My Why

I just started a PhD program in Jewish Studies. The first course is in research methods, and as we work to articulate what we want to study, this week we were taught about the "why." Academic interest is something — but being motivated beyond just the theoretical is something more.

Image by Sara Madden from Pixabay

I don't have a real why yet. I have a glimpse of an idea. That's for later.

I do have an inspiration, though: The Eden Center. Dr. Naomi Marmon Grumet took the findings from her dissertation, over twenty years of research into how the mikveh could truly serve as an empowering resource for women, and built something. A center that trains attendants, educates communities, and works to make the mikveh a place of healing rather than pain. Women come to the mikveh during some of the most vulnerable moments of their lives: fertility struggles, miscarriage, postpartum depression. The Eden Center asked: who is holding those moments?

I am a mikveh attendant, and I took her course. I think about it multiple times a week as I work in my local mikveh. It informs me in all sorts of situations.

I work several times a week. To be honest, I have to look hard to find the time. There is currently a shortage of attendants in my town and they need me. On top of a full-time job and a new doctoral program, I'm juggling extra shifts.

Beyond wanting to help out, I believe the job is solely to make sure that women are comfortable, and I know that I do that well.

But now I have to find time for this extra thing: my schoolwork.

Two weeks ago, someone in my cohort mentioned in our WhatsApp group putting the Canvas app on her phone. I realized that if I did that, I could do my schoolwork while I work at the mikveh. Two birds and all that.

Then this week we learned about the "why," and I realized that these two things dovetail so beautifully. I am a beneficiary of one woman's why. I will use that as inspiration as I figure out my own.

Rivky Schramm Krestt is a Judaic Curriculum Specialist at YU Global, Yeshiva University's online division. She is currently a doctoral candidate in Jewish Studies at Gratz College.

Rivky made aliyah in 2012 and lives with her family in Efrat, Israel, where she also works as a balanit.