Stepping outside the box
I finally used another mikvah! After years of using only my local mikvah, while I was away for Pesach, I finally got to see how other women do it. For starters, I always thought my mikvah was weird for requiring us to make an appointment. In the movies, the women just show up. I also thought that most mikva'ot have paid attendants, not a-different-woman-every-night roster who generously volunteer their time. And I thought that it was just my mikvah that had this weird thing about the women being hidden from each other while there.
Nope.
And just like my mikvah, I had to go through a whole phone system to get the number of the attendant who was on the night I needed to go. She hid me in one room, the other woman was secreted off to another room. Buzz in, buzz out. Nobody seems to care that you (well, I) can always hear the other woman immersing. I hear conversation, too, but I can't make out the words. Nor do I try to, in case you were wondering.
Anyway, what was different, was the woman who went before me dunked many more times than I'm accustomed to, and she said at least two blessings (I heard the "amen" both times). When I immersed, the attendant asked after my second dunking if I said "y'hi ratzon" and after my third dunking, "do you do any more?" I said no, my minhag [custom] is to do 3 and I wondered what "y'hi ratzon" she was referring to.
So that got me thinking, what are your various customs? The only thing I had heard of was the custom in some ultra-Orthodox communities to dunk 12 times. Other than that, I naively assumed everyone dunks 3 times and says the one bracha [blessing]: "...al hatevilah." As I've mentioned, I have the additional custom of asking the attendant to give me some minutes of privacy after my 3rd dunk, and before I come out of the water, so that I can have some one-on-one time with G-d. I'd love to hear what the customs are of other women.
Comments
I do one dunk, say the blessing, then 2 more dunks.
I think I've heard of people having the custom of dunking even 18 times -- although I get so much water up my nose with "only" 3 that the thought of 18 is very unexciting.
Is the covering one's head for the bracha a common thing? Is there a specific group/tradition associated with the practice? I had never heard of it -- and then was handed a cloth for my head once when I was at a different mikvah than usual. I was so confused; it felt like a joke at first (I'd be standing there naked, but with a little cloth on my head for "coverage"[?]).
I've heard it's a Sephardic practice, but my mikvaot (mostly Ashkenazi) all do it.
simply:
Sephardic = Spanish/Middle Eastern (ladino/arabic?)
Ashkenaz = German/European (yiddish)
Somewhere in my kallah notes I have more insight as to why. I think.
I second everything Dvoe said.
3 dunks, one bracha after 1st dunk.
and it was tough getting used to going under water without holding my nose.
I've read that you can cover your head with a cloth before saying the bracha, but I've never been in a mikvah where they've offered me one. nor do I see a reason for it - seems quite silly.
Oh, I do hold my nose... then let go before I come up. Less stinging water up my nose that way... I had such a problem remembering not to breathe under water on top of everything else!
I think some women will dunk again if they think their eyes were closed too tightly or some other detail like that... not me!
And I agree that the cloth seems a bit silly, but like I said, I only use one if they offer it... don't want to offend anyone.
When I took kallah classes, I was told that the cloth for your head represents the head covering an Orthodox women normally wears, and "if you are careful to only make brachos with your head covered, you should do so in the mikvah as well".
My husband is careful to only make brachos if my head is covered if I'm in the room (per shulchan orech), but if I am upstairs in my own home without guests, my head is generally uncovered.
So I pretty much do like Desde; if I am offered, I'll take it, but I don't bother to ask.
Another dunk-bracha-dunk-dunk gal here. I've never been handed a washcloth, though one time (in Israel) I felt the attendant toss something over my head when I said the bracha (my eyes were closed at the time).
Anyone know what the reason is for dunking three (or 12) times? I've heard that the reason for dunking once before making a brachah is that there used to be a custom among Ashkenazi women not to pray or make brachot while niddah. (Seems a bit halachically problematic to me, but uneducated people come up with strange practices when left to their own devices.) At some point, the custom died out among Ashkenazim, but some Sephardi communities began to pick it up (probably from Islam). To this day (so I've heard), many Middle Eastern Sephardi women do not make brachot while niddah, though Rav Ovadiah Yosef (the Sephardi chief rabbi of Israel) has stated that it is not a valid custom.
I've also heard that because this practice did not exist among Sephardim until fairly recently, many Sephardi women say the brachah before getting into the water, while still wearing a robe. This procedure makes a bit more sense to me than the one we Ashkenaziyot follow, since it isn't normally considered acceptable to make a brachah while naked. (I realize that for this purpose, the water is supposed to act as a "covering," but that's a little bit weird, don't you think?)
Just out of curiousity, in what movies?
heh, I like that: "dunk-bracha-dunk-dunk" That just about sums it up! I'm usually asked if I cover head my head when I say the bracha, although at this different mikvah, the cloth was just tossed to me and, since I wasn't expecting it, splashed in the water. I typically do cover my head, mainly because it feels weird to be saying a blessing stark naked and having a teeny doily on my head makes me feel less naked.
I know, it doesn't make any sense ;) I totally relate to Blu Greenberg's comment about headcovering in the mikvah in her book, How to Run a Jewish Household. "It has often seemed to me a little incongruous, to put it mildly, to cover the head...while all the rest of us standing stark-naked...G-d has seen, so to speak, stranger things than that."
As for the movies, mostly documentaries like "Tehora," a beautiful film called Ocean something - I'll have to look these up, I can't remember the names - and the mikvah propaganda films we get in kallah class (I just LOVE the one with MAN who walks around telling us how spiritually satisfied we'll be when we start observing t'h. Puhlease.) Oh, and also "Kadosh" which I don't like to mention because it made me so mad. No filmmaker ever shows women making appointments, so I guess I subconsciously absorbed that as "no one makes appointments to use the mikvah."
There are no words to describe how mad Kadosh made me (please, fB, write a post about it!)...but, on the original topic, I also find the hair-covering-while-naked thing a little odd. Since I don't make a point of covering my hair for brachot (I wear a hat or a scarf in public, but nothing on my hair at home), I see no reason to cover up in the mikvah just for this. I'll refuse a washcloth if it's offered, but once it's been tossed (without asking), I'll just use it; why argue?
I suppose I'd use it if it was tossed to me without asking (though given my catching skills, it would probably end up in the water).
and Blu Greenberg's book was exactly where I read about this practice. I just love her books!
I failed to properly throw it back at her after the brachah.. it fell to the depths of mikveh. to use it for yehi ratzon i had to go diving for it. that was fun. After that I just left it on the railing so I could reach it.
I'm thinking of printing out and laminating the brachot so that I can see it (I'm almost blind without glasses). I can read hebrew okay if it's in front of my face... but to have someone prompt me verbally, I get all tongue tied...
Heh. That's why I say the bracha and not the yehi ratzon; I can't see without my glasses, and I hate asking the mikvah lady to prompt me each time! I really need to learn the y"r by heart.
I have never, ever heard of a second bracha. Maybe what you heard was someone who thought her tevila was kosher, said the bracha, and then had to redo both? Or maybe the attendant said "amen" to the yehi ratzon...
Just a funny side note, when I got engaged, I asked my (then) chosson what his minhag was for how many dips.
He responded, "Forty two."
"What? Forty-two?!? Where is that custom from?" I asked, in a state of shock."
"Oh, I just made it up," he answered, laughing. "I don't know how many times are you supposed to dip?"
"Three, as per the baal shem tov," I answered, wanting to reach over and slap him for that minute's worth of anxiety.
BTW, the 3xdunk thing is customarily attributed to the Baal Shem Tov, who said he would personally take responsibility for anyone who dunked three times - usually they had to break the ice to dunk (it was quite dangerous) and the Besht said that if you dunked 3x he guaranteed they would not be harmed.
VV - he probably got 42 from the great Douglas Adams. ;)
Shanna, great idea - I'm working on a post about kadosh!
I also used another mikva, once upon a time. I had always used ours (Lubavitch) but I happened to be in Williamsburg for a simcha, and decided to use Pupa’s that time, “to see how others do it”.
I didn’t have any interesting differences to report – just that they put out dandruff shampoo only…also there was no comb for your hair, for obvious reasons…..I used the one I had in my bag……….
Oh - they do a complete manicure and pedicure and very very thorough checking - I understand that if you toivel Friday night, they ask you to come during the day, for the checking etc.
The big difference was that, to say the bracha, they gave me a turban, to completely cover the hair. (For me it didn’t), but I am not so sure how many “guests” they get. In Crown Heights we just use a tichel or washcloth.
And – as a side note – you aren’t just “standing there, naked” – the water covers you or you can crouch to be more covered…and your arms cover the top part of you.
It is a very special and holy time and certainly if you want brachas, it’s understandable to do things then, that maybe you wouldn’t at other times – such as a bracha with your hair completely covered, etc.
I must have missed Ruchama's question the first time around... I believe the practice of dunking three times developed in two steps. I should wait till I can get to my kallah class notes before I write this, but whatever, I'm impatient. :)
The first part is the classic halachic argument about whether to make a bracha before you do the mitzvah or after. I think in this case it's also specifically patterned after the way a convert would do it -- there maybe the argument is even more pointed, because he or she has a different status before & after dipping. Anyway, we do both: we dip before and after the bracha. Those two are the basic requirement.
Then many people have a custom to throw in a third because we generally like to do things in threes, in this religion. ;-) There are mystical reasons for the preference for the number 3, and I assume the same is true for 7, 9, and 12. Here it also acts as sort of an extra protection, just in case one of the required 2 dips were invalid.
I was told you should do whatever your mother's custom is (assuming she has one). I actually wanted to do only 2, but it turns out my mother dips 3 times, so that's what I do.
My mother's custom is not to go, does that count? I know, not a bit. I'm trying to convince her to go once, after menopause. She sort of agreed, but insisted on waiting until she's "sure she's done." So I'm still working on her.
Heh. OK, I almost had it right!
According to my notes, we normally rule that you make a bracha before doing the mitzvah. But someone who's toveling in order to convert can't do that, because the bracha includes the words asher kidshanu bemitzvotav vetzivanu ("Who has sanctified us with His commandments, and commanded us"), and that does not apply to a convert until after the tevilah. So he or she must dip first, make the bracha, and then dip again.
We all do the same thing because of lo plug, which roughly means "we do not distinguish between the cases." I think this principle was usually applied when the Rabbis thought it would be too confusing if people had to remember different rules for every scenario.
The Yemenite custom which I follow is to make the brocha before toiveling. This is because afterwards a person is already tahor and technically the bracha might be a bracho sh'eina tzricha (not necessary). The only exception I know of is the case of a convert. Guess the principle of lo plug which Eden referred to wasn't applied in Yemenite minhag over here...
I know that most ppl go acc. to the custom of their mother, assuming she keeps th"m. Well, I know mymother keeps th"m, but I never asked her. The first time I went, I just asked the mikvah lady what to do, this is what she told me, so I do it. I think it's just too weird for me to ask my mother, especially if she didn't offer the info.
I've heard of 2, 3, 7 and 9. Never heard 12. I also dip 3 times (generally) and only make the 1 brocha, and (I know, some might be shocked) only cover my head for that brocha if the attendant actually is prepared and hands me something. Where I lived when I was first married, some of the attendants always "forgot" that part unless you asked for it, and I never did... other mikva'ot I've been to simply casually hand you the washcloth for your head, and then I use it, although I'm often tempted to use it to blow my nose instead!
[I hate chlorinated water up my nose. It burns.]
Anyway, I'm pretty sure the "y'hi ratzon" is the pretty standard one for requesting the rebuilding the Beis HaMikdash. It's at the end of the Amidah (Shimoneh Esrei, or whatever you call it) and it's also said after counting Sefirat HaOmer. Actually, I'm not sure it's exactly the same between those two places.
But anyway, I had been using the mikvah for many years before anyone suggested I say it, and it was more of the attendant telling me that she did when she used the mikvah... I never sat down and conciously memorized it, although if I try hard enough, I probably do know it without a siddur.
The other thing that was suggested to me once was immersing lying down instead of standing up... more like swimming. Someone thought it would be easier for me, but the thought of having my feet further away from the bottom (and exposing more of my body to view at the same time) was a definite turn-off. It may be easier for the attendant to be sure you get all under that way, but tough for her.