Coming full circle, Mayyim Hayyim CEO returns to mikveh where she immersed to convert

Mayyim Hayyim opened in 2004 and by the end of 2014, it had hosted more than 2,000 conversions and nearly 14,000 immersions over all. Every year, more than 2500 people come to study, tour, and celebrate with family and friends in its education center. Mayyim Hayyim consults to existing mikva’ot and communities interested in creating new mikva’ot. On May 14, 2004, Mayyim Hayyim opened the doors to its home in a renovated Victorian home, in Newton, Massachusetts. New construction included two beautiful immersion pools – mikva’ot – four preparation suites, and a welcoming reception area. The original house became a multipurpose facility that now serves as an education center, celebration venue, and art gallery.

• “After my first immersion, I had a feeling of wholeness, holiness, a sense of completion and that I’m enough.
• Some Jews also immerse new food utensils in a mikveh prior to using them, a practice known as tevilat keilim.
• Julie Childers is an executive leader in nonprofit management, strategy, and operations with experience in education, women and girls’ health, and Jewish philanthropy.
• He helped us figure it out, including what kind of equipment we’d need to purchase and how to protect someone’s privacy.
• Kline served until 2012, when she left to found Shabbat dinner initiative OneTable and Carrie Bornstein became executive director.
• It’s written mostly with kids in mind, but it could also be adapted for use with adults.
• Temple Israel, with support from our Sisterhood, is an Institutional Member of Mayyim Hayyim, the world’s premier pluralistic Mikveh (ritual mikveh) and Education Center, located in Newton.

Immersion Ceremonies

Partnering with him was really important in figuring out how to do this in a way that preserves and maintains one’s dignity through this process, this celebration. We’re here to say “yes” as much as we possibly can, to welcome in the whole diversity of the Jewish community. That means anticipating people’s needs, anticipating all of the reasons why they might think that this is ‘not for them’, or weird, or scary – all the different sensitivities that people understandably have around mikveh – how can we just throw those out the window? How can we get around them, and change things so it doesn’t have to be like that.

About Mayyim Hayyim

On a visit to the Boston-area mikveh where conversions were permitted only two hours a week, she says, “I saw a line out the door. In a way, it was inspiring to see men, women, and children waiting, wanting to become Jews. Anita Diamant is the founding president of Mayyim Hayyim Living Waters Community Mikveh and the Paula J. Brody & Education Center in Newton, Massachusetts. A groundbreaking model of an ancient ritual reinvented for the 21st century, Mayyim Hayyim is an international resource for study, celebration, and authentic, creative Jewish spirituality. Once in the water, the person ducks under to fully submerge for a moment, then recites a short blessing (Mayyim Hayyim provides traditional and creative texts). The person then immerses one or two more times, according to their custom, recites a blessing, and leaves the water.

Programs for Youth

No reopening date has been set, and the earliest date people can schedule immersions on the mikveh’s website is Feb. 26. Mayyim Hayyim has a filter/disinfectant system in the basement, through which the water to the two mikva’ot flows. There is a supply pipe and return pipe—much like a supply and return duct for air. The water is treated with bromine and Spa Shock, a safe and effective disinfectants. A handrail is provided for safety, and one of the mikva’ot also offers an aquatic lift for handicap accessibility. Natural light pours through dormer windows, providing a glimpse of the outside while carefully preserving modesty.

As our introductory film highlights, we don’t not only have to pay attention to wheelchair accessibility, but also to people with other disabilities like blindness or Down syndrome. How do you welcome them in to what you’re doing, so that it works for them – whether you’re in a mikveh or anywhere else. Our goal here is to say yes and to be as open and as welcoming as possible, and that means giving as much of the ownership and the decision-making rights to the person who is coming in the door, who is immersing; they get to call the shots, not me, because it’s not my immersion. Childers succeeds Bornstein after local community roles including executive director at Our Bodies Ourselves and assistant director at UCLA’s Streisand Center for the Study of Women, as well as a stint at the Jewish Federation of Greater Los Angeles.

Michaela first learned about Mayyim Hayyim through Temple Beth Elohim in 2007 and immersed prior to becoming bat mitzvah. Michaela was a Judaic studies major at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. She forged a strong Jewish identity through her upbringing at Temple Beth Elohim as a cantorial mentee, assistant teacher and youth choir director, personal tutor, and congregant Shabbat service leader for 14 years. She attended URJ Eisner camp and traveled to Israel, where she connected with Jews of all denominations and gained a deep understanding of and love for the broader Jewish community.

Every ceremony includes a pre-immersion kavanah (intention), contra asset account blessings or kavanot (intentions) to follow three immersions, and a concluding reading. Ceremonies may include songs, contemporary poems, and traditional liturgies. They can be read privately, with the assistance of a Mikveh Guide, or with friends and family. Mayyim Hayyim’s Ritual Creation Team has developed a library of original ceremonies to help personalize your mikveh experience.

• Our goal here is to say yes and to be as open and as welcoming as possible, and that means giving as much of the ownership and the decision-making rights to the person who is coming in the door, who is immersing; they get to call the shots, not me, because it’s not my immersion.
• In addition to reclaiming and reinventing the mikveh, Mayyim Hayyim seeks to fulfill its mission through a variety of educational programs.
• When I started working here in 2008, if you knew nothing about it and just Googled “mikveh”, what you found would not make you feel good or positive at all.
• The introduction of a small amount of living water from the outside bor is what makes the indoor pool a kosher mikveh.
• Mayyim Hayyim has worked hard to remain open in the safest way possible, and we look forward to welcoming you.
• Two people may serve as witnesses to each other’s immersions, though we encourage people to immerse in the water individually.

Mayyim Hayyim

I don’t think many existing mikvaot have become more accessible, but the first thing you have mayyim hayyim to do is get people to realize that it’s an issue, and I think that is happening. We were creating this new space, and the vision was to be accessible and to be open for all different kinds of people, which meant it had to be physically accessible. The walkway coming into the building is all to regulation – there are no stairs to climb. The spaces on the floor where people would need to go for the education center or the mikveh are all wheelchair-accessible. The idea for Mayyim Hayyim was to take this ancient ritual that for many people was unknown and foreign, and assumed to be only for a certain type of person – to open that up and to de-mystify it, to bring it to communities that had not traditionally made it their own. If you’re going to do that with a ritual that’s very foreign to probably 90 percent of the American Jewish community – if you want them to not only know about it but to really care about it and want to integrate it into their world – then you have to teach about it.

Not from every place, but from many mikvaot out there, this is something different. Julie Childers started her work as CEO of the Mayyim Hayyim Living Waters Community Mikveh, the pluralistic ritual bath outside of Boston, in early July. But her history with the mikveh goes back to 2006, when she herself immersed there during her conversion to Judaism. In 2001 Diamant assembled a small, dynamic founding board and hired Aliza Kline as Mayyim Hayyim’s executive director. Kline’s experience, energy, and passion for Jewish life was Law Firm Accounts Receivable Management instrumental in turning the dream of a new kind of mikveh into a 21st century reality.