Rava said: It is one’s duty levasumei, to make oneself fragrant on Purim until one cannot tell the difference between ‘arur Haman‘ (cursed be Haman) and ‘barukh Mordekhai’ (blessed be Mordecai)
Babylonian Talmud, Megillah 7b
I’m sure I’m not the only Jew especially eager to celebrate Purim next week, the one day in the Jewish year when it’s an actual mitzvah to get wasted in order to commemorate yet another occasion when we survived the genocidal intent of a Jew-hating regime thanks to the chutzpah and bravery of a Jewish woman (FACTS).
In this case it was around 479 B.C.E., during the reign of the Persian King Ahasuerus, and the dude who hated us for no apparent reason was named Hamen, and the woman who foiled his plans, our Queen Esther. Even though this story is read on Purim in the Book of Esther, her cousin Mordechai gets all the credit for being the “hero,” simply for recruiting her for the job (shocker).
We celebrate our survival with the Jewish version of Carnival: we drink copious amounts of alcohol while we listen to the book of Esther being read in synogogue, and make lots of noise every time the name “Hamen” is mentioned (as in: He Who Must Not Be Named), until we are so drunk that⏤in accord with Rava’s decree⏤we can no longer distinguish between Mordechai and Haman, the “hero” and the villian (and, apparently, no longer triggered by the name of our would-be génocidaire).
Although getting intoxicated was decreed by our ancient Rabbis, it is not exactly known why, which⏤as you can imagine⏤has led to some pretty, pretty, pretty great Jewish interpretations of this commandment to get wasted one day a year, apparently to honour Mordechai’s instruction at the end of the story (after Esther saved them all) to celebrate this occasion of their near-escape from mass murder with “yemel mishteh v’simchah,” days of drinking and rejoicing (Esther: 9:22). Even so, it’s quite a leap from a little rejoicing to getting shitfaced in shul.
This opens up the possibility for some Canna-Jewish critical theory to shine a light on Rava’s decree and reveal that his notion of “intoxication” has nothing to do with binge drinking on Purim. For Rava reveals that the aim of our Purim-intoxication is not to lose control but “levasumei,” to get relaxed and mellow; a state-of-mind that does not come so easily to many of us born with compromised endocannabinoid systems and shitty epigenetic luck from millennia of surviving exile, persecution, and near-destruction.
It’s important to note that the command to get intoxicated on Purim is different in kind from commandments to drink limited amounts of wine on other holidays⏤such as Passover⏤which have symbolic associations. On Purim, in contrast, we do not consume an intoxicating substance for symbolic reasons; it is purely functional. Thus the nature of the obligation is not defined by volume, but rather, by the effect upon the Jew who consumes.
This is why it makes sense that Rava was clearly recommending cannabis as the means of attaining the holy intoxication, especially since he doesn’t actually mention wine or any other kind of alcohol in relation to how we fight for our right to party on Purim.
With regard to how much we consume, he recommends that we intoxicate ourselves until we are “fragrant.” This has generally been taken to mean that one should get so drunk that someone can smell the alcohol on the breath, a “stinking drunk.” However, it’s less of a stretch to take this to mean that we should inhale or annoint ourselves with the Biblical kaneh-infused holy oil until we reek of weed.
It may seem counterintuitive for Rava to recommend that Jews “green out” or over-consume cannabis if the aim is to chill, since one of the possible symptoms is a heightened state of anxiety. However, this raises the question of why we’re commanded to get intoxicated to forget the name of our sworn enemy.
It’s revealing that we are not called upon to forgive Haman, but instead to reach an altered state in which we can’t be bothered with hating on him. That certainly resonates with the experience of greening out⏤whatever form it takes⏤which doesn’t leave cognitive space for anger or resentment. I think the tradition is rooted in Canna-Jewish wisdom that our past makes the present hard to bear, and sometimes it’s kosher to over-consume with oil, incense and edibles in order to get the Hamans out of our head⏤at least once a year.
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