Valley Beit Midrash

A virtual event presentation by Dr. Jon Greenberg

EVENT CO-SPONSORED BY:

BMH-BJ

ABOUT THE EVENT:

This program will explore the symbolic and halachic significance of the olive tree. The questions we'll examine include:

• Neglected agricultural and political reasons that the olive-oil chanukiyah displaced an earlier symbol of Chanukah,
• Why the 15th of Av became a day for matchmaking,
• How the social and technological history of olive use mediates a five hundred year-old debate about how to read the Talmud, and
• The beautiful lesson about family relationships that the Psalms draw from the biology of the olive tree.

ABOUT THE SPEAKER:

Dr. Greenberg received his bachelor’s degree with honors in biology from Brown University and his Master’s and Doctorate in agronomy from Cornell University. He has also studied with Rabbi Chaim Brovender at Israel’s Yeshivat Hamivtar and conducted research on corn, alfalfa, and soybeans at Cornell, the US Department of Agriculture, and the University of Pennsylvania’s Institute for Cancer Research. Since 1989, he has been a science teacher and educational consultant. Dr. Greenberg was Senior Editor of science textbooks at Prentice Hall Publishing Co. Previously on the faculty of Yeshivas Ohr Yosef, the School of Education at Indiana University, and the University of Phoenix, he taught at the Heschel School from 2008 to 2024. In 2021, he published Fruits of Freedom, a Passover Hagadah with a commentary from the perspective of the history of Jewish food and agriculture. He is a frequent speaker at synagogues, schools, and botanical gardens. Dr. Greenberg can be contacted at jon@torahflora.org.