They are charming, (mostly) religious and (mostly) single. They are the characters on Srugim, the enormously popular Israeli television program, soon to enter its third season.

Srugim, or crocheted, refers to the crocheted kippot favoured by the modern Orthodox. The dramatic series focuses on 20- and 30-something modern Orthodox singles (and, in season 2, a newly married couple) in Jerusalem.

By all accounts, the series is popular with both religious and secular viewers. Secular viewers tune in because of a fascination with religious society, finding a window onto a way of life that seems mysterious. The show also highlights their similarities with modern religious Israelis. In that sense, Srugim feels both exotic and familiar, foreign yet homey. For religious viewers, it offers a chance to see the fabric of their lives portrayed sympathetically and in a popular venue.

The intersecting story arcs deal with love, commitment, intimacy, career and sexual identity – issues also faced by secular Jews, but complicated by the religious context. For example, a married couple’s “infertility” (after only a few months of marriage) turns out to be a matter of ill-timed ovulation, which occurs precisely when the laws of niddah, or family purity, forbid intimacy. At the same time, the couple’s stressful encounter with medicalized reproductive technology – roller-coaster emotions, self-doubt, distance – isn’t unique to religious couples.

In many ways, the series bridges the gap between the secular and the (modern) religious, demystifying religious life and making its issues more familiar and resonant with secular viewers. As such, it works against the forces of polarization and social fragmentation in Israel.

Similarly, in North America, the sharp divide between different kinds of Jews and denominations has become more porous. One illustration of this is the renewed place of ritual immersion in the life of liberal Jews. Until recently, the mikvah, or ritual bath, was a fixture of Orthodox communities, but largely irrelevant to liberal Judaism, except for conversions. For Orthodox Jews, the mikvah is most closely linked to women and marital intimacy, but men, too, make use of the ritual bath – to inaugurate new dishes, and to immerse before Yom Kippur, before Shabbat and before marriage. Rabbi Shimon Huberband, who chronicled life in the Wasaw Ghetto, movingly described men defying Nazi law to immerse in a mikvah.

In Israel, the rabbinate requires that brides submit proof of ritual immersion before marrying. Resented by many secular women, this regulation has generated a sub-rosa industry of falsified mikvah certificates. But here in North America, liberal Judaism has increasingly embraced the powerful spiritual potential in ritual immersion. It’s increasingly common for brides – at their own initiative – to immerse before their wedding. Liberal mikvaot have sprung up – initially, often, to meet the needs for non-Orthodox conversions. But once available, members of liberal communities use them for myriad functions. In some cities, a grassroots desire galvanizes a community to demand mikvaot.

Across denominations, Jews have renewed the practice of immersion, developing rituals of rebirth and renewal – for example, recovery from trauma, such as rape or abuse; marking a shift in status, such as after a period of mourning or after divorce, and emotional healing, such as after miscarriage or serious illness.

Some might interpret this as part of a general swing to the right, to tradition, or, conversely, as a liberal dilution or (mis)appropriation of religious practice. Either view fails to recognize the rediscovery by liberal Jews of a pool of potential in traditional practice that can imbue life with spiritual resonance. It’s not so much a rejection of the secular for the religious, but an understanding that the boundaries between the two may be more porous than we usually think.

The second season of Srugim begins and ends with episodes that feature tvillah – ritual immersion – in living waters. In the first, a groom prepares for his wedding. In the final episode, he readies himself to tackle the problems eating at the young marriage. In connecting immersion to his personal life, the program shows how tradition finds new resonances in modernity.

The embrace and reinvention of tradition evokes the words of the first chief rabbi of the Yishuv, HaRav Avraham Yitzchak HaCohen Kook: “Hayashan yitchadesh, v’hechadash yitkadesh” – the old shall be made new, and the new shall be made holy.