by Carrie Bornstein One hundred eighty-one people have already scheduled an immersion at Mayyim Hayyim for the month of September. By the time the month is over, we’ll be pushing well into the two hundreds. Our guests are coming for all different reasons, of course, but more than anything now we’re seeing women, men, and […]
Continue Readingby Gary Waleik Front and center in the book of Leviticus, tractate Mikva’ot of the Talmud, Chasidic writings and throughout Jewish literature, is the idea that a mikveh is inherently and completely holy. But haven’t we always known that water is sacred somewhere deep in our souls? Water was a means of survival for our ancestors, and […]
Continue Readingby Sherri Goldman The High Holidays, or Jewish New Year, is a time for reflection. Every New Year gives us a moment to look back over the past year to see what was successful and what in our lives can use some improvement. It’s a time of year to give ourselves the opportunity to grow […]
Continue Readingby Ivy Helman Rosh Hashanah represents a return to God. Immersing in a mikveh renews my sense of purpose and grants me a sense of wholeness I just haven’t found elsewhere. Yet, it’s also so much more than this. Two thoughts come to mind that truly capture why I go to the mikveh before the […]
Continue Readingby Donna Leventhal “Vessels: Containing Possibilities,” now in the Mayyim Hayyim Gallery, emerged from the concept of the mikveh itself as a sacred vessel. Mikveh defines and creates a sacred space that is both physical and spiritual. The individual’s experience in the space is concentrated, intense, and multidimensional. As a person immerses, the water is […]
Continue Readingby José Portuondo-Dember It’s easy to think of going to the mikveh in terms of “washing away.” My very first experience with a ritual bath was my baptism in the Roman Catholic Church as an infant. It was couched in the language of washing away original sin. As I turned to Judaism and began learning […]
Continue Readingby Walt Clark, Office Assistant “And God saw that all had been made, and found it very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day. The heaven and the earth were finished, and all their array. On the seventh day God finished the work that had been undertaken: [God] ceased on […]
Continue Readingby Ilana Sumka I’m a political activist by training, so I was as surprised as anyone to find myself teaching Tanakh, (Torah, Prophets and Writings) and Jewish law to a group of conversion students. A few weeks ago I had the profound honor of witnessing my students immerse in the mikveh after successfully appearing before the European […]
Continue Readingby DeDe Jacobs-Komisar I’m going to be honest – before I found this place I was totally ambivalent about the mikveh. Growing up Orthodox, we teenage girls were taught to venerate the mikveh as a mysterious, holy, beautiful thing. We toured mikva’ot on school and camp field trips, where mikveh ladies would show us how […]
Continue Readingby Laura Rosenthal Whenever people ask about how I “became” Jewish, I tell them it was when I turned eight. In some sense, this is entirely ridiculous—I have always known that Judaism is a part of my life. What I mean when I say I “became” Jewish is that we joined Temple Shalom of Newton. […]
Continue Readingby Leeza Negelev, Associate Director of Education Last week I went to synagogue and witnessed a ceremony to welcome a woman who had just converted to Judaism. I met this woman earlier in the week, at Mayyim Hayyim, where she marked her new Jewish life with an immersion in our mikveh. At the synagogue, the […]
Continue Readingby Diane Black On May 29, 2014 at Mayyim Hayyim’s tenth year celebration event, we honored Diane Black with the Nachshon Award. Here are her remarks from the ceremony. If you know me at all, you know I’m not comfortable being singled out in public like this. I said yes to this honor mostly because […]
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