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



ational marijuana use is found in this week’s Torah por-
tion Kedoshim, which opens with “You shall be holy.”
According to Rabbi Yonah Gross, Keystone K
kashrus administrator and rabbi at Wynnewood syn-
agogue Congregation Beth Hamedrosh, recreational
marijuana as a form of escapism prevents awareness
to fulfi ll mitzvot.

“One of those principles that the Torah gives us is
to make sure that you live a life of holiness, and one
then has to ask themselves, does this activity then cor-
respond with living that life of holiness?” Gross said.

Even without the spiritual implications of substance
use, rabbis considered the physical ones: Because the
Torah commands the preservation of
life, the potentially dangerous practice
of recreational substance use is for-
bidden. (On the contrary, medicinal
marijuana use is permissible because
it would allow physical relief from
pain and therefore make one more
physically and spiritually capable of
fulfi lling commandments.)
But the argument dismissing mari-
juana use because it is a mind-altering
substance is a slippery one, rabbis
admit. In Jewish spaces, alcohol use is
oft en not only acceptable but encour-
aged. On Passover, many Jews drink
four cups of wine at their seder; on
Purim, some fulfi ll the tradition of drinking until
they cannot discern between Haman and Mordechai,
yet rabbis do not unanimously condemn drinking.

While Gross, who does not condone excessive drink-
ing on holidays or otherwise, argues that some drink-
ing can be sanctioned, as it is usually done in a social
setting and diff erentiates between the chemical eff ects
alcohol versus marijuana has on the brain, Grossman
believes that the role of alcohol is more acceptable,
partially because it is more deeply entrenched and
traditional in Jewish spaces.

Th e acceptability of marijuana among Jews appears
to have a generational and denominational divide,
2021 Tribe12 fellow and medicinal marijuana advo-
cate Gabrielle Schwartz believes.

Schwartz, who does content marketing for a can-
nabis-related television network, grew up in a Reform
community; she fi rst used marijuana as a young teen-
ager under the supervision of her mother, which wasn’t
uncommon among her family’s group of friends.

“Nobody that I knew really had this negative con-
notation towards it, so I never really had a negative
connotation towards it,” Schwartz said.

more of what we want to do. We’re not really neces-
sarily following tradition down to a ‘T’”, Schwartz
said. “We’re just following certain traditions that
make us feel comfortable, and then we just take it
from there.”
For larger Jewish authorities, Schwartz said, chang-
ing minds on marijuana use will be much slower,
but Grossman maintains that the Orthodox stance
on recreational marijuana could very well change,
though likely not anytime soon.

One hundred years ago, Orthodox rabbis con-
doned tobacco use, only putting restrictions on
its use during holidays, when lighting a fi re is not
permissible; rabbis only began to
change their tune on smoking in
the 1970s, when more information
was released on the harms of the
behavior. Th e allowance of greater educational
opportunities for women emerged in
Orthodox spaces as the broader soci-
ety prioritized women’s rights.

“It’s not necessarily that the word
of God is not permanent,” Grossman
said. “It’s that the word of God has
to be applied diff erently in changing
circumstances.” But recreational marijuana is
slightly diff erent than these issues,
Grossman said, because the same urgency to make
changes isn’t there. Th ough marijuana has taken cen-
ter stage on a national level in recent years, rabbis just
don’t believe the issue is large enough in the Jewish
community to alter their stance.

“It’s very diffi cult to know whether this is going to
be one of those things that we’ll look back on in 50
years and try to understand why we were so adamant
that this was going to be a hill that we choose to die
on,” Grossman said. JE
Courtesy of Alliance Israelite Universelle via YIVO Library
Though marijuana has taken
center stage on a national level
in recent years, rabbis just don’t
believe the issue is large enough
in the Jewish community to alter
their stance.

Schwartz’s Reform peers share her beliefs, and
among other denominations, opinions on recre-
ational marijuana use diff er, just as opinions on Jews
getting piercings and tattoos may diff er.

For Schwartz, the growing acceptability of recre-
ational marijuana use among younger Jews is refl ec-
tive of a growing pattern of adapting the religion to
one’s own personal and political values, as well to as
the changing social climate.

“As our generation is getting older, we’re doing
Altars from a c. third century BCE synagogue in Tel
Arad contain burned cannabis and frankincense
residue. YIVO’s “Am Yisrael High” exhibit poster by Steve
Marcus A seder plate from Tokin Jew
A fragment from Cairo Geniza (c. 1200-1300)
requesting the purchase of hashish
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