Cancer, Healing, National Network

I became a cancer survivor at the mikveh

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by Rachel Hillman I first immersed at Mayyim Hayyim in September 2019, but my relationship with the mikveh in Newton began in Washington, DC five years earlier. I want you to understand how your support for Mayyim Hayyim touches lives far beyond Boston. I was 28 years old and undergoing treatment for breast cancer. After seven […]

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Cancer, Healing

Finding God in the Mikveh

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by Gail Sacco I am a 64-year-old Conservative Jew, and I love that being Jewish means I have the opportunity to continually learn and enrich my life. In 2010, I was diagnosed with Stage 1 breast cancer. I had a lumpectomy and radiation because the cells were primarily in situ, meaning they were just beginning to […]

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Cancer, Healing

Immersion, Integration, and Wholeness: Refuah Sh’leimah

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by Esther Sadie Brandon I am now a breast cancer survivor. In the summer of 2015, an immersion at Mayyim Hayyim was my medium to mark the transition from being in treatment to healing. The words Refuah Sh’leimah can be interpreted as a prayer for wholeness. Integration is the neurological process of bringing together differentiated […]

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Sukkot and the Fragility of Our Lives

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by Melissa K. Rosen This post originally appeared on Sharsheret’s Blog in 2015. I was a little worried on Rosh Hashanah. By Yom Kippur, I was anxious enough to wonder out loud what I might look like without hair. The official call came right before Sukkot. I was in the kitchen preparing for the holiday […]

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My Journey to Recovery

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by Ronna Benjamin A little over a year ago, just after a “clean” mammogram, my primary care physician found a lump in my breast during a routine physical, and insisted on the ultrasound that saved my life. Countless women who have been through this sort of thing know what happened next: the biopsy, the agony […]

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My Red Sea

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by Esther Sadie Brandon In so many ways, water is our medium for transition and change. Immersing in the mikveh at Mayyim Hayyim was my medium to mark the transition from being in treatment to healing. I am now a breast cancer survivor. In early spring of 2015, I was diagnosed with an early stage carcinoma […]

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What Water Means to Me

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by Sheryl Mendlinger In a recent blog post, What’s with the Water, Carrie Bornstein asks us to reflect on how water has been an agent of change in our lives.  There are several of those moments in my lifetime when water has given me those ‘moments of awe.’  I have always felt that water is my […]

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My Last Immersion (For Now)

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by Rabbi Ilana C. Garber I love everything about the mikveh – the warm waters, the transitions and transformations, the healing and hope. I had immersed in the mikveh long before I was married: marking yahrzeit for my father z”l, becoming a rabbi, and moving to a new town and new job. Then I immersed […]

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A Community of Belonging

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Welcome to the Last Installment of our October Blog Series, From Rachel Hillman, Guest Editor October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month, a month where the media highlights breast cancer, research for treatment and, one day, a cure. During October, many women and men share their stories about how breast cancer impacted them or their family. Last year, after being […]

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Why I Don't Call Myself a Survivor

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Welcome to Our October Blog Series, From Rachel Hillman, Guest Editor October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month, a month where the media highlights breast cancer, research for treatment and, one day, a cure. During October, many women and men share their stories about how breast cancer impacted them or their family. Last year, after being diagnosed with breast cancer […]

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Separation

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Welcome to Our October Blog Series, From Rachel Hillman, Guest Editor October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month, a month where the media highlights breast cancer, research for treatment and, one day, a cure. During October, many women and men share their stories about how breast cancer impacted them or their family. Last year, after being diagnosed with breast cancer […]

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Sukkot and the Fragility of Our Lives

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Welcome to Our October Blog Series, From Rachel Hillman, Guest Editor October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month, a month where the media highlights breast cancer, research for treatment and, one day, a cure. During October, many women and men share their stories about how breast cancer impacted them or their family. Last year, after being diagnosed with breast cancer […]

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