Putting The ‘High’ In Havdalah — With Marijuana
Image by Twitter
NEW YORK (JTA) — Marijuana entrepreneur Catherine Goldberg was working on an event with the Orthodox founders of Mitzva Herbal, a company that makes kosher-certified cannabis-infused edibles, when she shared her dream of uniting marijuana-loving Jews over Friday-night dinners.
“They were, like, ‘Cat, we can’t smoke on Shabbat,” Goldberg, 28, recalled. “So I figured havdalah, instead, was perfect.”
Thus “Chai Havdalah” — in which “chai” is pronounced “high” — was born.
Since July it has become a somewhat regular event, advertised by word of mouth, that marks the end of Shabbat with the traditional havdalah blessing alongside the less traditional acts of smoking marijuana and eating cannabis-infused edibles.
So far there have been five Chai Havdalah events, mostly in the herb-friendly states of California and Colorado. But last weekend, on the second floor of a brownstone in Brooklyn’s Park Slope neighborhood, about three dozen people gathered to smoke pot, listen to the sounds of a local hip-hop duo, bid farewell to Shabbat and usher in a new week.
“I love being Jewish and I love weed, so it made sense to bring my two passions together,” Goldberg said on Saturday night, wearing a shirt with the words “Let’s Get Chai.” “I wanted to show people that Judaism can be really fun and it doesn’t mean you have to go to temple.”
A message from our Publisher & CEO Rachel Fishman Feddersen
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism so that we can be prepared for whatever news 2025 brings.
At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.
Readers like you make it all possible. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
