchila psak)

Hashem_Yaazor

Wed, Feb 20 2013, 12:03 pm

Clarification: the Rema didn't "mattir" as much as write he doesn't understand why it became the minhag not to be makpid on yoshon...and we don't invalidate a minhag, but he didn't seem to think it was halachically appropriate.

goodmorning

Wed, Feb 20 2013, 3:33 pm

Hashem_Yaazor wrote:

I thought that the Rema permitted chodosh due to the sefek sfeika as to when the grain was planted (safek whether it's this year's crop, safek even if it this year's crop, whether it was planted in the winter or in the spring).

He does point out that there are crops which are usually spring crops (I don't remember which he discusses, but I think barley and oats usually are, at least in the US) and that there are cold/long winters when it is obvious that the crops of that year could not have taken root before Pesach, and says that really one should be careful, but not tell others who live in places where this is their main source of subsistence because they won't be able to listen anyway and better that they should be shogegim and not meizidim.

But he did think that there were halachic grounds to permit it the rest of the time, even if his reasoning was based on the "sha'as hadchak" of not being able to get yoshon grain.

Hashem_Yaazor

Wed, Feb 20 2013, 8:59 pm

He quotes the rosh who has that opinion, but according to how I've heard it (haven't learned it inside myself...yet Wink

) he doesn't believe this should have become the way to be noheig.
He says mutav sheyiheyu shogegim v'al tihiyu mezeidim when most of the grain can't be assumed to be yoshon grain, which is the case today with most grains being from spring harvests.

gesherlkesher

Sun, Aug 24 2014, 12:54 am

For everything you've ever wanted to know about yoshon, go to the website www.yoshonnetwork.org.
For those who already keep yoshon, The Yoshon Network Inc. provides an Online Lookup service based on Rabbi Herman's "Guide to Chodosh", where you can look up product date codes right n the store on your smart phone while you're shopping! It can be found at www.yoshon.com.