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in
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sponsored
by our
community
partners

Wilderness Therapy

Detroiter helps shape Colorado camp for young Jews
struggling with mental health issues.

G

rowing up in a Lubavitch home in
Oak Park that was open to all Jews
but closed to secular values, Hindy
Finman
reached adolescence in a happy bub-
PHOTOS COURTESY OF
ble.
Other
than her kid brother, she hadn’t
BAMIDBAR WILDNERNESS
THERAPY talked to a boy without an adult nearby.
When she did, at age 19, her life’s purpose
became clear. As her father, Rabbi Herschel
Finman, might say, it was hashgacha
protis, or Divine providence.
One afternoon, Finman, her sis-
ters and friends met up at Victoria
Park in Oak Park. While they were
mental health
idly chatting and tossing pebbles, a
young religious Jew stopped to talk.
During the conversation, he revealed
he had struggled with a heroin addic-
tion, an admission that
shocked her.
“Somebody who’s frum
[religious] suffering from
addiction? What? I called
ABOVE: At night around the
a rabbi, who told me to
camp fire, staff and camp-
leave it alone, ‘Don’t talk
ers check in and discuss
to boys.’ That was a big
weekly goals.
wake-up moment. I asked
myself, ‘What is my com-
Hindy Finman
munity doing and what
am I doing?’” Finman, 30,
promised herself she would be a person who
would have answers — or try to get them
— when somebody in need called. She prom-

JULIE EDGAR
CONTRIBUTING WRITER

teen

n

tlight o
o
p
s

ised she would work to destigmatize drug
addiction in the religious community.
Before enrolling at Temple University in
Philadelphia, Finman worked for Chabad in
Alaska and Chicago. She staffed Birthright
trips for young adults with special needs.
After graduating with a criminal justice
degree, Finman moved to Boulder, Colo., to
start a Moishe House. She was doing the out-
reach work Lubavitchers are known for.

NEW OPPORTUNITY

In 2015, she overheard talk about the devel-
opment of an outdoor therapy program
outside of Denver that would be kosher and
Shabbat-observant. It would be focused on
young Jews struggling with psychiatric and
substance abuse issues. It would integrate
spiritual practice with intense therapeutic
work and emphasize self-reliance. Finman
raised her hand. This was the work she was
waiting for. She joined the founding members
of BaMidbar Wilderness Therapy Program,
becoming its first communications associate
and an adviser at large on all things frum.
“We’re taking the best of a Chabad house,
a summer camp, a treatment center and
hiking in nature, and smushing it together.
That’s what we’re about,” Finman says.
“Hindy was a key person early on who
helped us think about what it would look like,”
says Rabbi Eliav Bock, founder and executive

director of BaMidbar, which
is designed for young Jewish
adults in crisis.
Bock, 41, started Ramah in
the Rockies in 2010, a kosher
summer outdoor adventure
camp for kids outside of
Denver. He was inspired to
start BaMidbar after hear-
Rabbi Eliav Bock
ing from Jews who were
in recovery and wanted to
work at Ramah.
“Many of them found wilderness to be the
place for their recovery and to get on a good
mental track,” says Bock, who lives in upstate
New York when he’s not in Colorado. He was
also influenced by a non-Jewish staff member
at Ramah who felt that the Jewish community
“turned its back” on people with substance
abuse issues.
Bock recognized a need and, in what he
says was his first successful business venture,
raised money to buy the 360 acres where
Ramah is located. It didn’t seem right that the
property, 90 minutes outside of Denver, sat
vacant for nine months of the year.
Bock raised $20,000, enough to hire consul-
tants to write a business plan. The next step
was raising money to hire a full-time director.
He quickly surpassed a goal of $150,000 to run
BaMidbar for a year. To date, he has brought
in close to $700,000.

continued on page 12

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June 7 • 2018

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