Mayim Rabim

A few months ago I had to go to the mikvah when I was visiting my parents. I had only been to the mikvah in my hometown once, before my wedding, when I had a special appointment as a Kallah. This time, when I got to my mikvah of choice, the parking lot was crowded. When I walked in, the attendant apologized to me for the difficulty parking.

“Will I have to wait long?” I asked.

She looked at me as if I had asked whether I would have to ride a unicycle into the mikvah.

“Of course you won’t have to WAIT,” she declared, and ushered me into a prep room.

My hometown takes the mikvah very seriously. Growing up, I learned over and over that the first thing a Jewish community must build, before even building a shul, is a mikvah. My hometown has numerous mikvaot. In addition to a few big, beautiful ones that are open every night, every major shul has a mikvah that is open on Shabbat and holidays, so that women don’t have to walk too far, and certainly no one has to wait a night to go the mikvah.

When I first got married I lived in a city with a large Jewish community but only one mikvah. At that time I was surprised that so few people seemed to be keeping taharat hamishpacha, since I often didn’t see anyone else there when I was at the mikvah. But a couple of years after getting married, my husband and I moved to a town that is considered something of a center of Modern/Centrist Orthodox Judaism in America. The town we currently live in has five or six large shuls that are bursting at the seams in addition to countless minyanim in people’s homes. We have more than ten sit-down kosher restaurants, and plentiful takeout places, kosher markets, Jewish schools and programs, you name it. In some parts of town the frum population is so dense that on Shabbat afternoon you can stroll down the middle of the street with only the slightest possibility of having a car drive by. This community is much more affluent than the one I grew up in: bigger houses, fancier clothing, fancier vacations.

So as you can imagine, there are around fifteen mikvaot in this town. Just kidding! How many do you think there are – maybe ten, or at least six or seven?

Try one.

One mikvah in the whole town.

One ugly mikvah with rust and mold in the prep rooms; one mikvah in which you swelter in the summer (no air conditioning) and freeze in the winter (insufficient heating).

One mikvah where you must arrive by 10 PM, even in the middle of the summer when zman tvilah is close to 9 PM.

Now you may assume that this says something about the state of taharat hamishpacha observance in my town. Perhaps none of those Jews who are overflowing the shuls and kosher restaurants actually keeps hilkhot niddah. But that is not the case. In this town, it seems that everyone keeps taharat hamishpacha. There are hilkhot niddah shiurim, and even talk of bringing a Nishmat Yoetzet Halakha into the community.

So here is what happens in a town where everyone keeps taharat hamishpacha, and there is one small mikvah: everyone hurries, and everyone waits. The mikvah’s décor consists of paper signs instructing women that they may not bathe for more than 30 minutes, encouraging them to bathe and shower at home, and other equally inspiring messages. Typical wait time at the mikvah is easily between one and two hours, and that’s just until you get into a prep room. I’ve been kept waiting after ringing the bell for an attendant to take me to the actual mikvah for ten to fifteen minutes, as I sit there sweltering or freezing (depending on the season) in my robe and flimsy paper mikvah slippers.

To be fair, money is being raised for renovating and expanding the mikvah. But it is too little – they should be building ten new mikvaot – and too late - if and when it ever happens.

How can a frum community have so little respect for such an important mitzvah? How can wealthy baalei bayit allow the mikvah to exist in such conditions, while they live in their mansions and spend their money on expensive restaurants? How can seriously frum people, who keep taharat hamishpacha, live in the parts of town where the walk to the mikvah is over an hour, so they can never go on Shabbat and holidays?

Is it sexism – no need to put money into a mitzvah that only benefits women? Is it simple avarice? Is there something wrong with Jewish education that causes people to forget about the mikvah? I am completely baffled by the shameful mikvah-neglect in this community. I know my experience is a far cry from our righteous grandmothers in Poland who supposedly brought their ice-picks to the river in the winter so they could tovel in the water, but in our affluent, complacent communities we can - and must - do a lot better than this.

~ Aviva