Mar 12, 2020 - Mar 15, 2020 
Isabella Freedman Jewish Retreat Center, Falls Village, CT
Out of an abundance of caution, this retreat has been cancelled. Click here for COVID-19 updates.
This retreat is for Jewish adults needing a break from their fast-paced lives to enjoy a long weekend of rejuvenating programming to reconnect with heart, body, mind, and soul in community.
Thank you to UJA-Federation of New York for supporting this retreat.
What to expect:
Hazon’s new Wellness Retreat offers a unique opportunity to restore yourself while learning, playing, exploring, and eating delicious food in a bright community. There will be opportunities to learn about medicinal herbs, which ones to cook with, which ones to make teas with, and which ones are best as a topical salve or in your bathtub. And there will also be ample time to just sit and stare at the lake, or walk by yourself in the woods, or sit with a book and a hot cup of tea, or talk with someone by the fire. Here is a bit of what you can expect during the Wellness Retreat:
- Get your hands sticky and your hearts full of laughter while you make challah and babka for Shabbat
- Get more comfortable in and in touch with your own body through guided meditations and learn new techniques to manage and alleviate stress
- Explore how movement and dance help you access untapped strength and power and support the release of old patterns
- Learn about essential medicinal herbs, how and when to use them, and go home with a better understanding of medicinal cooking
- Find out how a connection with the natural world facilitates a deeper connection with yourself, those around you, and with spirit
- Receive a calming and rejuvenating acupuncture session
This is going to be a special experience that will enrich your life in expected and unexpected ways. We’re going to have fun and we’re going to open up to new experiences. We’re intentionally keeping this retreat small and intimate to create a cozy space, a space that will nourish your heart and soul and help us all build more joyful relationships with this beautiful world.
Featured Presenters
Rachael Brody, MA R-DMT, LPCC is a Dance/Movement therapist with a master’s in Somatic Counseling Psychology from Naropa University in Boulder, CO. She is trained in body-centered psychotherapy, creative arts therapies, trauma and trauma recovery, neuroscience, meditation and mindfulness, and rites of passage and ritual, all of which inform her private practice and group facilitation. She works in private practice at Heartseed Health, facilitates new moon Rosh Chodesh dance and ceremony, and co-leads dance and movement programs for Mamas.
She is devoted to creating sacred space for healing through the re-connection of the mind, body & soul as well as through re-connection with community, the earth, beauty, and food. In addition to her work as a psychotherapist, Rachael is a dedicated partner and mother, thoroughly transformed by the immeasurable joys and challenges of parenthood. She loves beautiful cookbooks and cooking, growing food, taking photographs, playing in the woods with her family, and dancing to any and all kinds of music or none at all.
Dr. Noah K Goldstein, DACM L.Ac. practices medicine rooted in spirit and grounded in science as an acupuncturist and herbalist and facilitator. Based in Boulder, CO, he co-founded Heartseed Health, a practice devoted to supporting people in connection with their bodies and souls in order to create more joyful relationships with the world. Oriented towards the innate health within, Noah specializes in mental health often working with anxiety, depression, and burnout. Through his work he’s discovered that Chinese medicine offers incredibly useful paradigms for personal cultivation and development serving as a potent tool for personal growth. He is deeply devoted to enhancing the lives of well people in addition to his work transforming pain and suffering. He also loves time with his family, cooking, spending time in nature, gardening, and dancing.
Jeffrey Yoskowitz is a food entrepreneur, a revivalist of heritage cuisine, and an educator. Based in Brooklyn, NY, he’s a leader in the emerging renaissance of Jewish food. He co-owns The Gefilteria, which re-imagines Eastern European Jewish cooking. He co-authored The Gefilte Manifesto: New Recipes for Old World Jewish Foods (Flatiron Books 2016)–named a National Jewish Book Award finalist. Jeffrey travels the globe speaking, cooking, and teaching. His writings on food, culture, and the nutritional wisdom at the intersection of traditional folkways and modern techniques have appeared in The New York Times, The Atlantic, The New Republic, among others. He teaches culinary anthropology at The City College of New York and serves as chef and scholar-in-residence for a culinary heritage tour he developed in Eastern Europe with the award-winning Polin museum in Warsaw. He has cooked as a guest chef at the esteemed James Beard House kitchen and was named to the Forbes Magazine 30 under 30 list for Food and Wine, as well as The Forward 50.
Elana Brody is a celebrated singer-songwriter and prayer leader in the Jewish Renewal community. She shares her versatile and inspiring musical gifts in services with Rabbi David Ingber and Hazzan Basya Schaecter of Romemu NYC and Brooklyn, Shir Yaakov Feit of Kol Hai in New Paltz, Rabbi Sarah Bracha Gershuny of Nevei Kodesh in Boulder CO, Rabbi Jill Hammer and Shoshana Jedwab of the Kohenet Institute, more recently with Yoel Sykes of Nava Tehila, and in exuberant and spirited community congregations in NYC. Elana co-led the inaugural Renewal High Holiday services at the 92nd St Y in NYC last year, led Renewal services at Limmud NY 2018, and has co-led renewal services for Sukkot and Simchat Torah at Isabella Freedman Retreat Center in Connecticut for several years. Elana is currently a Tzovot in the Kohenet Hebrew Priestess training program, and a cantorial student at ALEPH.
Elana studied voice at Berklee College of Music, and has performed and learned with Grammy-winner Bobby McFerrin and members of his Voicestra. She performs widely in music venues throughout New York City, and in the subways and streets as a busker, both independently and in collaboration with wonderful acclaimed musicians. She holds songwriting workshops and teaches voice lessons, and is an environmental educator and herbalist as well. She studies herbalism with master herbalist Robin Rose Bennett in NJ. She is also studying to become a certified Kundalini Yoga Teacher, as it has done wonders for her singing voice and breath stamina. You can find her performing regularly as a singer-songwriter in NYC, and she is currently working on recording a debut album of her original music. Visit www.elanabrody.com or follow her on Instagram @elanatreestar to find out what’s coming up.
