This may be said over the phone, in the parking lot, before the surrogate immerses, etc. 

יְבָרֶכְךָ ה', וְיִשְׁמְרֶךָ ‎

יָאֵר ה' פָּנָיו אֵלֶיךָ, וִיחֻנֶּךָּ

יִשָּׂא ה' פָּנָיו אֵלֶיךָ, וְיָשֵׂם לְךָ שָׁלוֹם‎

Y’var-ekcha Adonai v'yeesh'm reka –

Ya’eir Adonai panav elecha v’chunei’cha –

Y’say Adonai panav elecha v’yasem l’cha shalom –

       ‎

May G-d bless you and guard you –

May G-d make His face shed light upon you and be gracious unto you –

May G-d lift up His face unto you and give you peace –

Praying to G-d to help prepare your body to do what G-d intended it to do as a female/mother. (Take a moment to share gratitude for your own previous successful births, reflect on your own fertility journey.)

בָּרוּךְ שֶׁהַכֹּל בָּרָא לִכְבוֹדוֹ

Baruch she’ha’kol barah l’kvodo

Blessed is the One Who has created everything for Your glory.

Ariele Mortkowitz, Executive Director of SVIVAH, created this collaborative immersion ceremony. In this beautiful moment of shared prayerfulness, if desired, the immersion of the surrogate can be done in cooperation with or with the participation of the intended parent.

(To be recited together, after surrogate has emerged from the water. Either by phone, when surrogate is in her robe or dressed, or after she returns from her preparation room.)

May it be Your will, G‑d, our G‑d and the G‑d of our fathers, that You should lead us in peace and direct our steps in peace, and guide us in peace, and support us in peace, and cause us to reach our destination in life, joy, and peace. Save us from every enemy and ambush, from robbers and wild beasts on the way, and from all kinds of punishments that rage and come to the world. May You confer blessing upon the work of our hands and grant us grace, kindness, and mercy in Your eyes and in the eyes of all who see us, and bestow upon us abundant kindness and hearken to the voice of our prayer, for You hear the prayers of all. Blessed are You G‑d, who listens to prayer.

A prayer for the awesomeness of this moment – and its novelty. 

בָּרוּךְ אַתָּה ה' אֱלֹקינוּ מֶֽלֶךְ הָעוֹלָם שֶׁהֶחֱיָנוּ וְקִיְּמָנוּ וְהִגִּיעָנוּ לזְּמַן הַזֶּה.

Baruch ata Ha’Shem Eloheinu melekh ha’olam, shehecheyanu, v’kiyimanu, v’higiyanu la’z’man hazeh

Blessed are You, Ha-shem, our G-d, Ruler of the universe, who has given us life, sustained us, and helped us to reach this moment.

Praise G-d for the miraculousness and wonder of creation – and pray for that miracle to occur for this surrogacy.

בָּרוּךְ יוֹצֵר הָאָדָם

Baruch yotzeir ha’adam

Blessed be the Creator of Human Beings.

Pray for the soul of the child of this couple to be granted into your custody and safekeeping. That this is the time for that soul to enter the world; that you are the place to house it.

בָּרוּךְ אֲשֶׁר יָצַר אֶת הָאָדָם בְּצַלְמוֹ, בְּצֶלֶם דְּמוּת תַּבְנִיתוֹ, וְהִתְקִין לוֹ מִמֶּנּוּ בִּנְיַן עֲדֵי עַד: בָּרוּךְ יוֹצֵר הָאָדָם.

Blessed be the One, Who has fashioned human beings in Your image, according to Your likeness and has fashioned from it a lasting mold. Blessed be the Creator of Human Beings.

A moment to reflect on the gift you hope to give to the intended parents. Pray that if all goes as it should, that the child you bear be blessed with a beautiful life and that G-d makes this couple into parents deserving of a child from your womb.

שׂוֹשׂ תָּשִׂישׂ וְתָגֵל הָעֲקָרָה, בְּקִבּוּץ בָּנֶיהָ לְתוֹכָהּ בְּשִׂמְחָה: בָּרוּךְ מְשַׂמֵּחַ צִיּוֹן בְּבָנֶיהָ.

Bring intense joy and exultation to the barren one through the ingathering of her children amidst her in gladness. Blessed be the One Who gladdens Zion through her children.

This may be said over the phone, in the parking lot, before the surrogate immerses, etc. 

ויַֹּ֥אמֶר ה' אֶל־אַבְרָהָ֑ם לָ֣מָּה זֶּה֩ צָחֲקָ֨ה שָׂרָ֜ה לֵאמֹ֗ר הַאַ֥ף אֻמְנָ֛ם אֵלֵ֖ד וַאֲנִ֥י זָקַֽנְתִּי׃

הֲיִפָּלֵ֥א מֵה' דָּבָ֑ר לַמּוֹעֵ֞ד אָשׁ֥וּב אֵלֶ֛יךָ כָּעֵ֥ת חַיָּ֖ה וּלְשָׂרָ֥ה בֵֽן׃

Then G-d said to Abraham, “Why did Sarah laugh, saying, ‘Shall I in truth bear a child, old as I am?’ Is anything too wondrous for G-d? I will return to you at the same season next year, and Sarah shall have a son.”

There are so many reasons for turning to G-d before embarking on the journey to surrogacy. So many emotions, hopes, concerns, prayers that play a part of this amazing act. Turning to immersion as part of this journey provides an opportunity to insert some godliness into a clinical and orchestrated process. Creation is holy and reflects G-d’s miraculousness. 

Immersing as part of the surrogacy process can bring G-d into the equation and provide an opportunity for the surrogate (and intended parent) to pray for a successful outcome.

From Rabbi Avi Strausberg, Hadar Institute

In the Haggadah, we are told that each of us is obligated to see ourselves as if we ourselves came out of Egypt.  One of the central ways in which we fulfil this obligation is through the telling and retelling of the story of our Exodus that is at the core of the Haggadah.  Pesah is a time in which we come together to collectively shape our narrative and, through this retelling, locate ourselves in this great chain of history. The stories that we tell about and for ourselves reveal who we are and also shape it. In capturing this dynamic, Director Shekhar Kapur, shared this helpful phrasing in his TedTalk “We Are The Stories We Tell Ourselves”:

“A story is our—all of us—we are the stories we tell ourselves. In this universe, and this existence, where we live with this duality of whether we exist or not and who are we, the stories we tell ourselves are the stories that define the potentialities of our existence. We are the stories we tell ourselves.”

Our stories provide the framework in which we place ourselves, both to inspire us to live up to them but also to limit us to live within them. So, on this holiday of telling our most central story of the Exodus, it is worth paying attention: When we tell our stories on Pesah, what are we saying about ourselves? What does it reveal about who we are as a people?

The Haggadah, at its core, is a collection of stories about people telling stories about our Exodus from Egypt.  And, yet, when we tell our story, the central narrative of the Jewish people, women neither appear as storytellers, nor are they present as the subjects of our stories.  They are completely absent. As Kapur explains, “A person without a story does not exist…  I exist because there are stories, and if there are no stories, we don’t exist.”  If we are the stories that we tell, the narratives that we use to define our existence, then our haggadot tell a story in which women do not exist, their presence and contributions unseen and unimportant. 

We can’t let that be the narrative.  If we value women, we have to include their voices, their stories, in our narrative of the Exodus from Egypt.  While absent from the Haggadah, women feature prominently both in the Torah and rabbinic accounts of the stories of the Exodus.  In the Torah, it is thanks to the bravery of Moshe’s mother, Yocheved, and his sister, Miriam, that Moshe even lives to see the day when he can become the leader of the Jewish people.  It is Pharaoh’s daughter, acting in direct defiance to her own father’s command, who saves a Jewish baby abandoned in the Nile.  It is the midwives, Shifrah and Puah, who, despite Pharaoh’s decree to kill all of the male newborns, ensure that the children live and grow strong.  So, what happened to all of the women?  How come the stories of Miriam and Yocheved, Pharaoh’s daughter, and the midwives Shifrah and Puah, don’t make into the Haggadah?  And, what can we do about at it our seders today? 

The first and one of the most challenging is that we must notice the absence of these female voices.  This is one of the biggest challenges. It’s so easy to read through the Haggadah year after year, or any Jewish text for that matter, without realizing that these texts are often devoid of female actors and voices.  Often, only one who is looking for their presence notices that they are absent Only once we realize this can we begin to do something about it. Then, we have to tell their stories. One of my favorite stories about women’s roles in the Exodus comes from the pages of Massekhet Sotah.

תלמוד בבלי סוטה יא:

דרש רב עוירא: בשכר נשים צדקניות שהיו באותו הדור נגאלו ישראל ממצרים.

Babylonian Talmud Sotah 11b

Rav Avira teaches, “In the merit of the righteous women that were in that generation, the Jewish people were redeemed from Egypt.” 

Let’s just pause there.  While women may be absent from the pages of our Haggadah, here is Rav Avira giving full credit to women for the redemption of the entire Jewish people of that generation.  What was it they did that merited God’s saving hand in Egypt? Rav Avira explains in the continuation of the passage that, at that time, the men, backs broken from oppressive labor, would come home defeated and tired.  One can imagine that in situations of such desperation, the focus would be on surviving in the now rather than looking to producing future generations. But, the women were able to look toward the future. They’d go to the river and come away with pots filled with water and fish.  They’d bathe their husbands, rub them with oils, feed them the fish, and ultimately through their loving, rejuvenating actions, these couples would come to have sex, and the women would become pregnant. Once pregnant, these strong women would continue to take matters into their own hands.  When it came time to give birth, they would give birth under the apple tree, and the Holy One would join them, sending a midwife to care for the newborn. These babies were resilient like their parents. When the Egyptians would come for them, a miracle would occur, the earth would absorb them, holding them safe until the threat had passed.  They would then emerge from the ground, like grass of the field. As they grew, they would return home, like flocks of sheep, healthy, numerous, and whole.

Rav Avira’s midrashic reading not only credits the women with the saving of an entire generation but portrays them as resilient, strong, and independent.  They are able to find hope and take action in a moment when perhaps others are unable. They are caregivers, they are midwives, they are incredibly powerful actors and agents in their own stories of redemption.  Just as Miriam and Yocheved ensure Moshe’s survival, seeing a way past the immediate danger posed by Pharoah, so too these women’s actions result in the births of an entire generations that emerge from the ground, like the grass of the fields.  Just as Shifrah and Pu’ah defy Pharoah’s order and bring forth life with their own hands, so too these women tend to their own births under the apple tree. 

All of this—this survival of a next generation, this transmission of strength, resiliency, and hope—thanks to the women who were able to see past their dire situation and look to a better future.  The pages of the Talmud, the stories in our rabbinic texts, are filled with narratives that highlight the strength, resiliency, and saving grace of women; this teaching of Rav Avira is only one example of many.  The editors of the Haggadah may not have seen fit to include these stories, so it’s on us to give these women their proper place in the Pesah story.

Dr. Judith Plaskow writes, “The need for a feminist Judaism begins with hearing silence.  It begins with noting the absence of women’s history and experiences as shaping forces in the Jewish tradition.”  We have to take notice of the silence of women in the chosen narrative recorded in our Haggadah. We must note that their voices have been excluded, their contributions ignored.  Then, we have to do just a little bit of digging to uncover the richness of the contributions of women as described both in Torah and rabbinic midrash.  Let’s bring these stories, these voices, to our Pesah tables. 

Pesah is a time of creativity and exploration.  On one hand, we have the fixed text of the traditional Haggadah that we read year after year; and on the other hand, there are so many different haggadot available that allow us to highlight different parts of the Pesah story.  If you don’t find one that you like, make your own that asks the questions you want to be asking.  Place oranges on your Seder plate or introduce a tea bag that speaks to the strength of the women in Egypt.  Raise a glass to Miriam as your raise your glass to Elijah and celebrate her role in saving Moshe and her ability to lead the people in song.  Most importantly, place women back in the story where they belong as storytellers and as agents of their fate.  This year, as you read the midrashic interpretations at the heart of the Haggadah about our descent into Egypt and God’s saving hand, read alongside them classic midrashim like that of Rav Avira that feature the roles of women or modern midrashim written by female scholars. 

If we are the stories that we tell, what kind of people do we want to be?