By Rabbi Jenny Solomon Shehehiyanu, v’kiyamanu, v’higiyanu lazman ha’zeh! (Thank you, God, for giving us life, sustaining us, and enabling us to reach this day!) It is almost unfathomable to me that just a year ago we opened our doors and our waters to the Jewish community. Living in a relatively small Jewish community in […]
Continue ReadingBy Harry and Elaine Wayne When we were planning our wedding 63 years ago, an Orthodox Jewish girlfriend gave us an engagement gift: a book explaining mikveh. The obvious purpose of the author was to encourage use of the mikveh ritual, including instructions on building one’s own in-home mikveh from a TV cabinet. Contrary to […]
Continue ReadingBy Max Klau Becoming a father for the first time is a big deal. And like most big transitions, it’s easy for the deep significance of the change to get lost in details that are material, financial, logistical, and medical. Amidst all the planning and reflecting that I was able to do with my wife, […]
Continue Readingby Sarah Chandler Once there was a young girl named Shalvi who lived by a magic stream. These waters could mend a broken heart, repair a shattered limb, and even heal grave illnesses. The individual need only immerse completely in the waters in order to unlock their magic. And yet, many visitors left with their […]
Continue ReadingWritten by Caroline Musin Berkowitz This week, we read two of my favorite Torah portions, Tazria and Metzora, and we learn about what to do when faced with, well, blood and guts. The laws are complex and full of examples of what is tamei, ritually impure, and what is tahor, ritually pure. If you have […]
Continue ReadingWritten by Rabbi Daniel Brenner At a conference on a ridiculously sunny spring day at New York University, I met a Jewish guy in his thirties who was planning on getting hitched this summer. When he heard that I was the director of a project focused on the lives of boys and men in the […]
Continue ReadingWritten by Amy Chartock, National Programs Director Just when life can feel like it is spinning out of control, something magical happens and I feel centered once again. Do tell, you ask? What’s my trick? For me, life comes back into focus when I serve […]
Continue ReadingWritten by Aliza Kline Reposted from Aliza and her husband Bradley’s Israel blog. It was not easy, there is no online listing in English, or apparently in Hebrew, of area mikvaot. Many of the people I’ve met here are not mikveh goers – and are definitely not aware of the tucked away mikvaot in the […]
Continue ReadingWritten by Madeline Mayer As I peered for the first time at the glistening waters of the mikveh at Mayyim Hayyim, I felt as if I was truly seeing inside my own soul—this time with a renewed, lucid state of mind. With its beautiful blue stones and tranquil waters, the mikveh enveloped me with spirit and […]
Continue ReadingMy first mikveh experience took place in early Elul. Shabbat was approaching at my first week-long Jewish Renewal retreat at Elat Chayyim, and I decided to join the group which was going to do “spiritual mikveh” in the swimming pool. Rabbi Phyllis Berman explained, beforehand, the ways in which our mikveh would be atypical: we […]
Continue ReadingAs a Male Mikveh Guide you are about to embark on a marvelous journey through uncharted waters. You will become, with a little patients and practice, the “Mikveh Lady” for your male peers. During the first part of the training you will learn a great deal about the rules of contact between a man and […]
Continue ReadingI was asked to write a blog as an anthropologist who had done work on Jewish Moroccan women, and to be personal and provocative, so here we go! The first image that came to my mind, is that of Ruth, one of my informants who told me, in the 1980’s, that she would go to […]
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