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Mikveh in Contemporary Experience
The reclamation of mikveh both as a traditional ritual and as a site for new ceremonies has
necessitated Jewish communal interest in mikvaot. One important new trend is the building of
mikvaot by pluralistic and/or liberal communities. The mikveh at the University of Judaism in Los
Angeles is one such mikveh. Mayyim Chayyim, a pluralistic mikveh conceived by Anita Diamant
and others, is being built in Boston as a place where all kinds of mikveh rituals can be practiced:
healing, loss, and decision making rituals as well as traditional uses. Building mikvaot under
pluralistic auspices may widen women’s and men’s options for how and when they use the
mikveh.One of the most exciting recent developments around mikveh has been Janice Rubin’s
“The mikveh Project,” an art installation featuring photographs of women who use the mikveh,
accompanied by their stories of ritual bath experiences. The pictures– some clothed and some
nude, all anonymous– show the incredible diversity of Jewish women as well as the diversity of
their ideas about purity, sexuality, spirituality, and tradition. A book containing the photographs
and stories of the installation has been published as well. This widely known and hauntingly
beautiful artwork shows in careful detail the love, ambivalence, anger, and longing many Jewish
women feel toward the ritual bath.Where will the practice of mikveh go in the future? How will
Jews imagine purity and impurity, separation and togetherness? Many questions remain. Is mikveh
a ritual that should be offered to adolescent girls as a source of spirituality? How might a couple
who is not married but is sexually active relate to the practice of tumah and taharah? In what new
and creative ways will men use mikveh? What kind of mikveh practice would two lesbians
choose? How will Jewish law develop in this area? The options are varied and colorful. The future
of this ancient practice is still unfolding. As Marge Piercy writes in her poem “Kaddish”: “Time
flows through us like water…” (The Art of Blessing The Day. Middlemarsh, 1999, p. 138).
By Rabbi Jill Hammer
http://www.ritualwell.org/lifecycles/intimacypartnering/mikveh/MikvehArticle.xml
The European Compromise: Between Immanence and Transcendence
Sunday, February 3rd, 2008
Bérengère Massignon
The European construction is heuristically useful when it comes to analysing the mutations
affecting relations between the religious and the political in western European countries. The
European Union is an archetype of immanence in politics. While access to Europe’s pluralistic,
competitive public space imposes a relative secularization upon the religious, complex
transactions none the less are at work in Brussels, where a European compromise between
immanence and transcendence is being forged. Religions, as patrimonial and anthropological
resources, they testify to/are the repository of an idea of transcendence by which they propose a
critique of individualistic and market-driven Europe.Suffering from a symbolic deficit, European
institutions call upon religions in order to ‘‘to give Europe a soul’’.
According to numerous sociologists, Europe is characterized by a high degree of secularization. In
this sense, Europe is an exception (Berger,1992; Davie, 2002), at the very time when, on the
international scene, we speak of a return of the religious and the ‘‘revenge of God’’ (Kepel,
1991).As Grace Davie notes: ‘‘It is difficult to point out the case of Europe without seeming to be
some kind of spoil-sport’’ (Davie, 2001: 99). Yet, analysts are divided as to the degree and
significance of European secularization where religious practice decreases and religious
identification holds on. What is more, in contrast with the United States, relations between historic
churches and the state are institutionalized, at times even guaranteed by the constitution; however,
European politicians are repelled by the idea of putting religious references to political use. Added
to these interpretative, theoretical problems is the difficulty in understanding the great religious