Mayim Rabim

I thought long & hard about what to do about my blisters last time I visted the mikvah. I'd developed them the week before by wearing some very comfy shoes with no socks or hose & because I walked a long way in them, well... ...so I had these huge blisters which I left alone & by the time likvah night came, they ad "disappeared" in the sense that they had totally deflated & were...

Several of the discussions here lately have me thinking about when and why people believe it's proper to ask for heterim (leniencies) -- not just in matters of taharat hamishpacha, but birth control, and all the other things that come up in a relationship between husband and wife. On the one hand, the fact that it's sometimes hard to keep the halacha -- sometimes very, very hard -- is sort of the point. It might...

Right now, I'm very thankful I'm tehorah. I've been quite sick on and off the past 2,5 weeks. There was a vacation in that time, and we've gone away again this weekend. I've wanted cuddling (he's my human heating pad) but little to nothing more. I feel sad because I know he wants more. I really want more too, but the rest of my body just can't handle it. b'h I'm doing much better and...

Why in the world anyone would choose to follow all the intricacies of TH when it seems that they engender so many difficulties and inconveniences?...The "cost-benefit" approach, is one way of looking at things. However, it's not really the way I believe we were meant to view our mitzvah observance.

Just hoping that everyone (who is in the USA) took a moment today to think about what Independence Day means for us as Jews. Without guaranteed Freedom of Religion, we might still be breaking the ice in the middle of the night to toivel. We might never have had children because we had never been to the mikvah. We might have to hide our practices from the public instead of freely speaking anonymously on a...

My husband directed me to this on the web today and it looks interesting. I wonder if he is 'threatening' to send me off for a week every cycle on a relaxing retreat? How I wish! I found this a positive aspect of their break: Each month, during their period, women leave for the Bashali. Hazrat Gul, mother of one son, looks forward to her break from the routine of housework. "We make rice, chapattis,...

I don't know why I do this but once in a rare while I forget to call the rabbi before I bring a shaylah over. You can't tell whether he's there or not once you get there, you just put the envelope through his mail slot. He calls you whenever he comes home and picks it up. Invariably the one time I forget to call, he's out of town for a week. Because it sometimes...

So last night was my fifth day, and I usually try to make Hefsek Tahara on that day. But things were upside down in my house with a new cleaning lady, my husband home (not usually home thursday nights), and my best friend arrived from out of town. Things were a little hectic to say the least. Candle lighting in NYC is 8:13 this week, which means shkiah is 8:31. I realized at 8:28 that...

(for part one of this misadventure, see stupid bedikah tricks) It turns out my usual rabbi did get my bedikah, look at it, and pronounce it okay; he just forgot to call me and say so. Or at least that's what I think happened. The fill-in rabbi (hereafter FIR) was tracked down by my husband's chosson teacher before I even got through, so he already knew the details. When I called FIR, he said the...

The following is my own unofficial translation of a Hebrew article to which Out of Step Jew linked recently (see "Contributions From Other Sites"). Oppression of Women by Women or How I Almost Became a Mikvah Attendant: The overbearing supervision of some mikvah attendants turns mikvah visits into humiliating experiences for women. One woman's personal testimony, which is somewhat funny and very sad.

Confusion... so often I find myself completely comfortable in all my thoughts on Taharat Hamishpacha only to find myself totally and utterly bewildered the next month. My current niddah is the first cycle I've had since my surgery 2 months ago. Everything was going fine and my husband was actually really excited that I was able to start a cycle on my own (seriously, I think it might have been the first time ever recorded...

The last time I went to mikvah, the attendant was really friendly and nice and casual and laid-back. I like it when it's laid back. Like a frivolous hair appointment, like happy girl-time. There's an excited kindness, a glad enthusiasm in the air that's more appropriate to mikvah night than the serious, grave attitude some mikvah ladies give you. She even asked me if it was warm enough when I got in. It was toasty...

I'll save my thoughts on the whole not-looking-at-toilet-paper thing for another time, but for now I want to comment briefly on this question and answer from the Yoatzot site: If you are ashkenazi, and wiped yourself immediately after urinating, you are considered niddah - unless you have a cut or sore in the area that may have been opened or scratched as a result of relations. If you are sephardi, then you are tehorah even...

My husband hates it. Unfortunately, using a diaphragm is our only option without having a halachic or medical issue. I'm terrified of an IUD, and hormonal birth control (pill, norplant, seasonal, etc) are contra-indicated because of a medical condition (not to mention the fact they make me NERVOUS). And my husband is complaining because he can "feel" the diaphragm. So I have a conondrum - I am using the diaphragm on mikvah night and in...

My goodness, look at all the rebukes to this old request for an online niddah posek! Four in a row, with increasingly admonitory tone. It just goes to show you, I think, that many men have no idea how uncomfortable asking questions can be for a woman. Yes, we do what we need to do for the sake of keeping the halacha, and yes, the rabbis are only in this l'sheym shamayim (for the sake...

I didn't think it could happen so soon... ... Last night as soon as shabbos ended I started to get dressed so I could go to the mikvah. It took my husband about 30 minutes to get home and in that time, my three year old asked me, "Mommy, where are you going?" She saw I had my sheitel and shoes on and she knew I must be leaving. The only answer I could give...

I can't believe this happened. I would link to this post and point out the amusing irony, except that it's not funny and I'm shaking, not laughing. I sat down and figured out the days we needed to separate this month, then put away the calendar. We went to my parents for Shabbat. When we got home on Sunday afternoon I didn't check the calendar, thinking I was sure I remembered we didn't have to...

Does anyone else have this phenomenon? When I come home from the mikvah, I'm STARVING. Ravishing hungry. I frequently eat a huge dinner of steak, mashed potatoes, spinach, etc. when I come home from the mikvah. My theory is that there is some psychological connection between the chlorinated water of the mikvah and my childhood associations with swimming pools (also chlorinated water). There's something about swimming that makes me hungry - aren't your kids always...

I have a hard time taking onot seriously. I'm glad eden does even though it caused her a major head- and heartache this time. Not that we don't separate on them, not that I don't observe them, umm, religiously, wear white underwear and do the required number of bedikos. Which reminds me, I'm not exactly clear on what the exact number of required bedikos is! My period is irregular enough that we do keep the...

Okay, so I’ll put it right out there: sorry I haven’t posted. It hasn’t been a good month. Our first attempt at IVF failed, in spite of everything looking good and going well. So my mind was on things other than t’h and mikvah. But now my mind is on t’h and mikvah because I got my period and am now faced with going back to the mikvah. I have to say, I didn’t really...

The OU is sponsoring this event on 31 July (Sunday) "in honor of the many women who give of their time and energy to facilitate the mitzvah of mikvah in our communities". Event details here: Pearls of Appreciation Thank you for all your hard work. :)...

Perhaps I'm being overly dramatic, but I wept when I read GoldaLeah's recent post, "Troubled Waters. She is on her congregation's mikvah development committee, and in discussing her changing view on their current mikvah plan, she writes: I am behind the idea of a mikveh for this congregation, but I don't see a pressing need for one. There is one within an hour's drive of here, and there are also natural, outdoor mikvahs (mikvaot?) that...

Argh. Why do things have to be so hard?! Okay, so we decide on TaB (this, not this), only to find out the day before (and too late to call for a mikvah appointment, even though I really, really, didn’t want to use the mikvah, and yes, I know, I could have called anyway and the attendant might have been a little put out, but she still would have had to fit me in) that...

OK, I know this shouldn't bother me as much as it does -- misconceptions about the "biological" reasons for many mitzvot have floated around, it's not unique to taharat hamishpacha -- but if I have to see this particular misconception one more time I may scream: Two weeks after a woman has begun to menstruate, she is most fertile and likely to conceive. At the same time, a man who has abstained from sex for...

Well, I went searching, because comments on this had me curious. In short, no one had heard of the custom I thought I remembered being taught, that of wearing white underwear on vestos (anticipatory days). The sefer I looked in was Rabbi Binyomin Forst's "The Laws of Niddah." I found nothing in the many chapters on vestos, so I finally looked under kesems with regards to colored underwear. Interestingly, I found this in the footnotes,...