The Stoner Chasid

I’m in one of the most ultra-orthodox Jewish neighborhoods in Los Angeles (on La Brea Boulevard just north of Beverly) on Friday night, the beginning of the Jewish Sabbath. As I’m walking to my destination, a coffee shop where I will continue my frantic quest to restore all of the work I lost because of my failed hard drive last week (nothing was recoverable), I am suddenly surrounded by large groups of Chasidic men on their way to synagogue. There are different branches of Chasidism represented in this crowd, as evidenced by their headgear and distinctive clothing. Many of the men I see wear shtreimels, the dramatic fur hats that look like large mink lampshades. Some groups wear more modern-looking hats that resemble the wide-brimmed bowler that Boy George wore during his 1980s heyday. For all their Old World ways, the men in this group give off a surprisingly hip appearance with their tailored black suits, white shirts with no ties, prayer fringes, and leather boots. With their long sidelocks and Boy George hats, they look like they could either be on their way to their crowded little shtibels for Friday night prayers or headed over to east L.A. to see some avant-garde rock band.

As I’ve written about before, there’s something about the closed-knit Chasidic communities that draws me in whenever I’m in their presence. I know that after ten minutes in their strict, pious, rule-based world I’d want to seriously rebel from the party line of what I can and cannot do, and I don’t really feel the calling to join their ranks, but in theory I find their highly structured lifestyle appealing and romantic. I admire their groupness, their uniformity, their rejection of cultural excesses, and their intense focus on family and ritual.

A group of the Boy George Chasids are headed my way in a large pack, walking briskly. “Good Shabbos,” I mutter quietly. “Good Shabbos,” a few of them respond. Some meet my gaze a bit accusingly before looking away. Who is this heathen Jew and what is he doing on a Friday night with that backpack? Maybe even glacing in the direction of an unreligious Jew is some kind of sin for them, especially on Shabbat when they are getting ready for their prayers. But others look at me with interest, and I realize I’m staring right back at them, like we are neighboring exhibits in a cross-cultural zoo. The dark-clothed men separate wordlessly into two single file lines and pass around me on the sidewalk, their black overcoats rustling. What fine material their clothes seem to be made of, I think, as I spot a straggler a few yards behind the pack. He is clearly part of this group, dressed identically and walking with the same determined gait, but there is something different about this guy. What is it? Oh my God—he’s smoking! I don’t remember ever seeing Chasidic men or women smoke, much less on the Sabbath when I know full well it is forbidden. We used to go to my orthodox grandparents on Friday nights and every week my mother and grandmother would escape to my grandmother’s bedroom after dinner and sneak in a few cigarettes. Their ruse never worked. Every single week without fail my grandfather would come in the room and start screaming, “Anita! Judy! Not on Shabbos!” at which point they would snuff out their cigarettes like they were schoolgirls caught by the principal. This went on for around four decades but every Friday my grandfather acted as shocked as if it were the very first time he had discovered such a shameful display.

I can’t for the life of me imagine why this Chasidic guy, who seems to be around 18 or 19, would dare to smoke in public, just a few feet behind his group. As we walk past each other, I get caught in a cloud of the smoke he is exhaling. WHAAAAAAT?! Filling my nostrils is the unmistakable aroma of marijuana. Yep. Pot. Weed. Grass. Dope. Was I being videotaped for the Yiddish version of “Punk’d” or maybe a new reality show called “Chasidic Bloopers and Blunders?” God knows I act like a reality show contestant with my response. I stop dead in my tracks, spin my head around in a whiplash-inducing double-take, and feel my mouth open so wide you could stuff three matzoh balls into it. Surely there has to be an explanation. Maybe the poor guy has severe glaucoma and got a special dispensation from the Rebbe to smoke medical marijuana on Shabbat? I look ahead at the larger group and they don't even turn around to check on their pot-smoking straggler.

I start to think how naïve I am to be so shocked at the idea of religious Jews smoking pot. What fantasies do I carry about these groups that disregards the fact they are human beings with the same dramas and foibles as the rest of us? Do I think they aren’t subject to addictions or urges or even illicit crime because of their group status? I can't help but think of another group that is as closed-knit and family-focused as the Chasids—the MAFIA!

I suddenly remember some lurid reports from a few years back about a few Chasidic rabbis in Brooklyn who were caught laundering drug money and working closely with Columbian drug cartels. Oy! Needless to say, there are bad apples in every group. But what’s the deal with my reefer-toting Chasidic boy? I’ll never know but I start wondering whether there are any connections between pot and ultra-orthodoxy that I know nothing about. While I’m sure there is no official condoning of drug use in this community, I do manage to find a few websites that extoll the use of marijuana in Jewish tradition, most notably an interesting blog called Cannabis Chassidis that purports to reveal the secret Jewish history of cannabis. Who knew? “Don’t blow this site off as sophomoric stoner B.S.,” the Jerusalem-based blogger asks his readers. “This is actually some of the deepest and realest Torah available on the Internet.” I’ll bet, although I think it’s safe to say that it’s not the Torah interpretation that my orthodox grandfather would have embraced.

When I get to my destination, I continue my review of all of the documents I lost in my hideous computer crash. Each time I remember another non-backed-up cache of files, I find myself cringing and shaking my head in disbelief. Besides my important work files, I lost all of the research I had done about my ancestry, including hundreds of documents about my own Chasidic roots in Poland. If anyone ever had the need for some Shabbat mind-altering drugs, it is me. Should I try to find my Chasidic friend and see if I can score some kosher weed?

Comments

[your sister]

Yes.

[Dave]

Couldn't hurt!

[Ancil]

Cute Yiddishe blog. I still wouldn't fit in with these Jewish guys.

[psychotoddler]

What was it Billy Crystal used to say? "It is better to look religious, than to be religious."

[churlita]

How funny. I have so many issues with any organzied religion, that I love to see people rebelling. Doesn't it make you want to go back and find the group and ask them what they think about their weed smoking friend? I'm really curious.

[Paula]

My condolences on your computer crash. Smoking pot won't help you - it will just post-pone the pain.

Thanks to you, I now own two Arlene Francis books. I should never read your blog with a full checking account!

[MikalM]

Danny,

Sorry about the computer crash.

And re the Chasidim: I often feel the same way about my faith's Orthodox: the Eastern Christian priests and monks, who radiate the same sort of image of not being completely here in this wacky consumerist PoMo world, and carrying on ancient traditions of faith and community. (Of course, you know where Orthodox Christian clerics got those big beards and black clothes from, don'cha?)

As for the cannabis angle: it's quite possible. The stuff's been around since the beginning of human history, and I wouldn't be surprised to see a hub of civilization like ancient Israel featuring its use somewhere.

(Would "Kosher weed" be chronic blessed by a Rabbi? Or does it depend on how it's harvested? Inquiring minds want to know!)

[therapydoc]

Good morning, Danny. Why don't you survey some of your younger cousins (in Chicago, right?) Ask them how much pot the kids smoke these days. The costume doesn't change anything.

[By Jane]

I have TWO responses to this post. Do you want them in the same comment? Okay...

Response One: Beauty is obviously in the eye of the beholder. I walk down those same streets and see those same men and think: Do they look so homely because they're so orthodox or are they so orthodox because they're so homely? I also have to stop myself from darting up and tagging them. Touched you; female not related touched you!

Response Two: In Vegas a couple of years ago, the Bellagio I believe it was, I came across a couple of them playing the slots. To say I was shocked is an understatement, and being a mouthy Jewish girl, I had to tell them so. "What are you doing here? Why aren't you in shul praying? What does the Torah say about gambling?" They were, as I recall, quite defensive.

[Yoseph Leib]

Polish Chassidis was the far-outest chassidis, as far as I've seen. So, if not your Grandfather, maybe his Grandfather, partied.

But it's a historical mystery a little bit, how much chassidic culture was a drug culture in the early days... The stories abound of particular communally designated groups of Pipe smoking Kabbalists doing little but sitting together and pondering the supernal mysteries, but to know for sure what was in their pipes, we might have to get someone to look at Turkish tax records from before 1870.

But that has nothing to do with modern Chaseedish Marijuana culture, nessesarily. The scandelous thing in the story you describe was the guy smoking on Friday night. That's some kind of rebellious kid, with friends who back him up enough to still hang around him at least... but how late was it on friday? Early evening is not considered night by Many Chassidim. Though alot of the more cynical kids just don't give a fuck about G-d's so-called Law, the clothing is the last thing to change in the secularization process.

But isn't it nice to have a day when you can actually see people walking around in LA? And speaking of LA, you don't even need dealers there, do you? just a licence and a dispensery adress, right?

Kosher weed, p.s., much like Kosher vegetables, is all weed, pretty much, unless it's stolen or grown in Israel during a Sabbatical year, at which point it's still useable, just illegal to profit from. Thanks for the Link!

--Yoseph

[Kevin]

Danny, great 'blog. I found you looking for "the Magic Door", which I also grew up with, in Indiana, just east of Gary. As you said, I had no idea I was learning Hebrew. Years later, I joined Hillel, went on retreats, etc. Who's to say the Magic Door didn't predispose me to liking Jews. :)

I just wanted to say, save your crashed drive. Right now, full recovery (if it wasn't a head-crash with scraped metal) costs between $250 and $1500, but as the years pass, I'm guessing it will come down. And, if your drive can be recovered for closer to the $250 end, I'm guessing that's worthwhile to you? Anyway, good luck!

[Zev]

There is no such thing as "kosher" or "unkosher" weed, as it is not eaten. You can smoke any type of weed you want and not have to worry about any of the issues of kashrus. I'm ultra-Orthodox (though I'm completely "with it").

[urban memo]

i love your blog!

[Maxx]

I'm somewhat of a stoner. Ok, who am I kidding I am completely a stoner. Anyway, I study with a Chasidic rabbi and go to a Chasidic shul. Some have spent considerable time (or even grew up in) the secular world and either discovered or came back to Chasidism later in life. The ones I know definitely smoked their fair share of weed, though I'm not sure if they still indulge, or would if offered.
As for the rest, I get the sense that weed isn't really on their map. But as a result, there doesn't seem to be any real promotion against it.
I always thought it'd be a funny SNL skit to have a weed smoking Chasidic rabbi with a monster beard. Somehow it seems fitting.

[Chassidishe Maidele]

I just kinda stumbled on this post by accident while searching for something about a particular group of chasidim... but as I am a strong believer in Divine Providence, while I'm here I may as well give my opinion. To start off, in defense of "my" people aka the chasidim - there are as many bad nuts in this community as there are in the secular world. There are girls I go to school with who by day, are perfect chasidishe maideles, learn Torah and wouldn't DARE wear skirts that were less than 8 inches below the knee, but by night I'll see these girls go out, get stoned, and wake up the next morning in some fried-out ex Yeshiva Bochur's bedroom wearning nothing but their birthday suit. Its sad, but it happens. Not everyone can take all the pressures that come with living this kind of lifestyle. That said, if you ever happen to run into these guys again (or an identical group and seeing as I know your area pretty well considering how I spend countless weekends there with friends, you're BOUND to run into guys like them again) why not join them for once? Shul on friday night with a bunch of chasidim getting high off of Torah is the most amazing experience in the world! Its defenitely worth the walk! ;)
K. Peace out Yid!
-C

[Chassidishe Maidele]

Thanks for responding to my comment!
The chasidic community is awesome, and depending on the guys you happen to see walking down the street, I would only hope that you are welcomed at their shul. In your area (you said you lived near/in Brea, right?) there is a pretty nice sized Chabad community, and they’re totally welcoming to everyone – whether they’ll become frum or not. They believe that every Jew – no matter how observant – should be able to enjoy Judaism. It’s a pretty cool philosophy. Anyhow, I’m not going to speak for all the Chasidim in the area seeing as I am only acquainted with a few sects, but were you to explain that you were Jewish, and would like to see what its like at a Chassidic shul, they would be going against the Torah NOT to invite you along!
So, that was kinda a really long answer to a really short question. But yeah. The Chasidic community is one with as many oddballs and extremists and everythign else you can imagine. If you'd like - my friend and I share a blog "www.revolutionation.blogspot.com" where we talk about the ins and outs of chassidic life. Needless to say, its anonymous (some of the Rabbis at our school mmight put us in cheirem (excommunication) if they read the things that go on in the average teenage chassidish girl's life.
Anyhow, shalom aleichem and keep it lifted!
-C

[m.yahn]

great idea! maybe he has a note for the medical maryjane!