When Rabbi Miriam Berger was coming to terms with not being able to have a second child, she and her husband booked a trip to Boston. “We decided to go on a holiday that we wouldn’t have been able to go on with a newborn, and we hadn’t been able to book a long-haul flight for ages in the hope I got pregnant,” she says.
The Emerita Rabbi of Finchley Reform Synagogue had also been gifted a visit to Mayyim Hayyim, a mikveh just outside Boston, open to all genders and ages, to mark significant life events, both joyous and painful. For Rabbi Miriam, she was marking the decision to stop trying for a second child.
“When I came out of the mikveh, I felt defiance, relief and release. I was putting down years of hope and expectation. Nothing changed that day – I don’t think the waters of the mikveh are magical, but it gave me the opportunity to change the way I saw my situation.”
Rabbi Berger, who has a son, compared the experience of immersion to something the late Rabbi Lionel Blue said about prayer: “Though prayer has not changed the external world to suit my convenience, it has changed me.”
Going to the mikveh – especially if it is for a health-related reason – “is about taking back control, even if we can’t change the situation we’re in we can reframe our circumstances ”, says Rabbi Berger. “For me, it was about seeing that this little family we have is a blessing.”
On Sunday, she will be one of several presenters at Jewish Birth and Life Cycles: an afternoon of story and celebration. It is being run by Shifrah UK, which educates about and advocates for Jewish cultural birth practices, and is part of Jewish Culture Month.
Rabbi Berger will be talking about ritual. “Many things that we do are because tradition dictates it, and it feels like an obligation. But what does it mean when we take the same ritual and use it to speak to today, rather than it being simply fulfilling a duty?
“When we bring children into the world, we can give them a Judaism for the sake of obligation or a set of rituals which gives meaning to their lives.”
This is the cornerstone of Wellspring, a project Rabbi Berger is spearheading, which, when it opens in 2028 in the same vein as Mayyim Hayyim, will comprise a traditional indoor mikveh, an outdoor immersion pool, as well as spaces for therapeutic support and wellness practices.
“The aim is to help people transition into the next moment of their life by giving them the right preparation to be in the water, with thoughts of what they want to leave behind or take with them into the next chapter.”
In Judaism, there is a tradition of going to the mikveh during the ninth month of pregnancy in the hope of receiving God’s blessing for a safe and easy labour. “But it’s also a way of saying that it’s not all about the baby but about you changing to become a parent and marking this moment of transition,” says Rabbi Berger.
As Wellspring doesn’t currently have a mikvah, Rabbi Berger is running sessions at Hampstead Ponds on Rosh Chodesh (the start of a Jewish month), or for individuals before transitional moments like marriage, or to mark time with them.
Aptly named after the prophetess Miriam, who is synonymous with water, Rabbi Berger points out that in the Torah, water is often linked to change. “When the Israelites went from slavery to freedom, they walked through water; Moses emerges from water to become the leader and saviour of the Jewish people; Jacob crosses the River Jabbok before his name is changed to Israel.
“In Judaism, the idea of water is so integral to moments of transition. Judaism gives us the ability to mark time meaningfully. We just need to relearn how our ancestors did it.”
Jewish Birth and Life Cycles: An afternoon of story and celebration
Shifrah UK presents an intimate afternoon of Jewish storytelling exploring birth, matrescence and life cycles
Sunday June 7
2-4.30pm
North London
To book tickets, click here or go to: https://jewishculturemonth.org.uk/events/jewish-birth-and-life-cycles-an-afternoon-of-story-and-celebration/
wellspringuk.org
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