613 or 420?
feature story
O n April 21, the sixth night of Passover,
more than just Jews were celebrating a
holiday revolving around a burning bush.

Th e day marked the beginning of the legal sale
of recreational marijuana to adults in the Garden
State, with lines wrapping around the buildings of
the roughly dozen dispensaries with grand openings.

While droves commemorated the occasion with
food trucks and reggaeton music, the legalization was
not unanimously celebrated.

Rabbi Hershel Schachter of the Orthodox Union
released a statement on March 11, before the New
Jersey law went into eff ect, fortifying acclaimed
Orthodox Rabbi Moshe Feinstein’s ruling on the sub-
ject 49 years prior.

Schachter wrote that substance use inhibits human’s
free thought, drawing from a Pirkei Avot chapter
which states that “sleeping through the morning and
drinking wine in the aft ernoon are among things that
removes man from the world”. He adds to Feinstein’s
point that mental impairment prevents an individual
from fulfi lling the responsibilities of studying Torah.

Of course, not all Jews have abided by the rab-
bis’ interpretation of Jewish law, or at least, a $400
menorah bong from online cannabis glassware store
GRAV would indicate otherwise.

Th e presence of weed in Jewish popular culture
suggests a generational divide in how marijuana
use in the community is perceived. Th e Instagram
account @tokin.jew wishes its more than 9,000 fol-
lowers a “Shabbong Shalom” almost weekly, posting
pictures of Jewish celebrities such as “Broad City”’s
Ilana Glazer and Seth Rogan posing with their par-
aphernalia. Th e two confl icting viewpoints make one thing
clear: When it comes to weed, like most Jewish issues,
its history and use in Jewish spaces is complicated.

Despite Feinstein’s ruling a half-century ago deem-
ing recreational marijuana use Jewishly unethical, the
Jewish relationship with the drug far predates the mod-
ern day.

Eddy Portnoy, director of exhibitions at the YIVO
Institute for Jewish Research in New York, explores
20 MAY 5, 2022 | JEWISHEXPONENT.COM
Gabrielle Schwartz is a 2021 Tribe 12 fellow and
advocate for medicinal marijuana use.

this connection in his exhibit “Am Yisrael High: Th e
Story of Jews and Cannabis.”
Rabbinic mention of cannabis dates to 13th-cen-
tury rabbi Nachmanides, who argued that kaneh
bosem, which may be cannabis, was one of the com-
ponents of the incense blend in the temple, which
had properties that allowed the smoke to rise directly
upward, Portnoy said.

Th e Cairo Geniza, a collection of 11th-14th century
Jewish manuscripts, mentions the use of hashish, a
potent cannabis.

Th ese claims from antiquity were recently bol-
stered by a discovery by Israeli archaeologists two
years ago: Two altars in a synagogue near the Dead
Sea had residue of burned cannabis.

“What becomes evident is that the ancient Israelites
did burn cannabis as part of their religious ritual,”
Portnoy said.

Even throughout the middle ages, Jews connection
to cannabis was apparent and laid the groundwork
for some Jews’ continued support of cannabis use
through the 20th century.

“In the medieval period in Europe, Jews were
not allowed to own land,” Portnoy said. “Th ey were
restricted to certain occupations; they weren’t per-
mitted to join professional guilds. Because of this,
Jews had to scramble to make a living.”
Jews turned to the black market to make money,
which created an “ingrained sensibility among Jews that
risk taking in the business world was useful,” Portnoy
argued. Th is intrinsic divergent thinking persisted across
centuries and continents and translated to a large
Jewish presence in underground and burgeoning arts
spaces, such as the comic book and fi lm industries in
the mid-1900s.

It could have been the same sensibility that led
Jewish beatnik Allen Ginsberg to participate in the
fi rst marijuana legalization rally in 1964 and join the
U.S.’s fi rst legalization organization Lemar, which
stands for “legalize marijuana”.

Th ree years later, fi ve Jewish New Yorkers founded
the Yippies, a political movement whose central
plank was the legalization of marijuana.

But while some Jews thrived during the coun-
terculture revolution that popularized recreational
marijuana use, Orthodox Jewish leaders, such as
Feinstein, eschewed marijuana use.

“For many years, marijuana with associated with
criminal behavior and antisocial behavior, counter-
cultural behavior associated with a whole cultural
zeitgeist, which was very much opposed to traditional
religion,” said Rabbi Yitzhak Grossman, senior lec-
turer at Greater Washington Community Kollel in
Silver Springs, Maryland.

In the 1970s, Orthodox Jewish leaders opposed
recreational marijuana use with “remarkable una-
nimity,” Grossman said.

One of the central spiritual arguments against recre-
Courtesy of Gabrielle Schwartz
SASHA ROGELBERG | STAFF WRITER
Background Photo: Gleti / iStock / Getty Images Plus
Jewish Thinkers Split Among
Ethics of Cannabis Use