In 2018, five such mikvehs established the Rising Tide Open Waters Mikveh Network, which counts more than 40 mikvehs among its members. In addition to traditional purposes, new uses include celebrations for milestone events such as QuickBooks a graduation, the end of a period of study, or an important birthday or anniversary. Immersion in the mikveh can also signify a new start in the aftermath of pain and trauma. Immersion provides an opportunity to mark the end of formal grieving or the beginning of healing from events such as suffering a miscarriage, undergoing chemotherapy, completing a year of bereavement, and recovering from divorce, rape or abuse. The goal is for visitors to the mikveh to emerge refreshed and renewed, ready for life’s next gifts. In 2001, Mayyim Hayyim was incorporated as a nonprofit organization, hired Aliza Kline as the organization’s executive director, and began to develop plans for building, fundraising, and teaching about the uses of mikveh.
Boston’s groundbreaking community mikveh is closed after burst pipe causes damage
Mayyim Hayyim is a 21st-century creation, a mikveh rooted in ancient tradition, reinvented to serve the Jewish community of today. Funding for the mikveh today comes from a variety of sources, a combination of individual donors, foundations and fees-for-service. Additional support comes from a matching grant from Project Accelerate and a significant grant from Upstart, as well as significant institutional funders including Aviv Foundation, Lippman Kanfer Foundation for Living Torah, the Miriam Fund and an anonymous major donor. Mayyim Hayyim offers a space where Judaism is the solution – a place where, no matter who you are, how you practice, or what you need, you are welcome.
- Each of our two mikva’ot actually consists of two permanent pools, watertight pits built into the ground.
- Help us continue to develop new immersion ceremonies by making a donation to Mayyim Hayyim.
- That also exists now in many mikvaot – they’ve brought that into what they do.
- In 2019, Mayyim Hayyim celebrated its 20,000th immersion and 3,000th conversion, and as of this week — after a pandemic slowdown in 2020 and a burst pipe in February 2023 — the organization has been home to a total of 3,702 conversions or affirmation ceremonies and 23,513 immersions.
- She loves to cook vegetarian food and support her two teenage children through their performances in community theater productions.
- The mikveh ritual was long rejected by feminist Jews because of its association with the laws of family purity (taharat hamishpacha), which suggest that a menstruating woman is "unclean."
Innovative and inclusive mikveh: Mayyim Hayyim
Mayyim Hayyim’s site at 1838 Washington Street in Newton, MA, was purchased in 2002. Located in a Victorian home built in the 1870s, the building was renovated and an addition built to house the mikveh pools and preparation rooms. People are more aware, and they think about making any new mikveh accessible.
Mayyim Hayyim, a Progressive Community Mikveh, Opens
But in recent years, mikveh immersion has soared among non-Orthodox Jews who have begun to reclaim the practice, often for non-traditional purposes. Mayyim Hayyim opened in 2004 with the goal of reinventing ritual immersion, which Jewish law traditionally requires of married women, for contemporary spiritual life. The mikveh also aims to make ritual immersion accessible for a greater range of Jews and those seeking to convert. (JTA) — Mayyim Hayyim, a pluralistic community mikveh, or ritual bath, in Boston, is putting a pause on ritual immersions and classes after multiple pipes burst in the building’s laundry room, causing severe water damage.
- But with visionary help from many individuals in the greater Boston area, the idea caught on and money was raised.
- Everything else, where you’re building from scratch, I don’t know that it added expense.
- Mayyim Hayyim welcomes everyone to visit and participate in education programs, view the art gallery, and tour the mikveh.
- Mayyim Hayyim emerged from a need in the Boston Jewish community, Childers explains.
- In addition to traditional purposes, new uses include celebrations for milestone events such as a graduation, the end of a period of study, or an important birthday or anniversary.
- To mark its first anniversary, the group staged a performance of Mikveh Monologues, modeled after Eve Ensler’s The Vagina Monologues, and featuring the stories of mikveh users.
- There is a supply pipe and return pipe—much like a supply and return duct for air.
- Funding for the mikveh today comes from a variety of sources, a combination of individual donors, foundations and fees-for-service.
- For Boston-area Jews who immerse ritually on a monthly basis, in keeping with Jewish tradition, the closure could be a significant interruption.
- At its local “test kitchen” and innovation lab in Boston, Mayyim Hayyim is a destination for Jews across the spectrum of observance and affiliation.
Building off of our previous success and with a vision to strengthen, inspire, and build the field we created, Mayyim Hayyim launched the Rising Tide Open Waters Mikveh Network. Within its first year, nearly thirty communities from five countries around the world joined to foster this vision and open the doors to the mikveh for everybody in the Jewish world. Sign up with your email address to receive news and updates including special events, holiday reminders and our weekly newsletter. Keep our journalism strong by joining us mayyim hayyim in supporting independent, award-winning reporting.
Reclaiming Mikveh
Some use the mikveh to mark important celebratory milestones, like a wedding or bar mitzvah. And still others use the mikveh to mark tragic losses, like the end of the mourning period for a loved one or the dissolution of a marriage. A more recent trend has been to immerse in the mikveh to mark a gender transition or coming out as gay or lesbian. For these reasons, constructing a mikveh is considered to be of paramount importance, with some Jewish law authorities holding that it should take precedence over the building of a synagogue or the acquisition of a Torah scroll. But for much of Jewish history, visiting the mikveh was largely the domain of married Orthodox women and hasidic men. Law Firm Accounts Receivable Management Most liberal Jews shunned it, considering the requirement to immerse after menstruation to be patriarchal and sexist.