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Of Passover and Cookie Dough

A rabbi weighs in

by
Marc Tracy
April 02, 2010
(Flickr)
(Flickr)

My post yesterday arguing that cookie dough ought to be considered kosher for Passover—in fact, that eating cookie dough, the perfect example of unbaked bread, should be encouraged Seder eating—was not, as commenter Elaine cleverly suggested, an April Fool’s joke. However, it was deliberately provocative, and it wasn’t fully serious (but not fully un-serious, either!).

To clear the air, I called up Rabbi Charles M. Feinberg of Adas Israel, the Conservative synagogue in Washington, D.C., which is the chosen congregation of both the Israeli Embassy and my family. Rabbi Feinberg confirmed that, indeed, normal cookie dough, even eaten as cookie dough, is not Pesadik. “Because the dough is sitting together, there’s a minimal amount of leavening,” he explained. This would probably apply even if you mixed the flour and water but then ate it—without baking it—in under 18 minutes. “The rabbis defined it in this way,” he added, “that’s part of what Judaism became, part of the old tradition. It’s in the Talmud, and that’s the basis for most of our observance.” Well, phooey.

Marc Tracy is a staff writer at The New Republic, and was previously a staff writer at Tablet. He tweets @marcatracy.