Birthday Blessing

My Hebrew birthday is Rosh Chodesh Elul—the beginning of the month traditionally associated with reflection, renewal, and preparing our hearts for the High Holy Days. It feels especially meaningful to celebrate my birthday at the beginning of a month that invites us to pause, look inward, and consider what we want to carry forward into the year ahead.

So this year, I’m asking for a birthday gift that is deeply personal to me: a donation toward creating a mikveh here on the Central Coast.

Mikveh has become personally meaningful to me as a powerful practice of renewal, transition, and coming home to myself. I love that it can hold so many different moments in a person’s life—times of change, grief, celebration, healing, intention, or simply the desire to pause and begin again. It is an ancient Jewish practice that can also be deeply personal and accessible, meeting each person wherever they are.

Creating a mikveh here feels like a way of building the kind of Jewish community and spiritual home I want to be part of: welcoming, nourishing, rooted in tradition while making room for many different paths and experiences.

Our emerging mikveh at the JCC is still in its early stages, and every contribution helps bring this vision closer to reality. If you’d like to give me a birthday present this year, please consider making a donation toward the mikveh.

💙​ Donate to the Mikveh: https://www.jccslo.com/mikveh.html

Thank you for helping me celebrate by investing in something that means so much to me—and that I hope will become a meaningful resource for our community for generations to come.

May this Elul be a month of renewal, courage, and possibility for all of us.

Nissa Rost-Rothman
Board Member/Property Steward