Diane Black
I felt like a fraud!
Mayyim Hayyim’s mission speaks to me, it speaks loudly and it speaks clearly! So, why had I never immersed?
I have had the privilege of serving on the organization’s Board of Directors. I have also taken the training to become a mikveh guide, and find those experiences of being witness particularly meaningful. Our philanthropy to the institution is a top priority, a way to show our family’s faith in the competent people who lead this institution and the strength of its mission.
So, why had I never immersed?
I have spent many years working for Hospice and dealing with issues of death and dying and feel the connection that healing and comfort-care can provide people in search of a place to turn while searching for peace and reflection. Being a Pisces, I thought I understood all things, water.
Boy, was I wrong.
That was all well and good, but it didn’t go nearly far enough. I needed the story to “wash” over me too, and do it more deeply. I wanted to immerse, really I did! I kept waiting for the extraordinary moment, but that moment never seemed to come. Our speakers always relayed stories of profundity. Their experiences were profound and the moments they marked were powerful indeed.
My life was just ordinary in the wonderful way that lives with many blessings are “ordinary.” And then my epiphany happened.
It was precisely those ordinary blessings which were the reason to immerse. Those ordinary moments were my celebration. They needed to be marked in a Jewish context. My immersion left me literally breathless. It had a power beyond my wildest imagination. It has become for me, one of those defining moments which now inform who I am.
Thank goodness that Mayyim Hayyim is here for people like me who just need a little more time.