who we are

We are a spiritual community for people in recovery and those who love them, grounded in Jewish tradition. We envision a world where Jewish spiritual tradition can offer framing, sustenance, and a modality for healing for people in recovery and those who love them. We want to live in a space in which recovery and Jewish experiences are not bifurcated, but rather deepen, illuminate, and enhance each other.

Selah is a part of Educational Alliance’s Center for Recovery and Wellness and a proud partner of UJA-Federation of New York.

Our team

  • Director of Spiritual and Holistic Services

    Arielle is a therapist, community organizer, and completing her rabbinical studies at Yeshivat Maharat. She was previously the Scholar-in-Residence at At The Well and the Rabbinic Fellow at the Prospect Heights Shul. Arielle has her BSW, MSW, SIFI certification, and certificate in Spirituality and Social Work from NYU and a certificate in Experiential Education from M2: The Institute for Experiential Jewish Education. She is a Wexner Graduate Fellow and UJA-Federation of NY Fellow. Perhaps most importantly to this role, she grew up lovingly raised by people who would have benefited tremendously from a community like Selah.  You can reach Arielle here.

  • Mentor, Spiritual and Holistic Services

    Benjamin is a musician, artist, & graphic designer. He was the Chief Creative Officer at the T’shuvah Center in New York City, where he directed the brand vision, group programming, and live events. He manages the Emergency Project and is a multi-instrumentalist playing in a variety of genres. Ben holds a Bachelors in Music Composition from the University of California, Santa Cruz. After almost a decade of commitment toward serving his community, Ben will bring his recovery experience to inform and shape how he serves others with inspiration, hope, and joy so that they may find their own life of healing. You can reach Ben here.

  • Coordinator of Spiritual and Holistic Services

    Jeremy is a Certified Alcohol and Drug Counselor with 12,000 clinical hours, recovery coach, speaker, and author. Jeremy was the Director of Alternative Sentencing and Drug and Alcohol Counselor at Beit T’shuvah, a long-term residential treatment facility in Los Angeles. Jeremy has a certificate in Nonprofit Leadership and Executive Management from the Marxe School of Public and International Affairs at Baruch College in partnership with the New York Community Trust. In this role, Jeremy is able to utilize his own lived experience in recovery and professional training to build our community. You can reach Jeremy here.

  • Marketing and Design Associate

    Vivian is a Junior at Brandeis University pursuing a double major in Psychology and Studio Art. She aspires to become an Art Therapist in the future and finds the approach of blending artistic creativity with therapeutic techniques to be a powerful way to help individuals express and understand their emotions.

  • Mindfulness Counseling Intern

    Jordyn is a psychotherapist-in-training, currently pursuing her MA in Clinical Mental Health Counseling with a focus in mindfulness-based transpersonal counseling at Naropa University. Jordyn uses mindfulness and somatic-based techniques to support people in uncovering the basic health and wholeness that exists in each one of us. Connected to the world of recovery through close family members, Jordyn is a fellow traveler on the path to healing, using her own experience to help others relate to their suffering and access more joy and fulfillment. Jordyn finds healing through singing in community, movement, and enjoying solitude in nature.

Jess Lipman

  • Ecstatic Dance Facilitator

    Jess Lipman is a Unified Mindfulness Certified Trainer and Coach, supporting creatives, entrepreneurs, change-makers and organizations to create a culture of wellbeing, authenticity and sustainable growth.

    Her approach is holistic, weaving together mindfulness, attachment theory, IFS (parts work) and high performance. She’s inspired to help others find themselves, after struggling with addiction in her teens and twenties. She has 15 years of mindfulness meditation experience, 10 years in addiction recovery, and 9 years of doing attachment healing and parts work.

  • Ecstatic Dance DJ

    Julio is a Somatic Relational Therapist who supports people on their path of recovery from addiction, trauma, and relational stress. As a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist, he supports individuals and couples on their journey to emotional and relational wellbeing through various forms of therapy including IFS, Sensorimotor Psychotherapy and Ketamine Assisted Therapy. He is a lover of music, dance and the freedom of expression that is facilitated when community gathers to explore movement and expression of our inner worlds through music and dance. As a person in recovery himself he found the freedom to fully express himself through movement when he attended a rave completely sober after finding abstinence.

OUR SPIRITUAL COUNCIL

  • Rabbi Amichai Lau-Lavie

  • Rabbi Sara Luria

  • Julie Merberg

  • Rabbi Avram Mlotek

  • Rabbi Scott Perlo

  • Yocheved Sidof

  • Rabbi Dan Smokler

  • Yali Szulanski

  • Dr. Tamara Tweel

FAQS

It’s likely you have a whole bunch of questions that you’ve tried to Google, thought about, or not said out loud. Here are some.

  • Jewish tradition offers that the concept of teshuvah - renewal and repair - existed prior to creation of the earth and humanity. We read this to mean that going through hard things and growing through them is so core to the human experience that it even existed before us. Core to this experience is the idea of having fellow travelers - people who are deep in the work with you.

    Selah is a community of people on recovery journeys who celebrate the Jewish calendar, explore big questions, and participate in service of the greater world together. Our model takes the wisdom from Jewish tradition to ensure that once addiction is treated, everyone has the access to be in a community that helps them to continue to flourish while sober.

    Judaism has an ancient and strong spiritual infrastructure that can build accountable, supportive, and purpose-driven communities. We believe that everyone has the access to be in a community that helps them to continue to flourish while sober.

  • We understand recovery is as a process of reflection, attunement, and growth into the healthiest, most authentic version of ourselves.

  • Addiction is a chronic (lifelong) condition that involves compulsive seeking and taking of a substance or performing an activity despite the harm it causes.Generally, addiction is designated into two categories - behavioral and substance. We believe that the contributing factors to addiction are multi-faceted - they are spiritual, emotional, and physical underpinnings.

    Behavioral addiction happens when a behavior produces a short-term reward that may engender persistent continued behavior despite knowledge of adverse consequences. Examples of these behaviors include: food, binge eating disorder, gambling, sex, internet use, shopping, video games.

    Substance addiction is characterized by the inability to control the use of a legal or illegal drug or medicine. Examples include: alcohol, marijuana, nicotine, opiates, hallucinogens, inhalants, and prescription drugs.

    Growing evidence suggests that behavioral addictions resemble substance addictions in many domains, including natural history, phenomenology, tolerance, comorbidity, overlapping genetic contribution, neurobiological mechanisms, and response to treatment.

  • According to the 2020 National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH), 40.3 million Americans, aged 12 or older, had a substance use disorder (SUD) in the past year. According to the 2021 UJA-Federation COVID-19 Impact Study report on substance abuse in the Jewish community, 10% of adults in Jewish households indicated they have a substance abuse problem. In Brooklyn, those numbers hover close to 15%, higher than the overall rate in NY state (12%).

  • If you have identified as experiencing an addiction, you are welcome here. We’ll make sure you get connected to the right community of people who see you.

    Recent research indicates that one of the most important and helpful parts of maintaining sobriety and/or health comes from participation in an ongoing holistic community of belonging. That goes for any type of addiction.

  • Addiction is a chronic condition that can affect many aspects of your life, including your physical and mental health, relationships and career. While an individual conversation is needed to answer this question, research generally suggests that addition exists when a person continues a behavior or substance use despite adverse consequences.

  • In our community, we prefer terms that describe behaviors, not all-encompassing nouns for people. We use the term addiction and recovery to describe states of being. Someone who is experiencing addiction is just that - experiencing an addition.

  • We know this can feel like a tricky situation. We’re happy to walk you through what we have found most helpful and we will connect you with curated mental health professionals that will support you.

  • We like to say that recovery is for everyone. Especially after the past 3 years, who isn’t recovering from some tough experience?

    If you are in support of building a space where people can bring their whole broken selves - and learn and synthesize the unique wisdom of their experiences, we want you here.

  • We’d love to answer them! Contact Arielle here.

Articles and recordings

  • 'Toward Holiness' by Arielle Krule

    May 2, 2024 | Arielle Krule for Yeshivat Maharat | Read Here

  • 'Educational Alliance’s Center for Recovery and Wellness Launches Innovative Recovery Program with Selah'

    March 19, 2024 | Educational Alliance | Read Here

  • 'The Spiritual Opportunities of Recovery' by Benjamin Litchman

    February 2, 2024 | Benjamin Litchman for Temple Beth-El of Great Neck | Watch Here

  • Mental Health in the Jewish Community: A panel with uri l'tzedek

    June 20, 2024 | Benjamin Litchman for Uri L’Tzedek | Watch here

  • 'Recovery is possible: Ir Miklat as a Blueprint for Healing' by arielle krule

    September 7, 2024 | Arielle Krule for Yeshivat Maharat | Read Here