Mayim Rabim

The Kallah, a dear friend of ours, was a guest at our Shabbos table the week before her wedding. "May I call you tomorrow?" she asked. "I have some questions... and I would like to ask them of you."

Hmm... I thought, a Kallah, a week before her wedding, has questions, and it sounds like it doesn't really need to be me who answers them... must be about mikvah. And I was honored that she'd chosen to ask me.

On Sunday, she called. Sure enough, her questions were about the mikvah.

The Chabad House Rebbitzen she'd been learning with lived only a short drive away, but the mikvah the Rebbitzen used was the other way from the Chabad, and while also a short drive, it added up. The Kallah was set to immerse on Saturday night for a Sunday wedding... a late summer Motzei Shabbos. Since she would be living near me after the wedding, she needed to learn how to find our local mikvah anyway, so why not now?

I quickly checked the schedule, to learn who would be on call, and gave the Kallah the information on how to make an appointment. I was quite pleased with what I learned. All of our attendants are nice, but this particular shomeret is especially welcoming, and I felt she would help make the Kallah feel at home. Sure enough, she was as excited as I was to welcome this new Kallah to our community. The appointment was made, and we all waited anxiously. I was to pick up the Kallah from the place where she was staying, and escort her to mikvah.

I was on time, but she wasn't quite ready, so I waited, and made small talk with her hosts. I didn't have to wait long. I could tell, and she readily admitted, that she was very nervous. We drove quietly to the mikvah.

The attendant met us at the door, and gushed over the Kallah appropriately, showing her to a room. The Kallah took me aside. "She seems very nice, but I'm a bit nervous, and I know you but not her...would it be possible for you to supervise my immersion?"

I'd been to mikvah many times, but always as a patron, never as the attendant... but by now I know the drill pretty well. I okayed it with the attendant, and assured my Kallah that I could supervise her. "Just let me know when you are ready," I told her.

Around here, they only check what you want checked, but for a Kallah I figured I'd better check at least her hands, feet and back. I sent her back to soak a small scab, to make it soft. I helped her remove her bracelet, the clasp difficult to get with one hand. I asked about her long nails: "I did trim them!" she insisted, and having heard friends complain about being forced to trim their nails unnecessarily, I just made sure they were clean, neat and filed.

Then I helped her off with her robe, and hid behind it until she was in the water. She faced away from me, and immersed once. She may have been nervous, but she dipped like a pro. I tried to remember what I was watching for. Body and all hairs under, check. Not hitting the wall as she immersed, check.

She then craned her neck around to look at me to ask, not having heard my pronouncement, "Kosher!," if she had done it right, and I reassured her. I helped her with the brocha, her nervousness making her forget what she had known only minutes before. (My Kallah teacher would have made her dip again, so as not to talk between the brocha and the tevilot/immersions sandwiching it, but I am not my Kallah teacher, and I only remembered this after.)

She dipped twice more, each time I pronounced it Kosher as she came up, a little too soon for her to hear me, apparently, because each time she craned her neck to see me and ask if it was good. But what can I say? It was my first time as mikvah attendant, and I hadn't had the usual training.

I took refuge in the thought that I had learned that when the shomeret pronounces a tevilah "Kosher!" here on Earth, a heavenly voice repeats "Kosher!" in Heaven, and the tevilah is accepted. I trembled inwardly to think that I had been granted such power, however briefly.

As the Kallah came up the steps out of the mikvah, I helped her back into her robe, and shook her hand, pronouncing her tevilah Kosher once more. Then I gave her some tips for the next time. How the attendant would say "Kosher!", and she should listen for it, so she wouldn't have to ask each time. How she would probably be given a washcloth to cover her head with for the brocha, once she was a married woman. Then I sent her to dry off and get dressed.

Once she was dressed, I showed her where to pay, advised her to buy more bedikah cloths now, to build up a small stash, and after accepting more good wishes and mazel tovs from the Shomeret, we made our way home. The Kallah confided that she felt less nervous now, more settled. Mikvah always does that to me, so I understood completely.

The wedding was beautiful, of course, as was the Kallah. She thanked me many times for escorting her, but it was I who needed to thank her, for including me in this way, for giving me the honor and privilege of helping to start them off on their observance of Taharas HaMishpacha, for giving me the merit of participating in this very special, very private mitzvah.

May they enjoy many many joy-filled years of mazel and brocha together.