Updated, June 28 A new network of community mikvehs, or ritual baths, will host an inaugural summer gathering this August, bringing together established organizations and those interested in starting a new mikveh program. A large majority of mikvehs in the United States are operated by the Orthodox community, for whom ritual purification is commanded for…
(JTA) — A Jewish community mikvah near Boston says its supporters are rallying around it after the mikvah announced that a former staffer misused funds and engaged in other financial improprieties. In an email sent May 18 to supporters of the Mayyim Hayyim Living Waters Community Mikveh, officials of the mikvah said the estimated financial loss…
“Wellness” is one of the biggest, often eye-roll-inducing, buzzwords of today. A trillion dollar industry associated with anything from turmeric laced golden milk, to sound baths, to Lululemon activewear — it encompasses such a broad, trend-driven array of beliefs and practices that even those profiting from it struggle to define it. Miriam Webster defines wellness…
Updated 4:35 p.m. (JTA) — The jail sentence of Rabbi Barry Freundel, a once-prominent Modern Orthodox rabbi in Washington, D.C. who secretly filmed women in his synagogue’s mikvah, has been shortened by over a year due to good behavior, his lawyer said. Freundel’s 6 1/2-year sentence also was reduced because he participated as an instructor…
Immersing in the mikveh is often portrayed by its advocates as a woman’s rebirth — not merely a religious commandment, but a spiritual experience that sustains marital harmony. Jewish tradition holds that couples are forbidden to have sex during menstruation and for a week after, until the woman immerses in a ritual bath, or mikveh,…
As a Jewish community, how can we support survivors of sexual assault in recovering from “spiritual trauma?” I was surprised, in my study of the Babylonian Talmud, a passage that suggests that survivors of sexual assault may voluntarily immerse themselves in a mikvah — an ancient spiritual practice responding to an all-too contemporary situation. Such…
For many Orthodox Jewish women, the mikveh is fraught with tension: a secret space for married women only — who immerse only after the completion of a menstrual cycle and after childbirth -– occasions inevitably tied to sexuality. Immersions are obligatory, and are done in the privacy of night, only after the stars come out….
Today I am going to the mikveh and I can barely breathe. The anxiety starts days before when I know that I have a week left until I have to go. I put my children to sleep and begin the long process of preparing to dip my body in the pure waters. But the weight…
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