Mayim Rabim

I had such a hard time this month.

Most of the time consulting with rabbis is uncomfortable, but not overly so, right? The rabbis go out of their way to make it as painless as they can: you can drop off a bedikah cloth in an envelope, leave your phone number instead of a name, and never have to make face-to-face contact. When you talk to them on the phone, they make sure to respond seriously to your questions no matter how silly, to be matter-of-fact no matter how embarrassed you are. As much as such an invasive thing can be, it's usually a pleasure.

But then there are the encounters that leave you shaking and upset, the ones that make you never want to do this again. Sometimes it's extreme, like the rabbi who failed to recognize that I was developing an anxiety disorder about taharat hamishpacha, and instead got annoyed and abandoned me in the middle of mikvah night. Sometimes it's as trifling as a rabbi who presumes more than he knows, and tells you more than you asked.

As you already know, I was still bleeding bright red on Day 5. I had tried a hefsek tahara that morning, which was pronounced kosher by my own rabbi (much good that did me.) Of course I had to start over the next day. I think I made two hefseks, one in the morning and one in the afternoon; both still had some red in them. The next morning was Friday, Day 7, and we were going out of town for Yom Tov. I decided to wait as long as possible to increase the chances that I would have stopped bleeding by then. But I was seeing brown streaks when I wiped, and was getting increasingly nervous. The last thing I wanted to do was have a shaylah over Yom Tov, without having contacted anyone in advance that I could ask.

I psyched myself up to call the local rabbi when I got there. Wanting to impress upon him that I was probably going to miss my ovulation day if this kept up, I started by saying "This is the second or third day that I've been trying, and-" He interrupted, "Let me stop you right there.

If you've been trying for two or three days, the best thing is probably to stop. More bedikot are only going to irritate you and aggravate whatever's going on. Just wait until it stops."

Huh?

I knew what he was referring to; I have certainly irritated myself towards the end of shiva neki'im, what with doing so many bedikot, and for that reason (among others) I've been given a heter to do fewer of them. But that wasn't what was going on here at all. This wasn't a scratch, it was a period that just wasn't over yet. "I really think it's stopping," I said. "I'm only going to try once today. If it doesn't work, it doesn't work."

"Oh. In that case, if it's old blood that's coming out, the best thing to do is try a douche. Of course you're cutting it close, it's almost yom tov and you need to wait a couple of hours after douching before you make another hefsek..." I tuned the rest of this out because I was too busy thinking, Huh? and No way!!

First of all, running out to the store to find a douche right before Yom Tov, then figuring out how to use it for the first time? No thank you. But more importantly, there's a reason it would be my first time. Some rabbis recommend douching, but others (including my own rabbi) warn that you can disturb the chemical balance in the vagina. This part of the body is designed to clean itself, and it doesn't particularly like artificial cleansing. I'm sure other people have good luck with this method, but me, I haven't had a yeast infection or any other in all the time I've been married, and I'd just as soon leave well enough alone.

I tried to bring things back on track. "OK, but if I do try a hefsek and I have a shaylah, can I bring it to show you on Yom Tov?" He said yes. All right. Phew. That was all I wanted to know, you know?

I respect this rabbi's vast knowledge and his many years of experience very much. But I am not a newlywed or a child, and I know my own body better than someone who has never met me before. And yet it took a great deal of effort to remind myself of this, to resist the impulse to bow to his guidance and get off the phone. Why would it possibly be a good idea to cut someone off the very first time they talk to you, and assume you already know what they're talking about?

Things went from bad to worse the next day, when somehow "any time is good" turned into knocking on his door in vain every two hours all afternoon, finally culminating in just desperately waiting on his porch in the hopes that he was either out or asleep, and would have to come in/out of the house on his way to mincha. By the time I caught him I was in a complete state. Not to mention that this encounter had to be in person, given that there was no way for him to call me, and I somehow ended up touching his hand while trying to show him which was the hefsek and which was the first bedikah, and... did I mention ugh?

He was trying to be so nice. Even his wife was trying to be so nice. I don't mean to blame him; I suppose it was just a mismatch of personalities. And I'm sure he wasn't at his best on the phone, rushing around two hours before Yom Tov; it was kind of him even to speak to me then. But these things matter, and even for someone committed like me, they color my experience of taharat hamishpacha and how I feel about the whole month so much - I can only imagine what effect it would have on someone who was trying to decide whether she wanted to keep these laws.

So far the one good thing that's happened this month is that I remembered to make an appointment in advance for my Friday night tevilah. (My third time in a row! I learn slow, but I do learn!) But despite the rabbi pronouncing my hefsek kosher that day, I'm almost surely going to ovulate before mikvah; in fact, judging by my usual symptoms I bet it's happening tomorrow. And as you also already know, I find Friday night tevilot especially difficult.

Who was it who said the month of their worst mikvah experience, they got pregnant? I don't normally put stock in things like that. But if any of you can make that come true? I will GLADLY accept. :)