As can be expected, last week’s article, Lysergic Acid Diethylamide, elicited quite a number of responses, most positive, some critical, many of them posted online in the comments section on the article. The harshest accusation came from one reader who felt that my article may have been “irresponsible,” influencing someone to want to try a “life altering experience.”

In order to make my intentions perfectly clear and not leave any room for ambiguity, here’s the letter and my response:

Dear Rabbi,

Unfortunately your article on L.S.D. influenced a dear friend of ours to want to “have a life altering experience,” a creative and inspiring trip. This is a grown educated woman in her forties who missed out on the sixties. I wonder what the effect and curiosity and Pandora’s Box you may have opened, not intentionally, with some of your younger readers. I feel that your article seemed a bit irresponsible and made the "unknown" possibility attractive.

Best Wishes, M.A.

Hi M.

Thank for writing and bringing to my attention my article's influence on your dear friend. I am truly sorry and surprised to hear that the article caused someone to want to try LSD. I'm thinking how anyone could have come away with such a thought after reading in no unclear terms that drugs are dangerous and harmful. Even if their use induced a deeper awareness, they are like administering drugs to a comatose individual. How could that inspire someone to try LSD?

In general, the ideas I wrote about are basically the concept of teshuva – the power of return. One of the most powerful gifts bestowed upon humans is our ability to change our pasts and transform even "intentional sins" (zedonos) to merits. This is not a license to sin, as the Talmud specifically states that "one who says I will sin and then do teshuva, their teshuva is not accepted" (even in that case, the Tanya says that if the person insists and persists, his teshuva will be accepted). But AFTER THE FACT – as emphasized in the article several times – we have the capacity to elevate our past experiences (even if they were outright Torah prohibited sins of the worst nature). We don't elevate the sin itself; that has to be destroyed. We elevate the spark within, and the results of the experience (see Tanya chapter 7).

Anyone deriving from my article that LSD is appealing is equivalent to someone drawn to medication because it revives a comatose person, or that one can transgress Torah, because there are balei teshuva who elevated and transformed their transgressions.

I take seriously the responsibility of writing about this sensitive issue, especially with younger readers who may not be able to distinguish between the abovementioned nuances. But on the other hand, I know from personal experience as well as from the many positive responses I have received to my article, that this topic is an extremely important one to address. And just to condemn outright all those that had psychedelic experiences and all those that rebelled, even if their behavior was self-destructive, does not seem very productive and would not resonate much, and above all – it would be simply incorrect: The Torah perspective categorically rejects the fatalistic view that we are victims of our mistakes, condemned to be haunted by our pasts, powerless to do anything about it. We have the great responsibility and opportunity to transform our pasts; to discard the peel as we eat the fruit through teshuva.

To avoid writing about this topic because someone may mistakenly be enticed to try drugs is the equivalent of not writing about the power to transform past sins through teshuva in order not to appear like we are glamorizing the process and giving someone the impression that sins are acceptable.

I would even venture to say, that anyone trying drugs is probably prone to it before reading my article. It's hard for me to imagine that my writing alone should cause someone to do that. But I stand corrected if I am proven wrong.

Based on your note, my plan is to write a follow up e-mail to clarify these points, so that no one comes away with the wrong conclusions.

Thank you again for writing, and I welcome any further thoughts you may have.

Feel free to share my words with the person influenced by my initial article, and with anyone else you see fit.

Blessings and best wishes,

Simon Jacobson