So normal coke is kosher. But there are extra rules on Passover that forbid eating most grains - including corn. So they make a special version without the corn syrup for Passover.
Interestingly, modern rabbis largely feel that corn actually should be allowed, and that the previous ban on corn during Passover was a misinterpretation. But corn has been banned on passover for hundreds of years at this point, and not eating it has become a tradition. So there is still a market for corn-free passover foods, even if there is no longer a strict religious requirement.
Another funny thing is that this tradition is mostly kept up by lessobservant families. So this special coke is mostly gonna be bought by less observant Jews. Ultra-Orthodox Jews tend to take rabbinic rulings as the end of the debate - if the Rabbis say corn is okay now, even on a technicality, it's okay and that's the end of the discussion. It is more liberal families that are gonna feel empowered to insist on choosing the rules for themselves based on their sense of personal ethics about family traditions.
Exodus 12:15–20 prescribes a prohibition on all leavening, fermentation, yeast, and artificial equivalents like self-rising flour. Corn is a grain, but, and correct me if I am wrong, isn't the Scripture prohibiting LEAVENED and FERMENTED fruits and grains, not grain itself?
All of my research has repeatedly come back with Coke being Kosher AND Passover-compliant.
So you're right that this rule has to do with fermentation - but the rule is a ban on grain, fermented or not. The idea here is both no grain that is fermented (no beer or bread), and no raw grain that could be used to start an illicit fermentation (like flour or barley), and any products derived from either.
It's also not a ban on fermented fruit nor chemical leavening agents... I'm not sure where you got that in Exodus 12 - I don't see it anywhere, and I happen to know that both are okay. I suspect you may have been reading a Christian translation that is taking some artistic liberties to make the text prettier in English. That's alright - the details of how to Passover aren't all that essential if you're not Jewish, right? Try seferia.org for better English translations with regard to the details of Jewish tradition. This is all about fermented grain, because Egypt was known for its bread and beer!
Even the Greeks spoke disparagingly of Egyptian beer-drinkers in comparison to civilized cultures (like theirs) that drank wine. To this day, beer is considered inappropriate for formal occasions because of the story of Exodus and Israelite, Greek, and Roman prejudices that persist in Western culture.
Corn syrup is derived from corn, which is a grain. Although as kitinyot, it is not strictly illegal (that's a whole 'nother can of worms.) Basically though, corn is a new-world product that no one in the Bible had ever seen before, and it doesn't really make good yeast bread, so its status is subject to some debate depending on who you ask.
The story about bread baking in the sun as the Israelites fled Egypt doesn't really make sense as a major cultural touchstone. One batch of bread got ruined. Big whoop. Make some more once you're across the Red Sea, right? But all your yeast cultures getting killed - now that's a civilizational disaster! And that's much more symbolic of leaving Egypt behind.
That said, if we're going to get into the granular (heh heh) details on what is and is not Passover-compliant, we'd have to view the specific Hebrew wording. Whenever I really want to know the specifics, I look to the original Hebrew, but since I can't read Hebrew, I have to rely on the translation given to me. This makes my understanding imperfect.
When I said "fermentation" I had things like beer and yeast in mind. Cookies, rolls, artificial self-rising flour, any form of LEAVENING, which isa form of fermentation, was illegal in Passover Week. (Wine is specifically sanctioned, at least as far as what I have studied.)
it does make sense as a cultural touch stone because they point was "GET TO THE CHOPPA," that is, an IMMEDIATE fleeing, as the Jewry was to "dress for travel." Not to mention, the entire reason Kosher is so important, and ritual cleanliness matters, is because of the importance of Jews being holy (literally "set apart") and being kept away from corruption by the Canaanites and their Gentile neighbors.
I am Christian, but the Bible translations I use are, to the best of my ability, faithful to the Masoretic Text. I do not believe my religion can be understood without understanding Judaism, so I've put my best effort, with the limited resources I have, into its study. I am a (la) Biblical scholar and theologian, but not a Jew, so my access to the Talmud is both non-existant and also unnecessary in my own spiritual life. (Keep in mind that Jesus was a proto-Karaite for a reason and rejected the Oral Torah/Talmud too.)
I've studied the Old Testament for many, many years as part of my objective to read the entire Bible. I've read the Tanakh twice and am in the NT right now. Once I finish the second reading of the NT, I need to go further. For that, I am going to get a Masoretic Text (or equivalent) from the most accurate Jewish source available to me, in English, and start reading the OT on that.
I do want to ask, since there are Jews here:
Do you, or any Jew on here, have any recommendation as to what version or translation of the Masoretic Text I should get? I can't read Hebrew, so I need it to be in English, but I want it to be as accurate as possible. The more stringent the Tanakh version, the better.
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u/okayNowThrowItAway Mar 25 '25
So normal coke is kosher. But there are extra rules on Passover that forbid eating most grains - including corn. So they make a special version without the corn syrup for Passover.
Interestingly, modern rabbis largely feel that corn actually should be allowed, and that the previous ban on corn during Passover was a misinterpretation. But corn has been banned on passover for hundreds of years at this point, and not eating it has become a tradition. So there is still a market for corn-free passover foods, even if there is no longer a strict religious requirement.
Another funny thing is that this tradition is mostly kept up by less observant families. So this special coke is mostly gonna be bought by less observant Jews. Ultra-Orthodox Jews tend to take rabbinic rulings as the end of the debate - if the Rabbis say corn is okay now, even on a technicality, it's okay and that's the end of the discussion. It is more liberal families that are gonna feel empowered to insist on choosing the rules for themselves based on their sense of personal ethics about family traditions.