Question #1: Holey Blessings
“What brocha should I recite before eating a donut? Does it make a difference whether it is an American-style, hole-in-the-middle donut or an Israeli-style jelly donut?”
Question #1: Chanukah Donuts
“Must I separate challah from the donuts I am frying for Chanukah?”
Question #3: Non-Jewish Consumers
“I just purchased a donut shop that is quite distant from any Jewish community. Must I make sure that challah is taken?”
Introduction:
Although neither Israeli donuts nor Israeli latkes are usually made with holes in the middle, Americans envision donuts as a big zero, no doubt to remind them of the number of calories contained in the hole.
Donuts are made from dough that is deep fried, or cooked in oil (these are two ways of saying the same thing). Because they are cooked, most authorities rule that the correct brocha before consuming them is mezonos. However, our opening questions require that we study the topic in greater depth. Doing so, we will discover that although reciting mezonos before consuming donuts is the accepted approach, it is not a universally held position, and that there are many halachic ramifications to this dispute.
Analyzing this topic requires that we explain several major issues in the laws of separating challah, so that is where our discussion begins. We should note that throughout this entire article, the word challah will be used to refer to the portion removed from dough to fulfill the mitzvah of the Torah, and not to the special Shabbos bread.
The Torah and challah
The Torah describes the mitzvah of challah in the following passage:
When you enter the land to which I am bringing you, it will be that, when you eat from the bread of the land, you shall separate a terumah offering for G-d. The first dough of your kneading troughs shall be separated as challah, like the terumah of your grain shall you separate it (Bamidbar 15:18-20).
Let us make several observations about this posuk, and then proceed to discuss them.
Bread or dough?
1. There appears to be an inconsistency in the words of the Torah. First, it refers to when you eat from the bread of the land, which implies that the requirement to separate challah begins only once it becomes bread. Yet, in the very next posuk, the Torah requires challah to be taken from your kneading troughs, implying that you separate challah when it is still dough. Which is true?
Terumah or challah?
2. The Torah refers to the part separated as a “terumah offering,” and then compares it to the terumah of your grain. In what way is challah like terumah?
Consumer or manufacturer?
3. The words of the Torah, when you eat from the bread of the land, you shall separate a terumah offering, imply that the obligation to take challah falls upon the consumer who will be eating the bread. However, the next verse states, the first dough ofyour kneading troughs shall be separated as challah, implying that the obligation falls upon the manufacturer. Why do two verses imply different laws?
Bread or dough
The answer is that the words of the Torah, the first dough of your kneading troughs, teaches that there is no requirement to separate challah unless there is as much dough as the amount of manna eaten daily by each member of the Jewish people in the desert, which, in their generation, was called “your kneading trough.” Chazal explain that this amount, called ke’shiur i’sas midbar, was equal to the volume of 43.2 eggs. In contemporary measure, we usually assume that this is approximately three to five pounds of flour. (For our purposes, it will suffice to use these round figures. I encourage each reader to ask his own rav or posek for exact quantities.) When there is a definite requirement to separate challah, one recites a brocha prior to fulfilling the mitzvah.
There is another reason why the Torah refers to the mitzvah both in regard to dough and to the finished bread. Usually, one should separate challah when the dough is mixed. However, there are situations in which one cannot separate challah as dough. In these instances, the Torah is teaching that we can also separate challah when it is already bread.
Terumah or challah
I noted above thattheTorah refers to the separated dough as a “terumah offering,” and then compares it to the terumah of your grain. In what way is challah like terumah?
Terumah may be eaten only by a kohen, his wife, sons and unmarried daughters, and only when they are tahor. Since we are without the parah adumah today, we cannot achieve being fully tahor, and, therefore, we cannot eat terumah. The Torah here teaches that challah has the same laws as terumah, and therefore can be eaten only by members of the kohen’s family who are tahor.
Dough versus batter
We find much discussion in the Mishnah regarding what type of product is included in the obligation to separate challah and a fundamental dispute among the early baalei Tosafos concerning these laws. Note that in the following discussion we differentiate between “dough,” a thick mixture which Chazal call belilah avah, and “batter,” a thin mixture which Chazal call belilah rakah. According to Rabbeinu Tam, any dough owned by a Jew is obligated in challah, even if one subsequently cooks or fries it (cited by many rishonim, including Tosafos, Brochos 37b s.v. Lechem and Pesachim 37b s.v. Dekulei alma).
(Please note that some authorities who accept Rabbeinu Tam’s basic approach that any dough is obligated in challah still exempt dough manufactured for pasta, because of considerations beyond the scope of our topic (see Tosafos, Brochos 37b, s.v. Lechem,quoting Rabbeinu Yechiel), but others hold that, according to Rabbeinu Tam, any product made from dough is obligated in challah, provided the batch was large enough (as described above).
Intent
A different baal Tosafos, the Rash, disagrees with Rabbeinu Tam, contending that one is not always obligated to separate challah from dough. There is such a requirement only when the owner intended to make the dough into bread. However, if the owner intended at the time that he kneaded the dough to cook or fry it, as one does when making donuts or kreplach, there is no obligation to separate challah.
Batter up
Both Rabbeinu Tam and the Rash agree that there is no obligation to take challah from a batter (belilah rakah) unless it was subsequently baked into a bread-like food. In this instance, therefore, the obligation to separate challah does not take place until the bread is produced. Thus, according to both Rabbeinu Tam and the Rash, we can resolve why the Torah describes the mitzvah of challah sometimes in terms of bread and sometimes in terms of dough. In most instances, the obligation to separate challah is when the flour mixture becomes dough. However, there are instances, such as when preparing a batter, in which there is no obligation to separate challah until it becomes bread.
Mezonos or hamotzi?
Many authorities explain that the dispute between Rabbeinu Tam and the Rash also affects which brocha one recites on a cooked or fried dough. They contend that, according to Rabbeinu Tam, since dough is obligated in challah, the brocha recited before eating dough that was then cooked or fried is hamotzi, the brocha recited afterwards is the full bensching,and that, prior to eating a cooked or fried dough product, there is a requirement to wash netilas yadayim.
Others rule that one does not recite hamotzi unless another requirement is met – that the finished product, after the frying or cooking, has a bread-like appearance, called in Aramaic turisa denahama (Tosafos, Pesachim and Brochos 37b s.v. Lechem). The halachic basis for drawing a distinction between the mitzvah of challah and the brocha requirements is that the requirement to separate challah is established at the time the dough is mixed, whereas the halachic determination of which brocha to recite is determined by the finished product (Rabbeinu Yonah, Brochos; Shulchan Aruch, Orach Chayim 168:13).
Baking part
At this point, we will return to the laws of challah, in order to understand some of the rulings germane to the laws of brochos. A passage in the Talmud Yerushalmi teaches that someone who prepared a dough or batter with the intention of cooking or frying most of it, and leaving a small amount of the dough for baking, is obligated to separate challah from the entire dough, because of a rabbinic injunction.
The passage reads as follows:
A woman asked Rabbi Mana: ‘I want to make my dough into noodles. Is there a way for me to do so and be exempt from separating challah?’ He told her that it was possible. He then asked his father, Rabbi Yonah, who told him that she should not be exempt from separating challah, out of concern that she will use the rest as one usually processes dough (that is, into bread) (Yerushalmi, Challah 1:4). The rishonim explain that she intended to bake a small part of the dough, and therefore assumed that she is not obligated to separate challah. However, should she subsequently decide that she wanted to bake the entire dough, it would be obligated in challah min haTorah, and she might not realize that she is obligated to separate challah. In order to avoid creating this problem, Chazal required her to separate challah even when she intends to bake only a small amount (Rosh, Pesachim 2:16; Hilchos Challah #2).
Rabbeinu Tam and Rash
At this point, we must note that Rabbeinu Tam and the Rash will dispute exactly what happened in this case. According to Rabbeinu Tam, any time one mixes dough, he is obligated to separate challah. Therefore, the case described by this passage of Yerushalmi must have been where the woman was mixing a batter from which one is usually not obligated to separate challah, intending to bake a small amount, and to cook or fry the rest. Rabbi Yonah ruled that since she might decide to bake the entire batter, she is already obligated, miderabbanan, to separate challah.
According to the Rash, the passage of Yerushalmi can be discussing dough, since the intention at the time of mixing to cook or fry dough exempts it from the mitzvah of separating challah.
The Maharam Rottenberg
Approximately a century after the time of the Rash, the greatest halachic authority in Germany was the Maharam Rottenberg. The Maharam did not want to take sides in this dispute between his two great predecessors, and so he devised the following approach, which he implemented in his own household:
When preparing dough that one intends to cook or fry, the Maharam instructed that one bake a small amount of the dough. According to the Rash, although cooked or fried dough is exempt from challah, when baking some of the dough, one becomes obligated in separating challah because of the takanah established by the Yerushalmi. Therefore, this dough is obligated in challah, whether one holds like Rabbeinu Tam (because it is dough) or like the Rash (because one is baking part of it).
According to Rabbeinu Tam, one should recite a brocha prior to separating challah on dough that one intends to cook or fry, whereas according to the Rash, there is no obligation to separate challah, and this would be a brocha levatalah. To avoid taking sides in this dispute, the Maharam advised baking some of the dough, thus creating a responsibility to separate challah because of the takanas chachamim.
Which brocha when you eat?
The Tur notes that the Maharam’s suggestion of baking some dough resolves only the question of separating challah. However, there is a separate, unresolved question – which brocha does one recite prior to eating a cooked or fried dough product? Rabbeinu Tam contends that the brocha on this product is hamotzi, which also means that one must wash netilas yadayim before eating it and recite bensching afterwards. The Rash maintains that the brocha before eating this food is mezonos, and the brocha afterwards is al hamichyah, and there is no requirement to wash netilas yadayim. How does one avoid taking sides in this dispute? The Maharam’s solution is to eat these products only after one first recited hamotzi on regular bread.
Thus, one of our opening questions “What brocha should I recite before eating a donut?” was considered an unresolved conundrum by the posek of his generation, the Maharam. Since he considered it to be an unresolved halachic issue whether one should recite hamotzi or mezonos prior to eating donuts, he ate them only after first reciting hamotzi on bread. I suspect that low carbohydrate diets were not much in vogue in his day.
How do we rule?
Most authorities conclude that the correct brocha prior to eating a dough product that is cooked or fried is mezonos. The Shulchan Aruch (Orach Chayim 168:13) and the Rema (ibid.) both follow the majority opinion that the correct brocha prior to eating a dough product that is cooked or fried is mezonos. However, the Shulchan Aruch also cites the minority opinion that one should recite hamotzi prior to eating a cooked dough product. He concludes that, to avoid any question, someone who is a yarei shamayim should eat a cooked dough product only after making hamotzi on a different item that is definitely bread — what we presented above as the Maharam’s solution. The Shulchan Aruch refers to this as the way a G-d-fearing person should approach the matter. The Rema rules that accepted practice is to simply recite mezonos. Perhaps we could say that the Rema felt that a yarei shamayim can still be concerned about how many carbohydrates he eats!
How do we rule concerning challah?
According to the text accepted by most authorities, the Shulchan Aruch (Yoreh Deah 329:3) concludes that dough that one intends to cook or fry is exempt from the requirement to separate challah, ruling against Rabbeinu Tam. However, the Shach contends that one should separate challah without a brocha. Thus, in his opinion, someone preparing a large quantity of donuts or kreplach is obligated to separate challah, albeit without a brocha. A caterer, restaurant or hotel cooking a large quantity of kreplach for a communal Purim seudah should have challah separated from the dough.
Many later authorities rule that one should take into consideration Rabbeinu Tam’s approach and separate challah from any dough more than three pounds, even when it will be cooked or fried. However, the Shulchan Aruch Harav (Kuntrus Acharon, Orach Chayim 168:7) and the Aruch Hashulchan (Yoreh Deah 329:15) rule that one does not need to be concerned about Rabbeinu Tam’s position if one is making the dough in chutz la’aretz, since the requirement of separating challah there is certainly only miderabbanan.
Non-Jewish consumers
At this point, we can address the third of our opening questions: “I just purchased a donut shop that is quite distant from any Jewish community. Must I make sure that challah is taken?”
Let me explain the background to this shaylah. A frum businessman purchased a franchised donut shop located nowhere near any Jewishcommunity. His managers and employees are all non-Jewish. To avoid issues of being open on Shabbos and Pesach, the businessman used a type of mechir Shabbos, thereby sharing ownership of his business with a gentile, a highly controversial practice that is beyond the scope of this article. He had assumed that he had no responsibility to separate challah, either because he did not know that some authorities require this, or because he assumed that, since no customers are assuming that his products are kosher, he is not obligated to separate challah. This last assumption is incorrect.
Consumer or owner
The obligation to separate challah is a positive requirement incumbent upon the owner, not simply a means of preventing a Jew from eating the finished product without challah having been separated. The requirement to separate challah depends on the ownership of the dough at the time it is mixed, not on who mixes it. In other words, if a Jew owns a bakery, he is required to separate challah, even if his workers are not Jewish. Should the owner not have separated challah, the consumer is obligated to do so before he may eat the finished product.
If a gentile does the kneading in a Jewish-owned household, nursing home or school, there is an obligation to separate challah. On the other hand, there is no requirement to separate challah in a bakery owned by non-Jews, even if the employees are Jewish.
Conclusion
Having discussed the halachic details of this mitzvah, it is worthwhile taking a glimpse at the following Medrash that underscores its vast spiritual significance: “In the merit of the following three mitzvos the world was created – in the merit of challah, in the merit of maasros, and in the merit of bikkurim” (Bereishis Rabbah 1:4). Thus, besides gaining us eternal reward, this easily kept mitzvah helps keep our planet turning.
