Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Can an observant Jew use drugs?
[00:00:06] Hard drugs, cocaine?
[00:00:09] So the answer to this question is, first of all, that the question needs to be rephrased.
[00:00:16] The question is not presented correctly.
[00:00:20] The question is not can an observant Jew use hard drugs? The question is, can a Jew use hard drugs?
[00:00:27] Because all Jews are supposed to be keeping same laws.
[00:00:32] Very often I hear people say something like, oh, I forgot, you are an observant Jew. You are not allowed to eat this and this. To which I always want to answer, and sometimes I do, no, no, no, I'm not allowed to eat this food. Just like you're not allowed to eat this food. We both are not allowed to eat this food.
[00:00:55] So there's no separate laws for observant Jews and for non observing Jews. I had a friend of mine, he is now a Chabad rabbi in Florida, in Orlando. His name is Rabbi Yossi Kanikov. He was known for his sense of humor. And me and him once went to a gentleman who said he was Jewish and we offered him to put on filling.
[00:01:19] And this guy says, well, I'm not an orsted Jew, I'm a reformed Jew.
[00:01:25] So Yosef Kanikov, this friend of mine says, oh, today when I was leaving my house, I took with me specifically the tefillin that we use for Reform Jews to put on. This is a tefillin for Reform Jews. And the guy put it on. He was probably very confused. When he finished, we declarified to him, listen, it's a same tefillin. Reformed Jews are obligated to put exactly the same tefillin as Orthodox Jews and conservative Jews and non observant Jews and humanistic Jews and every type of Jews that exist in the world. So we have a question, can a Jew use cocaine? And the answer is, most oftenly this question is asked with regards to laws of kosher.
[00:02:11] Is cocaine kosher?
[00:02:13] And here the answer is that laws of kosher pertain only to food and anything which is not food is not governed by these laws.
[00:02:25] So we could say metaphorically that stealing or cheating is not kosher. But stealing or cheating is not governed by laws of kosher diet, because unless you eat what you stole, it's not about that.
[00:02:38] So when people use hard drugs, it's not food that they eat. And that's why there's nothing in kosher laws that prohibits doing it.
[00:02:47] But there's a completely different category of laws in the Torah which say that we must guard our health.
[00:02:55] And that's why the Torah is prohibiting doing things which are destructive for your health in the immediate future and in the distant future.
[00:03:03] And we do know that drugs do have their effect on person's well being right after he takes them, and in the long run as well. So this is why the Jewish law does prohibit using drugs, any kind of drugs. And as medicine evolves, we know more and more about harms of different substances that people take. And obviously, the Jewish law just tells me that I must follow the directives of doctors of our times.
[00:03:35] I have to follow the best medical advice I can get. So if, let's say 100 years ago, people did not know much about the harms of marijuana, and today there's a research that shows that it could be very not beneficial for my health. So that's what I need to go with. And that is very important. As a matter of fact, when the Torah says to guard your health, the Torah says you should pay very big attention to this. There's a word very there, and that's important for us to guard our health.
[00:04:09] Okay, so here's another good question. What about alcohol?
[00:04:12] What about smoking?
[00:04:15] So obviously there's a lot of research about negative impact of excessive alcohol intake on your health. And in this regard, the Torah will definitely say then that you are not allowed to drink excessively.
[00:04:29] Will one shot harm your health? Probably doctors will tell you no. If you drink only once a year on Purim, or twice a year on Purim, on Simchatorim, if that's when you really drink, will it harm your health?
[00:04:42] My assumption is not very substantially. That's why it's okay.
[00:04:47] In other words, according to what I usually hear from doctors, that if you take a little bit of alcohol without getting drunk, if you drink in moderation. Now there's a research that shows that the red wine is good for your health. Some other types of alcohol might be good for your health. So yes, getting yourself plastered, getting drunk is very unhealthy and you should not do that. But if you take a little bit of l' Chaim here and there, it's not bad. That's why the doctors allow it. And that's why the Torah says it's not a bad thing.
[00:05:21] As a matter of fact, the Rebbe specifically said that people under 40 should not be drinking more than four L' Chaims at a time.
[00:05:30] But we do know that excessive alcohol use is definitely not healthy. Now, about smoking, we do know that once upon a time, people did not know about the harms of smoking. In the previous Rebbe used to smoke. And then at one point, doctors Told previously bhavish Rebbe to stop smoking because they found out that it was unhealthy. And that time he quit smoking cold turkey right away. And our Rebbe, who is his son in law, when he found out that his father in law stopped smoking, he quit smoking as well.
[00:06:02] And I will actually tell you something else, another interesting detail. There's another interesting twist to smoking and drug, I should say anti smoking and anti drug campaigns.
[00:06:16] Several decades ago, much of American culture was dominated by anti smoking campaign.
[00:06:24] So several decades ago, there was a quite extensive anti smoking campaign all over the US and there were people came to the Rebbe, to Rebbe, asking him to join an anti smoking campaign and asking him to issue a proclamation that his followers are not allowed to smoke. The Rebbe said that on one hand, the Torah is already prohibiting to do anything which is harmful for your health. And if doctors nowadays say that smoking is harmful, you should not be doing it. So that's why no separate proclamation is necessary. It's already covered in a statute that says you should not harm your health.
[00:07:07] On the other hand, the Rebbe said something very interesting. The Rebbe said, all of our campaigns against something harmful should be proportionate to how harmful it is.
[00:07:19] For example, said the Rebbe, if we will have a very strong anti smoking campaign and this campaign will be just about smoking, then many people will quit smoking and start using drugs instead. And drugs are much worse than smoking.
[00:07:38] So the Rebbe was saying, and this was in the 70s, the rabbi was saying that if our anti smoking campaign is louder than our anti drug campaign, then we are shooting ourselves in the foot because we are making a bigger campaign out of lesser evil.
[00:07:56] And the rebbe said it 50 years ago.
[00:08:00] Nowadays we see very unfortunate results of exactly that, because today many more people unfortunately use drugs than smoke. And drugs are far more harmful than smoking.
[00:08:13] So the Rebbe was essentially predicting the problem that we got ourselves into today.
[00:08:20] So you will ask me now, so how come I see observant Jews who are smoking? How come I see observant Jews who are sometimes using drugs? I'm sure there are people like this.
[00:08:31] So my answer is, listen, people tend to divide the entire world into observant Jews and non observant Jews. Really, I am very skeptical about such a hard division because there are many people who I would not know which category to put them in. And I myself never like categorizing people whichever way they are supposed to be described. Because everybody's trying to observe as much Jewish laws as they can.
[00:09:02] And I have to trust that everybody does their best.
[00:09:05] And just like I told you that there's no separate laws for observant Jews rather than, you know, non observant Jews. And everybody has the same laws. So you'll walk over to a person and say, you ask him, are you Jewish? Yeah. So how come you're eating pork?
[00:09:19] You know, very often I see people asking, well, he's an observant Jew. Somebody will say, I don't keep Shabbos, I don't keep kosher, but I would never cheat someone.
[00:09:32] I would never steal anything from anyone. But this person. He's keeping Shabbos and he's keeping kosher. How come he has cheated friend or how come he cheated me?
[00:09:43] He stole my money.
[00:09:45] So I always answer, listen, the Torah has many laws. You picked one half and you keep that half.
[00:09:52] He picked another half. Why? You will ask me, how come he's keeping that half and not keeping this half? I'll say, that's a very good question. If the answer will be exactly the same as the answer to the question, how come you're keeping this half and not that half?
[00:10:05] I will tell you, really, where does this question come from? This question come from because people think that Shabbos and kosher observance is only for people who already perfected all other areas of Torah observance.
[00:10:19] And that notion is completely not true. According to Judaism, all the laws are for everyone equally.
[00:10:28] And this notion that don't deal and don't cheat and don't lie are the basis and keep kosher and don't eat bread on Passover is an added bonus. So that notion is completely incorrect according to the Jewish law.
