APRIL 7 • 2022 | 39

to be. People have been using 
them for decades, so it connects 
them to their family. 
“The fact that it’s free at a 
supermarket — right there 
where you’re buying your 
brisket, your matzah and your 
wine — has helped keep up the 
tradition. If the ease in getting 
them wasn’t there, people might 
buy a box of matzah and invite 
some friends and family over, 
but they may not have the actu-
al text. So, (for example) they 
may not know when to drink 
the four cups of wine.
”
The accessibility of the cof-
fee maker’s Haggadah led it to 
become the official Haggadah 
of the Margolis family. Paul 
Margolis, a Chicago native 
and Bloomfield Hills resident, 
said that when his dad was 
in the military, the Haggadah 
was easily accessible. Plus, 
reading from the same book 
year after year led to some fun 
family traditions. 
“It’s bound to happen, some-
body is going to do something 
funny, or there’s something that 
gets said that makes everybody 
laugh, and then it becomes 
something you remember going 
forward,
” Margolis said. 
One of their traditions is a 
game they call “pick the viz.
” 
Based loosely on predictions 
made by a Chicago sports 
broadcaster, they guess which 
family member will get one 
of the two paragraphs with 
the abbreviation “viz.
” (mean-
ing “namely”) in it as they go 
around the table reading pas-
sages from the Haggadah. 
“If you read that section, 
there was this big cheer at 
the table because you got the 
‘viz.’ paragraph,” he said about 
the word, which is used right 
before talking about the four 
sons (updated to children in 
the 2011 edition) and listing 
the 10 plagues. 
Although his wife, Caroline, 

remembers using a variety of 
Haggadot, the couple is partial 
to the Maxwell House version. 
Natalie Finerty of West 
Bloomfield also grew up read-
ing from the Maxwell House 
Haggadah. It wasn’t until she 
had kids that she learned there 
were alternatives and swapped 
out the ubiquitous Haggadah 
for a more kid-friendly one.
Still, she has fond memories 
of reading from the pages of the 
Maxwell House Haggadah and 
could always tell which pages 
were skipped versus the ones 
they read, based on whether the 
pages were crisp and clean or 
worn and stained. 
“We definitely skipped a lot,
” 
she said. 
With six editions printed, 
not everyone seated at Finerty’s 
Seder table had the same ver-
sion. Often, it became a case 
of frantic page-flipping to find 
the text that matched what 
was being read out loud, she 
recalled. 
The most recent overhaul 
occurred with the 2011 edition. 
Updates included separating the 
Hebrew and English on oppo-
site pages and revising some 
images and English translations. 
Outdated words like “thee” and 
“thou” were dropped. 
According to Rosenfeld, 
consumers frequently contact 
the New Jersey-based advertis-
ing agency to ask for previous 
editions of the Haggadah to 
replace damaged books from 
their collection. 
They don’t have previous edi-
tions. But they do have copies 
of the 2011 version that can be 
shipped to those who can’t get 
them at the local grocery store. 
The books are still free but 
cost $3 each for shipping. 
Grocery stores in Metro Detroit 
do not appear to have copies 
with this year’s Passover food 
selection. 

Fruits of Freedom is designed 
to help us understand the 
most fundamental of Passover 
questions: Why? Why is this 
dinner so different? Why must 
we publicly burn our chametz? 
Why must we roast our kor-
ban pesach (paschal lamb) on 
pomegranate wood instead of 
our standard backyard bar-
becue or in the oven? Why 
do some people eat a banana 
as their karpas? Why did 
horseradish (root) become so 
acceptable when the Mishnah 
specifically indicates that 
maror is from the leaves or 
stems of plants and the Gemara 
does not include it as one of 
the acceptable plants on its list? 
With nearly 100 images, 
many of them botanical, Fruits 
of Freedom takes a cultural and 
ecosystem approach to “reveal 
unfamiliar meanings of every 
detail of the seder, from the 
table settings and menu to the 
color of the wine and ingredi-
ents in the charoset.” 
The Passover seder is, at its 
core, a highly circumscribed 
dinner party that is arguably 
the greatest intergenerational 
informal educational envi-
ronment ever designed. It’s 
a poly-sensorial and multi-
lingual experience where the 
Four Questions, convention-
ally recited by the youngest, is 
just one of the many ways in 
which the seder is designed to 
teach.

As an environmental educa-
tor and culinary historian, the 
Fruits of Freedom Haggadah par-
ticularly speaks to me. Opening 
the maggid section, Greenberg 
asks “Leaving Egypt in haste —
how fast was that?” to introduce 
leavening processes for a society 
that relied on, and barely under-
stood, wild yeasts. 
In the discussion of chametz 
whimsically titled “Leaving 
Bread, Leaving Egypt,
” 
Greenberg’s commentary 
provides a historical cultural 
primer on Egyptian culture 
where people quite literally wor-
shipped the god of fermentation 
of bread and beer. Abstaining 
from bread and beer, the 
Hebrews define their break 
from Egyptian slavery and cul-
tural subservience with matzah, 
which is the most deliberately 
unleavened bread you could 
possibly make.
There is so much fascinating 
material included in this book. 
Gleaned from many disci-
plines, sources and eras, Fruits 
of Freedom makes the Passover 
seder so much accessible 
through translation and contex-
tualization. 
Whether you are a foodie, 
environmentalist, historian or 
simply hungry for a little bit 
of everything, this food-for-
ward Haggadah will be sure 
to nourish your own Passover 
seders for many years to come. 
Dayenu. 

The wine cup 
of pharaoh 
Tutankhamun (“King 
Tut”). One of the 
reasons for the 
four cups of wine 
at the seder is the 
four mentions of 
pharaoh’s wine cup 
by the wine steward 
as he described 
his dream to 
Joseph. These cups 
were also used in 
divination. 

A FAMILIAR TRADITION continued from page 37

