by Rachel Eisen, Director of Annual Giving This past week has been, to put it mildly, a tumultuous and heavy one. As a (white) Jewish woman, I’ve been worried and scared for my friends and family of all races and religions, as an antisemitic man and a homophobic man were named to the presidential transition team. […]
Continue ReadingOctober 2016/ Tishrei 5777 Enough with the hand-wringing about the Jewish future. The kids are all right—and then some. You want proof? Listen to Mayyim Hayyim’s young visitors. Listen to Ira, who immersed before his bar mitzvah: This has been one of the most meaningful, spiritual, serene, and overall amazing experiences I’ve […]
Continue Readingby Rachel Eisen, Director of Annual Giving There are definitely quirks about working in a building that is centuries old. Oftentimes, no two rooms are the same temperature. Once, running a microwave knocked out the power on the third floor. But my favorite quirk is the way sound travels in this old house. Whenever there is […]
Continue Readingby Leah Robbins, Administrative and Marketing Assistant I grew up in a very traditional Conservative-with-a-capital-C Jewish household: Shabbos every week, day school, Camp Ramah, USY, study abroad in Israel – the whole megillah. All of this exposure, (or immersion as we like to say) into Jewish life had given me what I thought was a […]
Continue Readingby Leah Robbins, Administrative and Marketing Assistant Almost two months have passed since I began working at Mayyim Hayyim. I have settled into my desk, built a challenging, but civil relationship with our computer systems and their quirks, and am actively growing as a member of this extraordinary team of women who keep Mayyim Hayyim […]
Continue Readingby Lisa Berman, Mikveh & Education Director Expectations. Raised, lowered, managed. We can’t help it — we think about what an experience will be like and then we measure it. Was it as good as we’d hoped? What would we do differently next time? What do we wish had happened? Mikveh is no different. I […]
Continue Readingby Rachel Eisen, Director of Annual Giving Some people think that life is linear, always moving forward in one direction. But I’d like to disagree. In this past year, life hasn’t felt linear at all. Almost a full year ago, I wrote my first blog post as an intern for Mayyim Hayyim. I wrote about […]
Continue Readingby Leah Robbins, Administrative and Marketing Assistant When I walked into my first day on staff at Mayyim Hayyim yesterday, I had tucked away the pain of this weekend’s horrific events that have been weighing so heavily on me. As a member of the LGBTQ+ community, I have been wrought with fear and grief over […]
Continue ReadingLisa Berman, Mikveh and Education Director There is something inherently off-putting about saying you’re going to make a movie at a mikveh. Isn’t a mikveh a place where privacy is paramount? Where photography and exposure should not coexist? Yes, of course. So then why last month would a visit to Mayyim Hayyim have found it […]
Continue Readingby Kelly Banker, Intern I have always been captivated by water. It holds a certain mystical quality, a kind of knowing. Growing up, my family spent our summers living in a cottage on a lake in New Hampshire, so water has been a staple of my life from an early age. Lakes, streams, rivers, waterfalls and […]
Continue ReadingBy Cantor Rachel Stock Spilker, Scholar-in-Residence I imagine that most Mayyim Hayyim blog readers know that mayyim hayyim translates as “living waters.” But what does it mean for waters to be living? According to the physical requirements of a mikveh, mayyim hayyim refers to the living waters that come from a flowing source which has […]
Continue Readingby Carrie Bornstein, Executive Director Sheri Gurock. As of January 1, Sheri is Mayyim Hayyim’s board president. If you follow our blog regularly, you’ve gotten to know her a bit already, or maybe you even know her in real life. Sheri is crazy smart, super creative, and holds Mayyim Hayyim to the highest standards possible, […]
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