Mayim Rabim

It’s funny how we mark time as we pass through the different parts of our lives.

As children, we mark time by our birthdays. I’m five and a quarter. Six and a half. Seven and three-quarters. I’ll be sixteen next month. Two more months until I can drive. One more week until I can drink (legally).

As single adult women, we mark time by how long we’ve been single. Gosh, I’m graduating high school/seminary/college, how much longer until I meet the guy? I’m not getting any younger. This is the age my mother got married at. This is the age my sister got married at. My friends are all married, why aren’t I. Two more years and I’ll be an old maid.

And as married women, we learn to count time by the mikvah. Five days until I can try for a hefsek. Seven days of bedikas. What time is the rov answering shaylas? Two hours of preparation time. How many weeks until I’m in niddah again? I’m pregnant – eight months off from the mikvah! A beautiful baby – but six weeks away from my husband.

* * *

Today I got my period. For the second time since the Get. It wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be. The first time my period came, it was on yom tov morning, it caught me off-guard, and I cried on and off the whole day. I cried most of that night. The futility of my reproductive organs hit me full-force.

I have struggled most of my adult life with irregular periods, long periods, lack of ovulation and menstruation, and infertility. My first child was born through medical assistance. G-d somehow decided I now merited fertility, and promptly made me pregnant (surprise!) less than a year after my first child was born. After my second child’s birth G-d then decided he would bless me with even better fertility – regular ovulation. With great sadness (because I was nervous to take the chance of having another baby in such a troubled marriage), I started using a diaphragm for birth control after my second child’s birth. And does G-d have a sense of humor? Of course he does. Not only was I ovulating, buy my cycle became much, much shorter than it had been for all my adult life. From 38 days to 31 days. Here I am, more fertile than I have ever been in my entire life, and I can’t get pregnant. The loss felt huge, enormous, overwhelming.

And here I am, divorced (!), extremely fertile, and unable to bring neshamas down from atzilus to asiyah*.

* * *

The first cycle after the Get, I caught myself still counting, habitually. Okay today is the first day of my period, I can try to make hefsek on Wednesday, which means if everything goes right I’ll toivel next Wednesday, but more than likely Friday, how will I make arrangements for Friday night? And then I caught myself. No more bedikas, no more counting, no more “Kosher, Kosher, Kosher.” No one to put perfume on for. No one to come home to. No one to announce to, “I have toiveled myself.” No one to hug.

It was very sad. Very sad, indeed.

This second cycle, I was expecting my period – I knew it would appear any day, my breasts are tender (also a gift from Hashem after the birth of my second child. Hey, thanks G-d.), I have looked at the calendar. My fingernails and toenails are getting long; I usually let them grow until I have to toivel. It still catches me off guard, but not more than usual. The feeling of loss has lessened greatly, mostly because I’m too busy with life to think about it too deeply. I have prepared mentally for the worst (that I will not merit to get remarried and hence not have more children), but am hoping for the best (that within the next year or two I will merit an amazing husband who will want to have more children and be able to support them).

In the interim, I am stuck between the potential and the actual. Between heaven and earth.

*Atzilus – world of “Emanation,” highest of the Four Worlds, connected with etzel, i.e. nearest to the Source of creation, the Ein Sof, hence still in a state of Infinity.
Asiyah – fourth of the Four Worlds, generally translated by “Action.”…Asiyah should be understood as the final stage in the creative process.