Brookwrite

O-U must be kidding

Editor's Note: Reading of this column could result in spontaneous giggling, impaired sensory acuity, and a case of munchitis malignis (aka "the munchies"). Do not work with heavy machinery after reading this column, unless for the purpose of throwing it at the writer.

Earlier this year, the Orthodox Union made news by certifying the world's first kosher marijuana.

As often occurs, the media's splashy headlines misled readers to believe that smoking marijuana was now kosher.

Was it ever not? Maui Wowie is a plant. Plants aren't intrinsically unkosher. Except mushrooms, which are well documented in the Talmud as being an enticement of evil. (Yes, regular mushrooms... One hallucinogen per column.)

What was certified as kosher is marijuana as used in medicinal consumables that, of course, must be certified like any other ingredient.

People were confused. Now that the smoke has cleared, instead of rehashing it further, exploring biblical instances that sound curiously like what might have happened if President Clinton (the First) had inhaled seems appropriate. Or inappropriate, and therefore all the more tempting.

So, pipe down and consider whether any of the following events in the Torah bowl you over as highly reminiscent of a more medicinal encounter.

In Genesis, Jacob stopped for the night, "took one of 'the stones' of the place, put it 'under his head,' and lay down there to sleep." Then he had an odd dream of a ladder leading to the sky, with angels on it. When he awoke, Jacob exclaimed, "this is the gate of heaven!"

Joseph "tended the flocks with his brothers." He was out in the fields, perhaps weeding? Then Genesis says Joseph had a dream of their sheaves of grain bowing to his. His brothers "hated him, and couldn't speak a kind word to him." Because of his dream, or because of his secret crop?

Then another dream, where the sun, moon, and eleven stars bowed to him. All this while Joseph wore an ornate robe Jacob made him, which tradition says was filled with psychedelic colors.

Then there were the dreams Joseph interpreted for the Pharaoh's butler and baker, and then for the big P himself. He didn't dream them, but what was the air quality index while those Egyptians slept? And how was Joseph able to tune in to the dreams and their meaning so well?

But those are all dreams from sleep. (Allegedly. Joseph never said his were from while he slept.) What about waking visions?

In Numbers, the diviner Bilaam is hired to curse the Israelites. While riding along, Bilaam loses control of his ass. Then Bilaam starts to hear his ass talking to him. Then Bilaam sees an angel blocking the road. Surely, there's a Pink Floyd song about this somewhere on the cutting room floor. Regardless, the most compelling instances go well beyond dreams and visions. Consider "fire and brimstone." What else can one expect of the smoke from something with "stone" in the name?

But most significantly, as heard in a recent Torah reading, Exodus relates that Moses would go to the tent of meeting. "When Moses entered the tent, a pillar of smoke would come down." It continues, "When the people saw the pillar of smoke... (they) would each rise at their tent door and worship."

It concludes, "there the Big G would speak to Moses face to face." Scholars have debated for millennia about this image, which is ever mentioned only once: amid a pillar of smoke.

For forty years of wandering, the Israelites followed this pillar of smoke through the desert. Anyone still wondering what might have drawn them to it?

If you've come this far and felt this is pushing a political agenda, the writer has never touched the stuff. (Politics or cannabis.)

If you've come this far and feel incensed, thinking that wonders attributed to the Big G are being blasphemously explained elsewise, what are you smoking? After all, who do you think created the plant?

Doug Brook is a writer in Silicon Valley who was not mentally altered when he wrote this... any more than for previous columns. For past columns, other writings, and more, visit http://brookwrite.com/. For exclusive online content, like facebook.com/the.beholders.eye.