The first step is filling out the application below. You will be directed to a calendar to set up a exploration call with John and/or Zelig, a 30 min private meeting discuss and discern ift this initiatory journey is right for you.

We will have 5 in-person intensives. Intensive 1, 2, 3, and 5 are 4-day in-person gatherings on private land in Occidental, CA. Intensive 4 is a 10-day vision quest in the California desert wilderness. Between intensives, we will meet remotely for a council or teaching call. You will also have a 1:1 mentorship call with John or Zelig between each intensive, as well as a brother-accountability/check-in call weekly (self-organized).

The Jewish Manhood Initiation is a universal ceremonial journey that is rooted in Jewish teachings, prayer, and tradition. All men are welcome, regardless of religious upbringing or beliefs. You will need to have deep respect for Jewish tradition and curiosity and willingness to learn from particular Jewish practices as a means to reaching toward Spirit and your deeper truths.

Initiation is not about age — it’s about readiness.

Most of us had many initiatory moments - heartbreak, children, success, failure, psychedelics, men’s work, maybe even moments of deep solitude in the wild.

Yet, adulthood initiation generally requires clear intention and container.

So, while ideally initiation into manhood would happen as a young-adult, we are in a moment of cultural rewnewal and many of us come to this work later in life.

If you feel called, there is a place for you.

The investment for this year-long rite of passage is offered on a sliding scale between $650-1000/month, depending on your income leve. Limited scholarship is available based on need, which we can discuss during your exploratory call with John and/or Zelig.

There is also a collective fundraiser the cohort does for the vision fast, which is shared about in the next FAQ.

As part of the Brit Adam lineage, we hold a tradition of the men fundraising together from their friends, family, and wider community in preparation for the 9-day Vision Fast. This practice is intentional and serves two main purposes.

First, the Vision Fast is not something you go into for yourself alone. You are going out in prayer on behalf of life, community, and the wider web of relations. Gathering both financial and spiritual support creates a deeper culture around the work and a real network of people who are actively backing you—people you can return to when you come back carrying what you’ve received. It strengthens integration not only of the Vision Fast, but of the entire 13-month journey, and works an important initiation edge: asking for support, allowing yourself to be witnessed, and not doing this alone. A portion of these funds also goes toward a donation to local Indigenous groups, offered in reciprocity with the land and lineages on which we pray

Second, this fundraising helps offset some of the overall costs of the year-long container, allowing the program to remain more accessible and creating greater possibility for the limited scholarship support we are able to offer.

This fundraiser is held as a group effort among the men, with details around timing and suggested fundraising amounts shared during the second immersion, once the full cohort is clearer.

An old mentor of ours once advised - God helps those who help themselves.

It will be possible to skirt through this without a ton of heavy lifting outside of the intensives and live online components, but then, why would you join this if that was your aim?

Each module you will be asked to complete ritual, ceremonial, or facilitator homework, and you will be invited into a slew of different reading, podcast and practice materials.

And you will be deep in your own inner-shadow work, and we will have a circle of brothers holding accountability, and no one will force you to do the work, nor do it for you.

So in short, this will feel like a year-long training that is both intensive and intentionally designed to move at the pace of the body, of the soul and what you can actually integrate. This is not about being a hero, but you will be routinely asked to show up and dig deep.

The in-person intensives will happen on private land in Occidental, CA.

The Vision Quest will be in the California wilderness.

In addition to Jewish tradition, we will engage in ceremony and connection practices through indigenous traditions that Rabbi Zelig, John, and the elders and uncles have been initiated into. For example, we will participate in sweat lodge ceremony lead by our guides, who have been trained and sanctioned by Lakota teachers.

Missing an intensive would be hard, but not impossible. Same with any of the online components. If you miss an intensive, we will expect you to raise this with the guides and other brothers in advance to remain in right relationship and to prepare in advance for support to get caught up.

Once you have committed and have taken a spot in the cohort, it is a non-refundable investment.