For more information, see Wikipedia: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moshe_Shmuel_Glasner, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eliezer_Berkovits)

I know of no mitzvah to “rewrite” the Torah. On the other hand, there IS a mitzvah to “go to the judge who will be in those days”, and Rabbis Moshe Shmuel Glasner and Eliezer Berkovits, following the medieval Sefer haHinuch and Drashot hRan, interpret this as meaning that the Oral Law should be flexible, fluid, and organic, and oral precisely to safeguard this, as against the tendency of writing to make matters inviolable. Cf. http://www.math.psu.edu/glasner/Dor4/elman.html, http://michaelmakovi.blogspot......l-law.html, http://michaelmakovi.blogspot......on-of.html, http://michaelmakovi.blogspot......-life.html

I like your point about 1492. It raises an even bigger issue – how do you define your makom (community, or however you like to translate). This is one of the things that makes Judaism so great. Every generation must re-define itself and its minhag, and yes, that includes converts.

Isn’t one of the many mitzvot to re-write the torah? Tell me which one – I know it is. It is up to us to be in constant dialogue with the laws and to integrate into our lives. This is what keeps Judaism alive – for everyone.

Chag Sameach!

In 1492, a massive immigration of Sefaradim to Ashkenazi lands occurred. In some communities, the Sefaradi immigrants outnumbered the Ashkenazi natives, and the question was, should the minhag haMakom [local custom] of the native Ashkenazim triumph, or rather should the more numerous Sefaradim triumph? Unfortunately, I don’t remember what the responsa say, but in any case, note that no one had a hava amina [suggestion] that everyone should do whatever his father did, i.e. have two different minhagim [customs] in one town. Everyone agreed minhag haMakom [local custom] trumps, but they didn’t know which minhag haMakom.

In other words, minhag, by and large, is based on geography, not parentage. Obviously, in America and Israel, or, at least, in Modern Orthodox communities, there is no minhag haMakom, at least for issues such as these. Perhaps there is a minhag haMakom to say the bracha for the State of Israel, but no one has a minhag haMakom to avoid kitniot, or else even Sefaradim wouldn’t be allowed. In days of yore, a Sefaradi who moved to an Ashkenazi land, or vice versa, the immigrant abandoned his own custom and adopted that of his new home. Wherever there is true minhag haMakom, it is irrelevant what your father did. So the fact that Sefaradim can eat kitniot in America and Israel, shows there is no minhag haMakom, and therefore, even Ashkenazim are allowed to eat kitniot as well.

One of the first sources to refer to kitniot, a 12-13th century Ashkenazi whose name I cannot remember, says we cannot eat kitniot because, he says, they are cooked into porridges like hametz (”maaseh kadira”), and because they are stored in silos as grainy substance, like hametz. Such a definition would cover many non-legumes.

For a vegan dessert, I’d suggest dark chocolate, candied almonds and fruit than anything too strange made from a Passover cake mix. While I love good dark chocolate, I grew up with jel-rings and lollycones and consider them part of the Passover experience.

Nuts are NOT kinyot, thank G-d. Let’s not get *that* started, *please*?

(Joke:
Q: How do you start a new chumra?
A: Tell a joke to a ba’al t’shuvah.)

Kitnyot means legumes. That’s why some consider *peanuts* to be kitnyot. (Strangely, rice and corn, which are also not legumes, get grouped with kitnyot, illustrating that someone had problems with botanical identification way back when…)

You’re right that Mia has neither Minhag Makom nor Minhag Avot. However, the overwhelming practice is for gerim to take the minhagim of the rav who does their gerut. If her gerut had been done by a Sephardic rabbi, she would eat kitnyot (presumably –there are variations in practice there as well.)

Of course, she could marry a Sephard and increase her dietary options that way! Something to consider…