Our Mission
We create spaces for healing and self-discovery, where Jewish wisdom meets psychedelic practice.
רפואה של הלב הרפי את גופי
פתחי את לבי לאהב כל שיש
Our Vision
We envision a world where all people awaken to deeper connection to themselves, their communities, and the Divine through direct experiences of expanded consciousness.
Our Story
Every year, thousands of Jews have profound psychedelic experiences and come home alone. No community waiting to receive them. No clear path of connecting their ancestral wisdom to their direct experiences. They return changed and inspired, and largely without a community to hold what opened.
Our founder was one of those people. In 2017, Rabbi Zac Kamenetz participated in a landmark clergy study at Johns Hopkins and NYU exploring how psilocybin-induced mystical experience impacts religious leaders. His first journeys with psilocybin in this unique context were profound, challenging, healing, and confusing. While his guides could help support him with some aspects of Rabbi Zac’s integration, they weren’t able to meet him with the spiritual and theological vocabulary he needed most. Over time, Rabbi Zac’s personal exploration developed into a communal question: if psychedelic experiences will only become more accessible and commonplace over time, how can Jewish communities learn to understand and navigate these states of consciousness now?
Since our founding in 2020, we have been building a spiritually mature model of Jewish psychedelic practice and integration that honors our own traditions, credits the cultures and lineages that have used these medicines for generations, and strengthens communal responsibility around this work.
We're doing this at a moment of rapid change. Psychedelic research is expanding. Legal frameworks are shifting at the state and federal level. And Jewish identity and community are under real pressure. Shefa meets this moment with support that meets people where they are and wisdom rooted in tradition.
Today, Shefa offers immersive retreats, integration support, educational programs and psychedelic resources rooted in Jewish spirituality and practice. Our approach is research informed: in 2026, in partnership with Emory University and Common Era, we conducted Jewish Journeys, a groundbreaking research study on the psychedelic experiences and needs of the Jewish community. We are now integrating the data to provide the best care to those seeking it.
As our work evolves and deepens, our consistent vision is a Jewish future revitalized through embodied experience and expanded consciousness, held within strong and ethical communal vessels.