Reclaiming & Reframing Mikveh with Rabbi Haviva Ner David

Thank you for joining us for this program! Visiting scholar Rabbi Haviva will share her journey from Orthodox feminist to post-denominational inter-spiritual rabbinic director of the only pluralist mikveh in Israel, where she creates and officiates intimate personalized ceremony and runs customized group workshops. In addition to sharing from her books, Rabbi Haviva will guide a text study and discussion, exploring the development of mikveh from the Bible to the present. Together, we will delve into mikveh’s spiritual, universal, and timeless meanings.

There is a suggested donation of $10-$20, which can be given at the program.

Rabbi Dr. Haviva Ner-David is a post-denominational inter-spiritual rabbi who lives on Kibbutz Hannaton in the Galilee, where she runs Shmaya: A Mikveh for Mind, Body and Soul — the only mikveh in Israel with the stated mission to be open to all to immerse as they choose. She is a certified spiritual counselor and mikveh specialist with a doctorate on mikveh and years accompanying at and advising on mikveh, She combines these expertise in her mikveh work to create personalized immersion ceremonies and workshops for her individual and group clients, while she also works as a general spiritual counselor with a specialty in Dream Work. A writer, Haviva’s first two memoirs (Life on the Fringes: A Feminist Journey Towards Traditional Rabbinic Ordination, and Chanah’s Voice: A Rabbi Wrestles with the Women’s Rituals of Baking, Bathing and Brightening) were published, respectively, in 2000 and 2013, Her third memoir, Dreaming my Way Home: A Rabbi’s Journey Towards Herself, is due out in 2021. This year her book Getting (and Staying) Married Jewishly: A Guidebook for Couples, is due to be published, and her novel, Hope Valley, hopefully not long after. Haviva was ordained twice: first, privately by Rabbi Aryeh Strikovsky, an Orthodox rabbi in Jerusalem, and second by One Faith Interfaith-Interspirtual Seminary in NYC. She and Jacob, her life partner of the past 32 years, have seven children (6 biological and 1 adopted), a dog and a cat. Haviva lives with a genetic neuromuscular disorder that has been one of the biggest challenges and blessings of her life.

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