38 | APRIL 7 • 2022 

D

ayenu: it would be enough if I had a prac-
tical, well-designed Haggadah with English 
translation; this alone is exciting. 
Dayenu: a Haggadah that offers many explana-
tions of the different ritual elements (so that guests 
can distract/understand for themselves).
Dayenu: a Haggadah that helps me 
better understand what is Passover? 
And why, after a year of working out 
the kinks in my rye sourdough, do I 
have to spend a week eating the most 
basic, uninteresting and digestively dif-
ficult crackers?
Dayenu: a Haggadah designed for 
foodies.
Dayenu: a Haggadah for those who have spent 
the pandemic noticing all of the different trees and 

plants in their neighborhood again and again 
and again.
The recently published Fruits of Freedom, 
The Tora Flora Hagadah does this and more. 
It illuminates the multi-layered meanings of 
the Passover seder through understanding 
“the natural and agricultural history of the 
Biblical and Talmudic worlds” within the 
context of the underlying multicultural 
environments (and different ecosystems) 
where Jews lived.
Written by Jon Greenberg, a “Biblical 
ethnobotanist” who has worked as an 
agronomist at Cornell and the USDA, The Torah 
Flora Hagadah offers an accessible anthropo-
logical explanation for many components of the 
Passover seder. 

TOP: Ancient Egyptian depiction of “Hyksos” (Canaanites or Hebrews). Note the colorful robes, suggestive of the “coat of many colors” that 
Joseph wore. BOTTOM: (left) Ancient Egyptian depiction of grape harvesting and wine production. (right) Illustration in a 14th-century Spanish 
Haggadah depicting a lordly hare controlling or beating a dog while being served by a modestly dressed pig. Such imaginative animal scenes were 
commonly used in medieval and Renaissance Haggadot as a code for thoughts that could not safely be expressed in public.

Jon 
Greenberg

PASSOVER

This Haggadah, written by a biblical ethnobotanist, 
offers a new perspective for your seder.
Fruits of Freedom

AVERY ROBINSON SPECIAL TO THE JEWISH NEWS 

