I just took down (and dusted off) my wedding scrapbook from over 20 years ago. I found these treasured pictures from the night before my wedding. They were taken after my very first dip in the Mikvah. I had come out to the waiting room to be embraced by my mom, my future mother in law, and a dear friend.
A circle of women.
A circle of love.
My hair was dripping wet, tears of emotion mingled with nervous laughter and excitement.
The experience was surreal.
A beautiful moment in time.
I get now what I did not understand then. In the book of Proverbs it says:
“the wisdom of women builds her home”.
It says “women”, plural, is what it takes to build “her home”, singular.
This was not a mistake.
We cannot do it alone.
And we don’t have to.
We stand on countless generations of Jewish women who have come before us. We can lean on them; their faith, their insight, their wisdom, their traits, and their legacy!
Each Jewish woman is a link in the most beautiful, exquisite chain, going all the way back to our matriarch Sarah. And herein lies the secret of Jewish continuity and our survival.
We don’t do it alone.
