there is no brocha for heart medicine or cancer drugs
there is no brocha for using a computer, driving a car so how dare you do these thinsg whilst judging everyone else as an inferior being just cause you can’t handle the truths of life and must run sober into dellusionment.

herb predates all “drugs” as its completely natural and grows wild of its own accord all over the middle east including Israel, its as natural as manhimself.

btw do you advocate all the teachings of the talmud?all of them? thought so so shut up till you can talk about something you actually know something about.

earth was made in 7 days, sure….

time to rebuild the temple and rewrite teh talmud for this century as traditional judaism has done through teh ages to stay as spiritual leaders – even mohammed said so himself…..

maybe if you smoked a little herb you’d be intellegent enough to question your brainwashing and learn something. or does teh worship of gods prevent you from questioning…

i could go on all night but i’m sick of you judgemental religious sex freaks, eveolution will make you extinct soon enough.

The fitght shows someone absolutely refusing to be defeated, no matter what it takes, and is very moving.

JM – I’m not saying I know the correct interpretation. In any case, Jacob won by surrendering his will to G-d. Although the other guy was kinda throwing the fight for a bit by not using (his/her) divine power… until the hollow thigh incident.

Those Kabbalists always make things interesting, don’t they?

He won. He didn’t do sweet surrender. He won. It wasn’t easy, either. The other guy did not throw the fight.

Jacob won. The hard way.

Liratov and JM – I like you brought up the Jacob wrestling with G-d image. There’s a Kabbalah interpretation of the parable (I have to find it somewhere in the book pile) I’ve always liked. The idea is that the angel appeared to Jacob as Jacob, yet in his divine state. Jacob wrestled with his divine self, and by surrendering he was able to reach his divine. For me, in my writing, it’s always been an important parable, because we wrestle with our ego, self-doubt, inhibitions and other’s expectations and by letting go – as Jacob did – we’re able to find the truth in our work. When one of us were struggling with a piece of work we used to joke… “Dude, you gotta stop wrestling with you angel.”

But we do wrestle with how many beers it’s safe to have before driving home. It’s all valid.

I always like reminders of that image of Jacob. And for me, this is probably because I go too far to extremes, but enough of my friends have been badly bruised in their intense affairs w/alcohol for me to enjoy watching people get sloshed.

So I agree w/the Muffti and you in this case.

Was it R. Nachman of Bratislav that could just walk in the fields or the forest and have visions of angels himself? Do you think I’ve been too tainted by my Celtic side that I sing “Hiney mah tov” to trees? (I should learn the beautiful-tree bracha.)

To get the complex happiness of marriage, one has to forgo the more simple-minded paths to another kind of less demanding and less rewarding happiness. I am concerned about the place-holder effect. You feel ok one way, so you don’t bother with the other, more advanced, grown-up way.

You stop being a wrestler with G-d. You just chill, and leave the wrestling to others.

That’s not manly.

Just saying. Shalom to all.

I am with you on all that.

Having a glass of wine and saying a bracha is “using in a religious tradition”. That is ok. If you can handle it in a manly way.

About women and alcohol: our blood volume is much less and our livers are much smaller and our bodies process sugars much more efficiently (alcohol is a sugar in addition to being a decorticating agent and a poison).

Women: careful. It is not the same for you as him. It is going to hit you harder and faster. And no matter what the liberal men say, it is going to have much worse social consequences for you.

Absolutely one of the funniest things I’ve read in a while. Thanks for the deep belly laugh.

Mind you, drugs are illegal and they seem to support an underground that may be involved with terrorism against Israelis, but what the hell, if bringing up King Solomon’s drug using habits won’t convince Israeli authorities to decriminalize drug use, what will?

I know! Maybe if the US stopped the War on Drugs…

We traditionally let everybody have a little wine, in a very solemnized way. Anybody who SHOWS a personality change from it in an obvious way is criticized, and ridiculed hard, as “shicker”, and viewed as totally low-class, and feh, yucky, stupid and worse.

Never farbrenged with a Chasid, huh?

But let’s say for the sake of argument (and also for the sake of it being true) that there were a lot of religious Jewish drug users who mix drug use with religious experiences, who “invite God to the party.” Does that make it okay? I mean, maybe Chazal didn’t do it, but Chazal also didn’t eat kugel, make their wives wear wigs or knock back a few shots at the kiddush at shul, and all those things seem to be widely accepted as part of traditional Judaism now.

But really, if you’re arguing that any and all substance use has to be in the context of religious traditions, well, then we’re talking way past each other.

But anyway.

I didn’t say there were no traditions around this. I said our tradition was not around this, and you agreed with me.

Then you said our tradition does not forbid it. Here is a fuller picture of how tradition regards this:

We traditionally let everybody have a little wine, in a very solemnized way. Anybody who SHOWS a personality change from it in an obvious way is criticized, and ridiculed hard, as “shicker”, and viewed as totally low-class, and feh, yucky, stupid and worse.

The people you mention are doing an irreligious thing: they are getting loose outside of a kiddush; they are not inviting G-d to their party. That is not Jewish. Nobody has told them that, because they are too cagey to ask.

The Ashkenazim have never had to deal with this before. I have no idea about the Sefardi take on this, or how they stave it off; they are the ones who have been in the warm countries.

Risk-taking is, of course, a personal choice. And nobody said drug use was traditional Judaism, although traditional Judaism certainly doesn’t forbid it – if I had a shekel for every Orthodox stoner I know, I’d be taking a bath in an Olympic-sized pool of hummus right now.

And seriously, it’s been well established by neutral researchers that a casual, moderated drug habit is no more harmful to you than a casual, moderated liquor habit. In the case of some drugs, it’s even less harmful. Compare “marijuana toxicity” to “cirrhosis of the liver.” And I’ve never seen a violent stoner, although I’ve seen plenty of violent drunks.

And it remains utterly specious. The “physical, mental and social” effects a drug may or may not have on a consumer are a pretty lame reason to illegalize all drugs, except those drugs of course that we’ve arbitrarily decided are okay (including alcohol, caffeine, and naturally the exciting and multi-colored host of uppers, downers, and sidewaysers you can get right down the street at your local pharmacy).

First, of course, all drugs act differently on different people, depending on their physiology, their mood, their surroundings and countless other factors, meaning no drug causes one set effect, whether physical, mental or social. Alcohol makes some people sad and quiet, and other raging lunatics, but just because it has the potential to bring about undesirable social and physical effects doesn’t mean we make it illegal – except, of course, that one time we tried. Remember how well that went? We accept the need to exercise responsibility and wise consumption in the case of alcohol, but for some reason, people aren’t allowed to exercise that same responsibility and wisdom when it comes to other, often more innocuous drugs.

Second, drugs are neither inherently good nor evil, and there is no drug, alcohol included, that can bring out a personality trait in a person that wasn’t already there.

And I’ve said “no” to drugs many times – when I wasn’t in the mood, when I had something important to do that I wanted to be sober for, when I had other plans. You know, like almost all drug users who don’t let enjoying themselves a little get in the way of their responsibilities, those aforementioned wine drinkers included.

Saying “no” to something is just such a good thing to do; it strengthens one’s inner rebel. Do you really want to be so go-along? You’re allowed a glass of wine! You’re over 18. You will be expected to handle it, however. Like a man.

Speed dulls people as well as anything else.

Well, I am traditional. Maybe you’re not.

There are traditions around wine that are old such as convivial eating and savoring and kiddush making.

Maybe you are making your own traditions with something else, who knows. But that isn’t traditional Judaism.

I am a very practical person and I advocate sticking with what has a long track record of working socially and religiously, if done right.

You are taking a risk. It don’t think the potential benefits justify the risk. That is always how one evaluates a risk: is the game worth the candle. Well it’s not, here.

I wasn’t selling you the private life of King Solomon. Nor King David. You will be telling me about his sins, too, next.

Cheap shot.

And if you’re worried about the dulling effects of certain drugs, well, might I recommend speed?

About the Song of Songs, well, it wasn’t written by King Solomon, as any Hebrew linguist could tell you…but let’s say it was, just for the sake of argument. If we’re going to accept traditional interpretations of his character, i.e. that he was a boozing, shiksa-lovin’, idolatrous womanizing sonofabitch, then it probably stands to reason that, had the option been available to him, he would have indulged in the (more than) occasional puff, snort or what-have-you. Solomon would have been that guy doing lines off the naked bodies of nubile Egyptian princesses and then screaming, “LET’S SEE YOU PHILISTINE BITCHES TAKE ON THE KING!!”

And of course, drawing a moral distinction between one type of socially-accepted drug use and its resulting intoxication and that of another is specious at best.

It is totally nauseating on a woman.

How women do you date who do that? If you do, what do you think of them?

That is why I said it was unmanly.

I am so sorry this is the world my generation bequeated to yours. You don’t remember anything else.

So, in penance, here I am, a relic, telling you to stick to wine.

I never did that. I got married.

If it was known forever, and did not become a Jewish tradition, I guess Chazal didn’t think it was something to include. There is an implicit rejection there, although not recorded. We just left it out. Do thou the same.

Re read the Song of Songs. King Solomon mentions vineyards, not .. bonsai. You are not smarter than Shlomo Ha Melech.