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Infertility

Historically, Judaism has offered little for women suffering with the pain of infertility. Thankfully, over the last 25 years, Jewish women have transformed the canon of Jewish ritual. Jewish women have both created new rituals grounded in traditional practices and language and have unearthed prayers and rituals from our past written by and for women, responding to their lives and needs.
Photo by Rabbi Roni Handler

A Meditation - Using the Mikveh when Dealing with Infertility

Shared by Rabbi Debbie Young-Somers | Prayer

A prayer for strength and blessings to be recited before entering the mikveh [more]

Found In: Infertility

Tags: mikveh, Song of Songs

Excerpt from Mid-Life Covenant: Healing Ritual after Hysterectomy

By Nancy Shneiderman | Complete Ceremony

An excerpt from a longer ceremony describing the author's ritual planting of her womb, celebration with friends, and rejoining her husband and the community. [more]

Found In: Infertility, Healing from Illness

Tags: hysterectomy

Hannah's Prayer from Berakhot 31b

By Rabbi Nina Beth Cardin | Prayer

A form of this touching prayer in modern English [more]

Found In: Infertility

Tags: conception

Chayei Sarah

Shana Roskies | Article

The author brings to life the Genesis tale of Sarah, Abraham, and Hagar by locating Sarah and Abraham's infertility as the central factor motivating the characters' behavior. [more]

Found In: Torah Portion: Parashah, Infertility

Tags: Hayei Sarah

Barren (Uri)

By Rahel Bluwstein | Poem

Contemporary Israeli prayer expressing desire for a child [more]

Found In: Infertility

A Longing for Children

By Julie Stockler | Article

This essay on grieving the inability to bear children relates the author's dialogue with her deceased grandmother about whether she has the permission to mourn. [more]

Found In: Infertility

Prayer before an Examination

By Rabbi Michelle Goldsmith | Prayer

This prayer aims to bring a spiritual presence to the potentially sterile and technological experience of a doctor's visit [more]

Found In: Infertility

Prayer for Those Having Difficulty Conceiving

By Rabbi Nina Beth Cardin | Prayer

This prayer, based on the Song of Songs and Psalm 22, for those having difficulty conceiving is phrased in the plural and written in the voice of a married couple. It is easily adaptable for an infertile person to say on her or his own. [more]

Found In: Infertility

Prayers to be Said Before a Procedure, Insemination, and After a Procedure

By Rabbi Diane Cohen | Prayer

Biblical verses used to form three prayers "to be said before a procedure", "Verses to be said upon insemination" and "Verses to be recited upon arising from a procedure." [more]

Found In: Starting a Family, Infertility

Tags: conception

A Tashlich Ritual for Accepting Infertility

By Bonnie and Lawrence Baron | Complete Ceremony

The couple uses the metaphor of tashlich (casting bread upon the water) as renewal to transform their suffering. [more]

Found In: Infertility

Tags: tashlikh