Youth

From Hesitation to Connection: A Beneath the Surface Story 

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By Grace Sokolow When I was twelve years old, I played soccer year-round, listened obsessively to Bruno Mars, and thought that a three-page paper was a long assignment. The last thing I wanted to do on a Sunday afternoon was something Jewish. Weren’t Hebrew school and Bat Mitzvah tutoring enough?  But my Rabbi recommended a […]

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I got out of the mikveh and realized…

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Tishrei 5783 / October 2022   Dear friend, My group of friends has a history of going on mikveh adventures. Once it was skinny dipping in a river before Shabbat. Another time it was in a cave in Israel. Most recently, my friend, Moises, invited us to join him at Mayyim Hayyim a few days before […]

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Mikveh Guides, Niddah, Shabbat and Holidays

Living Waters

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By Leann Shamash So much of what is written in Parshat Metzora, this week’s Torah portion, concerning blood and emissions still lives on to this day. Who would think that a parsha which details bodily emissions would spur a tradition of mikveh, with water a liquid vehicle to heal and transform? Mayyim Hayyim has taken […]

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The First Thing I Needed to Do

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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 […]

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Uncategorized

Blessings for this Cancer Journey

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In November 2004, the Sixth Day Group, a group of thirteen women gathered at Mayyim Hayyim; some were cancer survivors, others were caregivers and health care professionals. They had each wished for a specifically Jewish, spiritual guide to the difficult journey through treatment and its aftermath, and decided to join together and create one. For […]

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Meet the Honorees: Shanna Shulman

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On May 11th, Mayyim Hayyim’s annual benefit, Making History, will celebrate two visionary leaders for making history in our community.  Shanna was raised in a secular family in St. Louis and Chicago, where her parents helped establish St. Louis’s Central Reform Congregation. She first learned of mikveh while taking a Jewish studies course in college—coincidentally, […]

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Meet the Honorees: Dr. Jonathan Sarna

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On May 11th, Mayyim Hayyim’s annual benefit, Making History, will celebrate two visionary leaders for making history in our community.  Jonathan Sarna arrived in Boston at the age of ten. His father, Nahum Sarna, was a biblical scholar at Brandeis and his mother, Helen, a librarian and cataloger at Hebrew College. He attended Brandeis, and […]

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Healing

Seeking a Reconsecration of My Civic Soul

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By 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 […]

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Jewish Community

We’re in this together

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by Elisha Gechter I have worked and volunteered at many great local Jewish organizations, but I tell everyone that Mayyim Hayyim is my favorite place in Jewish Boston. So it is my pleasure to ask that you join me in donating to our community mikveh before the end of 2020 with a generous gift. My connection to Mayyim Hayyim is […]

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Accessibility and Inclusion, Jewish Community

Testing the Waters

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by Shanna Shulman I was there to test the water… or rather, to test the new policies and procedures Mayyim Hayyim had developed to reduce the risk of COVID transmission. Mayyim Hayyim had made the difficult decision to close the mikveh last April when transmission levels were rising in our area. The staff and board […]

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