About the Author

RAV BENJI ELSON, LMSW

Author, Psychotherapist, Rabbi, Torah Educator, Torah Environmentalist, Musician, Transformational Experience Facilitator

Rav Benji Elson, LMSW, is a clinical psychotherapist, teacher of Torah, Jewish environmental educator, transformational experience facilitator, musician, and now author, living in Jerusalem, Israel.  Benji has taught and led transformative experiences around the world including in the US, Israel, Mexico, Canada, Turkey, Finland, Indonesia, and India. His unique approach to Torah and Self-Transformation stems from a unique variety of places: his many years spent studying in various Yeshivot in Jerusalem (Aish Hatorah, Machon Meir, Mayanot, Sulam Yaakov, Simchat Shlomo, Pardes, Shapell’s Darché Noam Semicha Program, Rav Shimon Garbos’s Kollel, and Beit Midrash Chukkim Chachamim); his training and experiences as an EMT-Paramedic; his passionate work as a Jewish outdoor-environmental educator; his encounters as a Jewish meditation teacher; and his training and experiences as a clinical psychotherapist.  

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Benji holds a B.A. in Psychology from Touro University, where he served as the Lead Editor of Touro’s Journal of Experimental Psychology and Journal of Theoretical Psychology. Benji also holds a Master’s in Social Work from the Wurzweiler School of Social Work, where he is also currently working on his Ph.D. on cultural intergenerational trauma and its influence on defection from the orthodox community. 

Aside from his academic background, Benji’s clinical therapeutic approach and practice has been molded by his time working as a Behavioral Therapist in there ghetto of South Central LA as well as his time on staff at a residential therapy center that utilizes a holistic mind-body-and-soul approach to recovery for individuals suffering from addiction, substance abuse, and various other psychological ailments.  Yet, the most profound lessons that have come to inform Benji’s therapeutic perspective have come from his clients in his therapy practice in Jerusalem.  

In addition to his therapy practice and his teaching in various Torah institutions in Israel, Benji currently serves as the Educational Director of Shebet Haaretz, an Israel-based organization that connects Jews back to the Earth, and the Torah’s forgotten teachings about the importance of living in balance with Hashem’s earth, its resources, and its creatures. Through transformational expeditions into the deserts and jungles of the world that facilitate personal encounters with themselves, other Jews, and local indigenous communities, participants encounter the beauty in their lives, Torah, Judaism, and the World.  

Rav Benji has Semicha (rabbinic ordination) from Beit Midrash Chukkim Chachamim in Jerusalem under the tutelage of Rav Elisha Anschelowitz.