September 2021 / Tishrei 5782 Dear friend, It’s been a long, hard pandemic. We asked each other, “What’s the first thing you’ll do once you’re vaccinated?” For me, the first thing I needed to do was immerse at Mayyim Hayyim. Lockdown overlapped with the year of mourning for my beloved Abba, my father. It wasn’t until May of this year that I felt ready to go to Mayyim Hayyim. I went in the water bearing the compounded pain of that […]
Continue ReadingBy Dr. Max Klau In the early days after the 2016 election, I made myself a vow to immerse in the mikveh when the time came to mark the end of his administration. In late January 2021—about a week after the inauguration—I made it happen. I spent a good long time floating in the warm […]
Continue Readingby Dr. Gail Levine-Fried My mother first brought my sister and I to the water as children growing up in Crown Heights, Brooklyn. She loved swimming and the ocean, and took us to swimming pools, public and private, in parts of Brooklyn far from our neighborhood. Mom didn’t drive a car, but she schlepped us […]
Continue Readingby Rosa Blumenfeld I am the daughter of a mother who was born during La Violencia, the Colombian civil war so bloody it was simply called ‘The Violence,’ and a father who survived the Holocaust as a 25 year old in 1939. I know what it is to be raised to be on constant alert […]
Continue Readingby Lorie Holder-Webb As I left Mayyim Hayyim, my Mikveh Guide wished that next time we meet be for joy. I understand that, and thanked her for that wish, but I have to say that for me, this meeting was for joy. I know it must seem that immersing in the midst of a chronic […]
Continue Readingby 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 […]
Continue Readingby Amber Caulkins, Director of the Rising Tide Open Waters Mikveh Network I’ve been to the mikveh for many important moments in my life: for traditional reasons (converting, before my wedding), and other times for reasons like starting a new career or embarking on a move across the country. These experiences were all meaningful in […]
Continue Readingby Shirah Hecht Yaakov awoke from his sleep, and said, In truth, [the Glory of] Adonoy is [dwells] in this place, and I did not know it [would not have known it]. Mikveh and Embodied Judaism Mikveh and I encountered each other a few times in my life, always with positive associations. I first went to the mikveh before my wedding, at age 22, […]
Continue Readingby Leeza Negelev, Associate Director of Education Memories are strange. They vanish and reappear in unpredictable ways. Sometimes their natural habitat is our solitary and unconscious mind; other times, a shared moment with a friend. We tend to memories in our dreams, in an unexpected wave of nostalgia, and at the dinner table. As Jews, […]
Continue Readingby Rabbi Margaret Frisch Klein, Mikveh Guide At Mayyim Hayyim, we are grateful to Margaret for her bravery in speaking up about sexual assault. Read her story, learn about how she used mikveh as part of her healing process, and consider a donation so that Mayyim Hayyim can continue to be there for survivors. The […]
Continue Readingby Leeza Negelev, Associate Director of Education Each year, as Rosh Hashanah approaches I hear a lot of people say, “I don’t feel ready.” Or, “The chaggim (holidays) just came out of nowhere. Are they early this year?” I include myself in this Greek chorus. Amidst high holiday planning, schools start, traffic gets 90% worse, and […]
Continue Readingby Anonymous For many years after Mayyim Hayyim opened, I tried to figure out how and when I’d experience my own first mikveh story. Moments came and went. I thought, maybe when I turn 50? Menopause? Last kid graduates from high school? Youngest graduates from college? How about becoming a grandma? Somehow, I was never […]
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