And the Lord spoke to Aaron saying, “Drink no wine or other intoxicant, you or your sons with you when you enter the Tent of Meeting, that you may not die- it is a law for all time throughout the ages. For you must distinguish between the sacred and the profane and between the unclean and the clean and you must teach the Israelites all the laws which the Lord has imparted to them through Moses.” (Lev. 10: 8-11)
Jews not drinking? I thought we were permitted to drink? What’s going on here?
Well, if you look at Jewish sources closely, you will note that there are two attitudes toward alcohol consumption provided. First, we are instructed that wine is to be used for Kiddush and havdallah, at the chuppah, at the brit milah and pidyon ha-ben ceremonies, on Pesach, Simchat Torah, and Purim. We are to use wine to consecrate times that are special. Wine even has its own blessing…Borei p’ree hagaffen. Second, if you peruse Torah, you will discover that Noah got drunk after the flood was over and his son saw his nakedness; Lot became drunk after the destruction of Sodom and Gemorrah and was seduced by his daughter; Nadab and Abihu are believed to have been drunk when they entered the Mishkan and offered a strange fire and they were consumed.
Our sources look at alcohol as both a means of consecrating a holy moment and as a means of promoting destructive behavior. Traditionally, Judaism allows us the opportunity to responsibly moderate our consumption of alcohol. We are bound by the mitzvoth and a traditional take on our relationship to G-d is that G-d is the source of the mitzvoth. With an altered state of consciousness we cannot recognize that the duties we are performing are instructed by G-d. Rambam discussed alcohol consumption in the following manner. The right path for consumption is in the middle, neither abstinence nor drunkenness. Yet he recognized that if there are individuals who are sick, they were to deviate to compensate for their illness. In other words, if someone was an alcoholic they needed to minimize their alcohol use or abstain from it altogether. The bottom line in Judaism is that drinking that impairs ones faculty of judgment is not permitted. In fact, it is forbidden to do anything that is harmful or dangerous to oneself. The principle of shmirat ha-nefesh, taking care of oneself, recognizes that excessive drinking is harmful and that there are those for whom even moderate drinking can be a problem.
I know that the Jewish community has perpetuated the myth that the unhealthy usage of alcohol is a non-Jewish problem. In fact, years ago when I was a small child, it was not unusual to hear pious Jews singing “Shikkur iz a goy…Drunken is a gentile,” before pouring their wine to make a blessing. The attitude was that Jews will only drink in moderation because they drink for religious purposes. We know that myth does not take into account that alcoholism is a disease that does not discriminate. The basic problem many Jewish alcoholics have encountered, is that the Jewish community has often acted as if their behavior is a result of their assimilation into the majority culture. In reality, however, we know that it doesn’t matter whether a Jew is non-affiliated, reform, orthodox, or conservative, alcoholism can affect their life. Jewish parents of a child who has problems with alcohol often have difficulty seeking help for their child because they feel that there will be a stigma attached to their child’s illness and they are afraid of exposing problems their family is encountering.
One of the leaders in the recovery and treatment of addictive diseases is Rabbi Abraham J. Twerski, M.D., founder of the Gateway Rehab Centers in Pennsylvania and Ohio. A Chasidic rabbi and psychiatrist, Twerski, wants every Jewish congregation, school, and community to acknowledge that our communities do indeed have a problem with the number of Jewish youth who are engaged in behaviors that attempt to seek pleasure as a substitution for the happiness they feel they are lacking. We should be cognizant of the fact that if 80% of students on college campuses have experimented with pleasure seeking drugs or have become involved with binge drinking, that even if our children make up 20% of that number…we still have a problem. These children are not pariahs, nor are they to be ignored, for not all will escape their experience without long-lasting repercussions. Part of our responsibility as a Jewish community is to acknowledge that even though we promote responsible drinking for religious purposes, we cannot let shame or denial keep us from helping those who have developed a drinking problem. In larger cities, an organization called JACS, Jewish Alcoholics-Chemically Dependent Persons-and Significant Others, works to provide support for those in need of counseling and rehab services. Obviously in Lincoln we do not have such an organization, but we should help guide families to the support systems that do exist in this community, without fear of . For many Jews AA (a 12-step recovery program) sounds like a Christian organization, because many groups meet in churches. Despite the location of many of these groups however, AA actually mirrors the steps we talk about during Yom Kippur. It requires alcoholics to take an inventory of their life and behaviors, admit their wrong doings, and ask forgiveness of those whom they have harmed with their behaviors.
There is nothing in halacha that prohibits drinking, only drinking that impairs our faculty of judgment. Judaism acknowledges that wine in moderation can bring increased joy, but that getting drunk which can become a form of escapism is indeed destructive. From an halachik perspective, we are not allowed to engage in behaviors that can be harmful or dangerous to ourselves. If we have members within our community whose behaviors are influenced by an illness that promotes that self-destruction, it is also our responsibility to help guide them toward towards the healing that they deserve without embarrassment.
Shabbat Shalom.
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