Ep38 - The Israeli Matrix, Living in Tamera & Sustainable Hemp Construction with Elad Kaspin

Waking Youth

0:00

-1:44:22

Ep38 - The Israeli Matrix, Living in Tamera & Sustainable Hemp Construction with Elad Kaspin

Podcast Interview 🎧

Carlota Guedes

Jul 05, 2025

Transcript

There’s no shortage of clichés about those on a so-called “spiritual path.” The hippies. The new agers. The ones who leave the mainstream to live in caravans or build intentional communities. They’re often dismissed as naive, airy, out of touch with the practicalities of life.

And while these stereotypes can sometimes hold a grain of truth, they can also fail to capture the multitudes people hold. What if someone could be deeply spiritual and grounded? Sensitive and strategic? Connected to something higher while fully engaged in the messiness of life?

Today, I bring you the story of Elad Kaspin—someone who shatters not only the stereotype of a ‘hippie’, but also that of an ‘Israeli man,’ ‘father,’ and ‘entrepreneur.’

Born in Israel, son of a military man, Elad grew up dreaming of becoming a combat pilot. Due to a health condition—or as Elad calls it, a divine intervention—that path closed, and he became a computer engineer instead.

After that, he began asking deeper questions about the world he’d inherited. He left Israel in search of ways of living that didn’t reduce people or business to profit machines, eventually landing in the south of Portugal, in Alentejo, where we met.

In this conversation, recorded from the cozy caravan extension Elad calls home, we talk about his early life, from his sensitivity to subtle energies to his once-ambitious military dreams.

We explore his experience living in community—both the one he created with friends, and at Tamera, a 30-year-old intentional community in southern Portugal known for its radical explorations around peace, love, and sexuality.

We also talk about Elad’s embodied perspective on the Israeli-Palestinian war, as well as the business he co-founded with a Palestinian friend—Canhamor—a sustainable hemp-block producer revolutionizing the construction industry in Portugal.