What's the basis for boiling sugar?

su7kids

Sun, Apr 01 2007, 12:09 pm

In the old days, in order to make up the weight of the sugar, the farmers used to add wheat and flour into the sugar. I don't think its done anymore.

One of the Lubavitcher REbbes told the story and someone said he didn't believe him, because in HIS factory theydidn't use flour or wheat,and the Rebbe used sugar cubes.

The Rebbe randomly took 3 sugar cubes, and opened them and inside were wheat kernels.

So, if you boil the sugar, anything that is NOT sugar will not melt, and will come to the top and then you're supposed to strain it to remove anything that isn't sugar.

its a Chabad custom.

chocolate moose

Sun, Apr 01 2007, 4:40 pm

I have heard that the sugar was stored near the wheat kernals in the stores in the old country, so they would boil it to make sure you could see the wheat and take it out.

greenfire

Sun, Apr 01 2007, 5:55 pm

so if the wheat is actually in there and you boil it ... doesn't it take away the kosher for pesach as we know it ... we are so careful after all ... I don't get it!!!

su7kids

Sun, Apr 01 2007, 7:03 pm

chometz before Pesach can be mevotel - nulified, but chometz on Pesach itself is not.

Therefore, people who DO use sugar, etc, use it before the Chag starts.

You cannot actually boil the sugar on Yom Tov or even Chol Hamoed, it has to be done before hand.

Squash

Sun, Apr 01 2007, 7:16 pm

greenfire wrote:

so if the wheat is actually in there and you boil it ... doesn't it take away the kosher for pesach as we know it ... we are so careful after all ... I don't get it!!!

Greenfire, that's why my parents still, to this day, do not use ANY sugar on pesach.

My father said that back in Hungary the workers in the sugar factories used to dip their bread in the sugar when they were having lunch. Although this reason is not valid anymore, like so many other reasons for minhagim, my parents still keep to my grandfather's custom of not using sugar at all.

amother

Sun, Apr 01 2007, 9:31 pm

For those who have the practice it is a minhag, but the importance of keeping with your minhagim is seen in the word itself. When you spell minhag backwards in hebrew you get gehenim.

Squash

Sun, Apr 01 2007, 9:36 pm

amother wrote:

For those who have the practice it is a minhag, but the importance of keeping with your minhagim is seen in the word itself. When you spell minhag backwards in hebrew you get gehenim.

The point being what?

farmom

Thu, Apr 05 2007, 1:24 am

Minhag backwards is gehenom, but that only holds true for a minhag not based in Torah. Otherwise, "Minhag Yisroel Torah hi" and we are VERY strict with minhagim.

Rabbi Blumenkrantz has 2 pages in his book abt the importance of the minhag, and dif. rabbanim who held that one's minhag is crucial.

Raisin

Thu, Apr 05 2007, 5:51 am

Well, someone, probably my cleaning lady, threw out the 2 jugs of sugar I had boiled and strained, so I guess it will be a sugar free pesach for us.

farmom

Thu, Apr 05 2007, 9:27 am

Raisin wrote:

Well, someone, probably my cleaning lady, threw out the 2 jugs of sugar I had boiled and strained, so I guess it will be a sugar free pesach for us.

Way healthier, anyway, I guess.

G'luck!

mumoo

Thu, Apr 05 2007, 10:43 am

Raisin wrote:

Well, someone, probably my cleaning lady, threw out the 2 jugs of sugar I had boiled and strained, so I guess it will be a sugar free pesach for us.

sooooo very sorry!!!

chocolate moose

Thu, Apr 05 2007, 10:49 am

I am not so sure that it’s healthier not to have sugar. It depends what else you are doing to make up for it.

For example, our lemonade didn’t turn out so well for yomtov and I put a pitcher of water on the table, which was fine for me but the kids decided to drink wine instead….and now we have to buy wine again for yomtov, and it’s like $8 a bottle!!!!!

Motek

Thu, Apr 05 2007, 5:53 pm

Raisin wrote:

Well, someone, probably my cleaning lady, threw out the 2 jugs of sugar I had boiled and strained.

oy!

Quote:

Does anyone besides Chabad boil sugar? I think its a Chabad minhag.

squash - you Chabad?

If one suspects there might be wheat in the sugar, being that we are talking about bags of granulated sugar (not sugar cubes), seems that one can spread out the sugar and look for foreign particles. Sounds like boiling would apply only to cubes where you can't see what's inside.

greenfire

Thu, Apr 05 2007, 6:06 pm

chocolate moose wrote:

Hey chocolate moose - good to hear my kids are not the only ones that think they should drink wine instead of lemonade ... that happened to me last year ... they drank all the wine first and second day ... but it went straight into shabbos and I had no wine ...