"Cannabis Chassidis" Book Party with Yoseph Leib ibn Mardachya, New York City, Sept. 12, 2012

"Cannabis Chassidis: The Ancient and Emerging Torah of Drugs"
Book Presentation with author Yoseph Leib ibn Mardachya

7PM, Wednesday, Sept. 12, 2012
Bluestockings Bookstore
172 Allen Street
New York City, NY

Is marijuana kosher? Please join Autonomedia and Atzmos Press from Jerusalem for a presentation of "Cannabis Chassidis: The Ancient and Emerging Torah of Drugs" with author Yoseph Leib ibn Mardachya.

Is Marijuana Kosher?

Yes, of course it is! But the better question is: If I am going to get higher than high, isn’t there some useful traditional guidance about how best to do so? If not, then what good is the Torah?

Join Yoseph Leib on his travels and studies throughout Jerusalem, New York, and Rainbow Country, USA in search of guidance about how Cannabis and psychedelics have and have not been used in both ancient and emerging Chassidic traditions, and what the way we have related to our desires for medicines, gods and intoxicants can teach us about how we relate to ourselves, our community, and our G-d. The glorious problem of how what we can learn can set us free, in all kinds of ways.

Chassidis (“kind-ness”) means the way to do all the things we love doing, better, as if any other way was acceptable. Cannabis Chassidis is the way to smoke weed like a mensch; to be able to feel the pleasure of understanding secrets, and ground the wisdom that is only received from high places of sublime peace.

But this book is not just for the Jews, or the Stoners. It is made to be accessible, useful and fascinating to anyone interested in theology, history, culture, psychedelics, or just good literature, whether they smoke marijuana or practice a Western religion, or not. The question of What Jerusalem Means mystifies many people, along with the questions of what justifies a religion, and what makes it, or any other structure, ultimately worth hitting, or passing.

“An enthusiastic and interesting excursion into the psychedelic fringes of hasidic culture.” — Alan Moore, author, V for Vendetta, Watchmen

“Here’s this emerging genius dude who has a big and growing following in real life and online — this guy who makes Judaism new and real again,who digs deep into the Chassidic tradition for its deeply stoned truths. A Jewish Terence McKenna, mining the Torah’s hidden landscape…” — Douglas Rushkoff, media theorist

“Yoseph Leib is the rebbe on this subject. Who else?” — J.H. Chajes, Professor of Jewish mysticism, Haifa University