Shvat 5786: Zokht der heyliker Pilts…
Tu BiShvat is one of those holidays where, if taken with real seriousness, it becomes almost embarrassingly easy to take a simple next step from our psychoactive-less ancient tradition to the one emerging today—where Jews are being taught profound, existential truths by eating a fruiting body, leaf, or vine. The sources are already obsessed with plants, growth, sweetness, and variety. The only real novelty is that some of us have started listening more literally—and being bolder about what we are willing to say publicly.
The fruit that seems to be having its moment is the bitter, funky body of the Psilocybe mushroom. Local decriminalization efforts, statewide legal programs, and a surge in applied and expanded research have dramatically increased access to psilocybin. We should expect a wave of optimistic, hopeful articles like this one as companies race to demonstrate positive outcomes to the FDA—eager to avoid the kind of collective disappointment that followed the rejection of MDMA therapy two summers ago. At Shefa, we are engaging these frameworks as they become available and supporting access for community members seeking healing, deeper spiritual insight, and a way to welcome the wisdom of these “holy children” into their hearts. When we enter into relationship with these mushrooms, we bring the spirit of Tu BiShvat alive. As it is written in Pri Etz Hadar: “…the blessing of goodness will come upon them, that its fruits will be blessed within us. Whether one eats a lot or a little, the health of the body will also be blessed. ‘There YHVH commanded blessing, eternal life.’”
I am here and alive, writing to you, because of psilocybin. Before my first encounter with that little blue pill at Johns Hopkins, I carried lifelong feelings of unworthiness—of something being fundamentally wrong with me, and of every challenge or failure as confirmation of that belief. Over time, mushrooms have compelled me to examine this false and limiting story: where it came from and how it embedded itself in my psyche. Gradually, the painful whisper—maybe I am a mistake—has been replaced with a different knowing: that my being, like all of ours, is a cosmic inevitability, entirely necessary in the unfolding of natural history. I am the product of generations of ancestors straining toward something unknown, entrusted with the drive to be, to create, to repair, and to heal.
In one particularly difficult journey, the ways—large and small—that I had failed to fully love and embrace my wife of seven years were laid bare. Here was a woman who had bound her life to mine, who had walked with me through pregnancy loss and failed rounds of IVF, and I was still clinging to petty grievances that justified ongoing judgment and frustration as my baseline orientation toward her. That same softening also gave me the courage to ask, generously and without resentment, for things I had long needed and not received. This remains the most durable and transformative teaching these fruiting bodies have offered me, and my integration of it continues daily.
More recently, mushrooms have made me aware of just how tired I am. A father of two young wildlings, a spiritual nonprofit hustler, and someone who has yet to make exercise a consistent practice—I often run at half-charge, hovering in low-power mode if I’m being honest. I felt the exhaustion in every fiber of my fascia, every ache glowing red. If it is true that I am a child of the living God and this extraordinary planet, what will it take for me to care for myself accordingly? What choices would invite endurance and vitality back into my body and sharpen my mind? What am I willing to release for the sake of my own health and wholeness?
May the fruits from above and below share their magnificent teachings with us in this blessed month—and always.
Z
