Stoners Disappointed By So-Called ‘High’ Holidays

“There’s the part of the Yom Kippur liturgy in which there’s a confession that talks about things that will get you stoned, but it turns out that means something totally not cool.”

Sacramento, September 13 – Marijuana enthusiasts expressed dismay at the arrival of the Jewish High Holidays, saying that in their experience, there is nothing “high” about them at all.

Through the years, new cohorts of cannabis aficionados have greeted Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur – the New Year and Day of Atonement – holidays with anticipation, only to discover that the High Holidays place precious little emphasis on chemical enhancement of the human experience, causing those hash smokers to wonder why they are called by that term in the first place.

Rosh Hashanah, at least, involves festive meals that feature a convocation over wine, but no other formal or significant use of either depressants or stimulants in inhaled, imbibed, injected, or swallowed form is associated with the festival. Yom Kippur features no eating, drinking, or smoking at all, leaving potheads mystified and feeling deceived as to why the heck the two occasions earned the descriptor “high.”

“Man, it just makes no sense,” said Bay Area resident “Scooter” MacLean, 54. “You know how this time of year is supposed to be an elevated experience, a higher consciousness? I’m just not getting that. The apple and honey are nice, as far as that goes, but the stuff isn’t even fermented. ‘High,’ my foot.”

“That’s not the worst part,” added Tricia LaDuke, 44. “The other one, the kippers or something, whatever it’s called, sounds like fish. Which is great, because when I’ve toked some good stuff, I get the munchies pretty bad, you know? We all do. But then I find out there’s no eating for like twenty-five hours. That kind of ‘high’ I can do without.”

MacLean recalled a Rosh Hashanah three years ago when he was invited to the home of a Berkeley rabbi, where pot roast was served for the evening meal. “I was thinking, ‘Score!’ when I heard what was on the menu,” he said. “But then they bring out this brisket or something, as if that’s the kind of ‘pot’ that anyone with half a brain wants. What the hell?” He said he was turned off from organized religion as a result of the experience, and has not set foot near a house of worship since.

Boulder, CO, resident Mike Mason similarly recalled hearing of the High Holidays, and that Rosh Hashanah especially involved placing a horn or smoking-pipe-like object to one’s mouth and using it to get what he called “blasted.” “Only it was like blasts of sound, which was a total letdown,” he said. “Then there’s the part of the Yom Kippur liturgy in which there’s a confession that talks about things that will get you stoned, but it turns out that means something totally not cool.”

Mason conceded that if one did not wait for any communal efforts at getting high, but came to the shofar-blowing already in that state, the service was “mesmerizing.”