by Eytan Weiner Due to the fact that I am a 14 year old boy going into high school, every decision affects my social status. Regardless of how big or small a choice I make, “life changing” things can happen, based on what table I sit at, what food I eat, and who I choose to […]
Continue Readingby Noah Aronson This year, I’ll be playing with the Noah Aronson Band at Mayyim Hayyim’s Milestones — Step by Step Spring Benefit. I’m thrilled to be able to share in the celebration of this incredible organization. I have had the opportunity twice in my life to immerse in a mikveh. Once on the side of a mountain in […]
Continue Readingby Amos Lassen Recently I visited Mayyim Hayyim as part of a group from Temple Sinai, Brookline. When I arrived I found myself filled with memories from my childhood. Having been raised Orthodox, I was very familiar with the mikveh and as a youngster I would go regularly with my father. As I grew up, I […]
Continue Readingby Daniel Goldberg December 8th, 2015: my first mikveh experience. I’ve been Jewish all my life, but up until a few months ago I didn’t even know this ancient ritual could be practiced by men, other than for the purpose of conversion. I met Rachel Eisen, then an intern at Mayyim Hayyim, at a Jewish event […]
Continue Readingby Rafi Spitzer Each person who comes to Mayyim Hayyim is offered a guide, a person trained to facilitate their immersion and to serve as a witness. The Mikveh guide is a representative of the community who acknowledges that a transition has taken place. As a Mikveh Guide, I have witnessed the immersions of grooms, Bar […]
Continue Readingby Jim Ball, Mikveh Guide New Hampshire’s loss is Massachusetts’ gain, two fold. Peter and Betty Shapiro, this year’s honorees at Mayyim Hayyim’s “Open Waters” benefit celebration on Monday, May 18th, are two folks we’re lucky to have in Greater Boston. They moved here a year and a half ago from Concord, where Peter practiced […]
Continue Readingby Walt Clark, Office Manager It’s Pesach (Passover) at Mayyim Hayyim. Late last week, the staff gathered downstairs to get the kitchen ready for the upcoming holiday. As I was surrounded by the fury of cleaning, I realized that the Mayyim Hayyim kitchen had gone gluten free. I live in a gluten free household so I know the warning signs. Cake is gone. […]
Continue Readingby Rabbi Matthew Soffer When Romeo “oos and ahhs” over Juliet in the most famous scene of any of Shakespeare’s plays, he utters a line that is often misappropriated today: “A rose by any other name would smell as sweet.” Translation: His beloved’s name is irrespective of her identity, her beauty, and her “sweet smell.” […]
Continue Readingby Alan Green, Mikveh Guide After 35 years of practicing as an OBGYN in Nashua, NH, I retired in April, 2012. So what did I do with all the free time that I thought I would have? Among other things, I became a Mikveh Guide at Mayyim Hayyim. I was accepted into the 8th cohort […]
Continue Readingby Joseph Gindi My recent move back to Boston to begin rabbinical school has really felt like coming home. I had previously interned at Mayyim Hayyim, so when Lisa Berman, the Mikveh and Education Director, invited me to come back and volunteer as a Mikveh Guide, I decided to get in the water myself to mark the […]
Continue Readingby Gary Waleik Front and center in the book of Leviticus, tractate Mikva’ot of the Talmud, Chasidic writings and throughout Jewish literature, is the idea that a mikveh is inherently and completely holy. But haven’t we always known that water is sacred somewhere deep in our souls? Water was a means of survival for our ancestors, and […]
Continue Readingby José Portuondo-Dember It’s easy to think of going to the mikveh in terms of “washing away.” My very first experience with a ritual bath was my baptism in the Roman Catholic Church as an infant. It was couched in the language of washing away original sin. As I turned to Judaism and began learning […]
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