Still not dead, lol.  This project has been stalled for a long time, but I'm hoping to fold it in to a new nonprofit organization we're calling Beit Kohanot Inc, which just got our 501c3 this month. Stay tuned!

We're not dead yet...

 Well, two of the three officers of this proposed nonprofit moved away from Lexington. One potential major backer said if we didn't install the miqvah at OZS instead of a community-wide independent facility they wouldn't fund it, I spent 3.5 years pf classes working on getting smicha as a Kohenet to run the facility, and, of course, covid hit. Talk about bad timing!  But, we're not dead yet. One of my goals now is to revive this idea, perhaps in conjunction with other things in the facility to help fund it. It may take a winning lottery ticket, lol, but I plan to begin looking at properties that might be suitable.  If the Divine wants this to happen, it will. If you are in agreement with the above stated ideals of what this miqvah facility should be in order to best serve the wide range of Jewish practice in the Central Kentucky area, let me know.  Peace, Gayle  RoshChodeshLex@AhavahAriel.com

Check out the latest news from RCLex!

www.ahavahariel.com/rosh-chodesh-lex

Introducing Rosh Chodesh Lexington!

Rosh Chodesh Lexington will be a monthly drum circle and women's sacred dance ceremony to celebrate the new moon. I'd like to invite you to join us as we plan our first event. I'm imagining a drum circle for those with drums, tambourines, maracas, or other percussion instruments, surrounded by dancers and those chanting and singing. I'm imagining everyone brings an object that represents their hopes, fears, and prayers for a central altar. I'm imagining anointing oil, ritual water, and beautiful candles. I'm imagining a call to heal those willing to receive the group's love and prayers. I'm imagining honoring our departed mother, sisters, and daughters. And of course I'm imagining food, because this is Judaism. We always have food. A potluck would be wonderful, with perhaps some donations or a small cover charge to cover drinks and wine. Depending on the number of RSVPs, celebrations can be held in the OZS social hall, or, a smaller group can meet at my home while we build interest in this project. We could have our first circle for Sivan on June 3rd, 4th, or 5th. If that is too close, we could welcome Tammuz on July 2nd. Let's meet soon and see what you're imagining. Together we can create a new life of women's spirituality in Jewish Lexington. Reply to this email if you're interested in joining us either as just a participant or as one of the mothers of this new project. Thank you and I hope to hear from you soon. Please click the graphic on the sidebar to go to the Rosh Chodesh Lexington page. There you will find a link to sign up for our MailChimp listserve which will update everyone on our scheduled events (in addition to being posted on the blog, of course). Shalom, Leah Gayle

Conversion - why is a visit to the miqvah required?

Here is an interesting article from the My Jewish Learning webpage: Why Immerse in the Mikveh? Rabbi Maurice Lamm discusses what immersion symbolizes as part of the conversion process and how it actualizes a person's transition from being a person of the myriad nations to being part of the Jewish family.

Finding healing in spiritual rituals.

An article from Kveller.com How the Mikveh Helped Me Through My Miscarriage by Lisa Bloom, April 28, 2015 ...Last time I was there, I thought, “I wish every woman could experience the spirituality that I am feeling now.” No matter where you are in your life cycle, the mikveh can connect you to purity and holiness with God. It took me six years to go back. But I did. A rabbi I learned with in Israel once told me that we are all moving vessels at sea. It does not matter how long it takes to get to your destination, as long as you get there...

Yom HaShoah 2015: The Miqvah played a role in the lives of Holocaust victims and survivors.

Many Jewish women in these modern days do not understand the significance of the miqvah ritual, or think that it is no longer relevant for our times. Some believe it is imposed on women by men who fear women's sexuality and want to control it. It can be, in fact, a deeply spiritual experience - one that has great personal value. It can also be a link in a long chain, daughter to mother to grandmother, that has been part of Jewish women's lives reaching back into antiquity. It also has great historical significance even in the 20th century, as we see in this article.

Mikvah in the Ghettos: Women and Mikvah during the Shoah by Lani Lederer Berman ...Throughout history, the mikvah has stood at the very core of religious Jewish life and practice, and said to protect the Jewish people both physically and spiritually. It is therefore fitting on the eve of Holocaust Remembrance Day, to explore some of the discourse surrounding mikvah during the Holocaust, when Jewish existence was threatened in both these realms. Though this piece is not an exhaustive examination of the topic, it is meant to join the conversation in an attempt to pay respect to those who endured the suffering and thereby fought for the physical and spiritual survival of our nation. The Nazis understood the importance of the mikvah. Rabbinic responsa record that in many places, specifically in the ghettos,1 the Nazis banned the use of the mikvah and closed them down. They prevented Jews from immersing for any reason, and thereby largely prevented women from keeping the laws connected to family purity. This raised serious questions regarding the propriety of a halakhic marriage. In The Oneg Shabbat Archives,2 which chronicled the lives of Jewish people in the Warsaw Ghetto, Rabbi Yehoshua Moshe Aronson notes that after the Nazi invasion, the mikvaot were closed in the Warsaw Ghetto. This led him and others to worry that “the consecration of married life would be marred by impurity.”3 Likewise, in the Slobodka ghetto, Rabbi Avraham Dov-Ber Shapiro, the chief rabbi of Kovno, struggled over whether to allow marriages, because of the difficulty of observing the laws of family purity in the ghetto. However, when a rumor that single women could be selected for deportation from the ghetto began to circulate, many women sought civil marriages to prevent deportation. Rabbi Shapiro thus decided to perform halakhic weddings, even without mikvah, for pikuach nefesh reasons. Another halakhic authority Rabbi Shimon Huberband, wrote in his responsa (preserved in the Oneg Shabbat Archives), “Jewish Warsaw was left without any mikvahs, and the problem of the purity of the daughters of Israel became as serious as it was in the days of the ancient Roman edicts against Judaism.”4 Anyone who used the mikvah would face the punishment of anywhere from ten years of imprisonment to death. Evidence suggests that the Nazis understood the mikvah to be something that separated the Jews, elevated their sexuality, and set them apart from others. Much like they desecrated Sifrei Torah, using their sacred parchment to make shoes, they used the mikvah, and the purity it symbolized, to taunt and degrade the Jewish people. The Nazis even went so far as to desecrate and defile people in the mikvah itself, as a symbol for the undoing of the Jewish people’s sanctity and lauding their abasement. Chaim Kaplan, who lived in the Warsaw Ghetto, noted in his diary on May 14, 1942: This week they have invented a new torture. Whoever hears of it doubts its veracity, yet this has happened— First they captured a few dozen young and beautiful women and transported them to a certain Jewish ritual bathhouse; afterward they captured some strong, powerful, virile men and brought them to the same bathhouse. Both sexes were forced by means of intimidation and whiplashes to remove their clothes and remain naked; afterward they were made to get into one bath together and were forced into lewd and obscene acts ”5 The Nazis explicitly overturned the symbolism of the mikvah, and turned it into a source for humiliation and degradation. Kaplan’s account continues with the Nazi’s stated aims: “Henceforward, all the world will know how low the Jews have fallen in their morals, that modesty between the sexes has ceased among them.” While the Nazis attempted to undermine or prevent use of the mikvah, it is interesting that many women, and even some communities, attempted to remain steadfast to its observance. Rabbi Huberband discusses how women in the Warsaw Ghetto risked their lives going to nearby towns to immerse in the river or to use secret ritual baths. This was all the more difficult (and heroic) since there was a restrictive curfew in effect, as well as restrictions on transportation. In the Lodz Ghetto, the mikvah was left under the auspices of the rabbinical board of the Judenrat. They made the mikvah a priority, even working to supply coal to heat the water (see above the photocopy of Lodz Rabbinical Board papers, April 1941. From Esther Farbstein’s Hidden in Thunder, p. 334). Various other ghettos were able to rebuild their mikvaot after they were destroyed by the Nazis, and retained their mikvah until the communities were deported. The incredible resilience of the Jewish people is made particularly eminent in the lengths they traveled to preserve the laws of family purity during the period of the Holocaust. On the 27th of Nisan, the Jewish people commemorate Yom Hazikaron L’Shoah U’le-Gevurah. The addition of “gevurah” to the name of the day is meant to emphasize the strength of the Jewish people during the Holocaust, to remember them not as victims but as heroes. The women willing to risk their lives to keep these laws should inspire us; they are reminders of the importance women of all generations placed in the mikvah, and how it continues to bind us to our roots, especially during the most challenging times... [Click on Article Link for footnotes and sources]

Chag Sameach Pesach!

Conversion Issue in no danger of being resolved soon.

The issue of what constitutes a proper conversion and a proper intent to convert has been a growing problem in recent years, as many people who have made aliyah continue to find out the hard way. Having a conversion in America by a non-ultra-orthodox Rabbi will qualify you to make aliyah. However, many American Jews think that means they are considered Jewish in Israel. They are not. Only conversions performed by American Rabbis on an approved list by the Israel Rabbinate are accepted, and few Modern Orthodox and no other non-ultra-orthodox Rabbis are on that list. The problems in Israel are even greater - the ultra-orthodox Rabbinate has complete control of all matters of family law: marriage, divorce, adoption, custody, etc. Even Jews in Israel are caught in their power, many choosing to go abroad to marry so at least the Israeli government will register them as married. If they cannot prove several generations of having no converts and several generations of religiously observant Jewish mothers and grandmothers and great-grandmothers, even Jews born in Israel cannot satisfy the Rabbinate. Jews from America, whether natural born or converts, have little chance of having their documentation accepted, presuming they can even come up with several generations worth in the first place. Part of the problem for American Jews, especially Reform Jews, is that they failed to be immersed in a miqvah as part of their conversion process. Having a miqvah conveniently located in Lexington could alleviate this problem for local Jews by Choice who may wish to make aliyah in the future. The other aspect is that the Reform Religion is not accepted as Judaism by the Rabbinate in Israel, due to the failure of Reform Jews to adhere to the premise of matrilinear descent and the premise that Torah observance is a required element of the Jewish religion. Many American Jews object to the Rabbinate's position. The Rabbinate, however, does not care. To try and deal with this problem as it pertains to marriage and conversion, the Israeli government has considered giving people paths other than the Rabbinate for marriages and conversions. Civil marriage has been considered. A more secular conversion board has been considered. But the Rabbinate has not been willing to cede any of their power to control family issues. http://failedmessiah.typepad.com/failed_messiahcom/2014/03/as-new-conversion-bill-advances-chief-rabbis-threaten-to-refuse-to-follow-it-and-to-not-recognize-jewish-567.html#more You may be thinking this has nothing to do with you. And perhaps neither you nor any of your descendants will have to deal with the authorities in Israel. But you can't know that for sure. It is in American Jews' best interest to be aware of what is going on and to lobby the Knesset to be mindful of the interests of Jews in America and around the world who may want to make aliyah someday. Maybe even you or your kids. We will keep you posted on developing events. Shalom!