Mayim Rabim

(Alluded to in my post "Something was Missing" from 2006! This post was written around then, but got buried and just now came to light again.)

So usually when I go to mikvah, all of three people know about it: Me, my husband and the Shomeret. Okay, and the Bookkeeper/Treasurer, who is presumably the same person who deposits the checks. (Yes, I write a check. I don't make a habit of carrying cash.) I found out that they really do keep records when I got a phone call just after the end of the year, "reminding me" that I had one unpaid visit. We tracked down my check (the shomeret still had it, oops!) and I was glad that it had been a check and thus there was an actual paper trail to track down, and I also found out about how good their records are! So make it 4.

This time, however, well by the time I was done, there were just too many people involved! First off, the local mikvah was closed for repairs. They had sent out a notice to that effect, and while we may be a one-mikvah town, there are several other 1 and 2 mikvah towns within commuting distance, some of which I'd been to before.

Now, my husband and I are usually verrry circumspect about exactly when I'm going to mikvah. It was very unusual for me to consult others, but in trying to decide, I asked a friend her opinion, without letting on exactly which night it would be. Let's call her Amanda. (I was weighing the farther drive to a mikvah I'd been to before against the shorter commute to one that was totally unfamiliar.) Amanda had also only had experience with the farther one of the two I asked about, but offered to ask around on my behalf (with me remaining anonymous) because she knew people in the closer town. So she asked Betty and Cynthia. (I'm making these names up, obviously, in alphabetical order.)

That at least was useful: I found out it was by appointment only, no open hours. Calls for appointments are usually returned the day of the appointment, so members in this small community receive a calendar so that they can call the individual shomrot directly and not have to sit by the phone all day not knowing when the appointment will be. Cynthia had a copy of the calendar, but it stopped a day or two before I needed to go. This was all going from me to Amanda to Cynthia to Amanda to me, and took several rounds before Cynthia and the calendar were in the same place at the same time and I actually got the info, only to find out that the calendar had run out!

So I weighed the closer one being smaller and by appointment only against the farther one being familiar but having official "hours" where they took drop-ins too, and there might be a wait for a room. Once I realized that more than just the extra driving time was (possibly) involved, I decided to stick with the closer one, so I called and left a message. But I still wanted a chance of knowing when my appointment was at least earlier on that day, since the message said they would return all calls around 5pm the day of the appointment. I'm used to having an appointment the latest by a whole day before, so this was making me very nervous.

After I left the message, I realized that I knew people in that town myself, and needed to talk to two of them anyway, so I called (I'm Desde, so let's leave D and E for me and my husband) Francine and Gwen. Francine wasn't home, so I left a message about something else. I did actually get to talk to Gwen, and asked her if she had a copy of the new calendar yet. I was still being very careful to be vague about which day I needed to know for. It turned out that Gwen is one of the shomrot, but no, she didn't have a copy of the calendar. She added that Helen was in charge, and Isabel was her assistant, and she knew Isabel had the calendar because she had called her when she needed to switch which night she was on call, so she gave me both those numbers. Gwen also didn't tell me which night she'd been on call for, or which night she'd switched for.

By this time it was getting late, so after trying to call both Helen and Isabel and getting voice mail for each (I hung up, not having an alternate message that I could leave, and not wanting to leave my real message on what was obviously the family answering machine) I gave up for that day.

The next night, Gwen called me back. "I just got my new calendar in the mail, so I was going to call you, but then I checked the mikvah line," she said, "and you didn't tell me you were coming that night! That's the night I was on call for, and I switched with Josie! Let me give you Josie's number."

Meanwhile, Cynthia got her copy of the new calendar too, and forwarded the first week's worth of names and numbers to Amanda, who sent it on to me... and there was Gwen's name on it, who of course had switched with Josie after the calendar was printed.

So I finally talked to Josie, and we agreed on a time. And I suppose Betty and Cynthia don't know who I really am, Francine doesn't know that the message I left her wasn't the only reason I was calling, and Helen and Isabel don't know who hung up on their answering machines or why, although one of them or an additional person (Katie?) will have to deal with my check... but to me it still seemed like there were far more people involved than were supposed to be!

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Just when I thought I had it all under control, Hashem threw me a curve ball.
The mikvah thing was getting so much easier now that I wasn't dreading the water, didn't panic just thinking about putting my head under, wasn't shaking with fear as I walked down the steps into the mikvah. I thought I had the routine down pat. And then this.

Let's just say that my hair was very very long. It definitely would have gotten in the way of tying a sash, were I inclined to wear dresses with sashes. It reached my waistband in the back. It was long. In the mikvah, I swept it all off one shoulder and held it as I went under, letting go as I came back up. But not only was my hair long, it was thick and heavy. It was starting to pull my snoods and tichels off my head, unless I kept it braided and partially up. It wouldn't fit under a sheitel, which is usually no great loss, since I rarely wear one. A family simcha was coming up, and I wanted to wear a sheitel to it. Since I needed to cut my hair anyway, I decided to cut enough to donate it, while my hair is still mostly a dark chestnut brown, before it starts going silver/white. After all, I'm not getting any younger, and my family has tendency to premature grey. So I put my hair in my usual two braids, and cut them off.

I cut off a foot of braid and my hair still comes just to my shoulders. Did I mention it was long? My hair hasn't been this short since I was first married! Oh. I forgot, but was reminded the very next time I went to mikvah, exactly why my hair hasn't been this short since I first got married. It's just too short to hold with one hand as I go under, and umm, when my hair is this length, it FLOATS!

That had to be the most traumatic mikvah experience I've had in years. I was practically in tears, because the shomeret couldn't be sure my hair had all been under too. I might no longer be afraid of the water, but I still can't swim, and I don't exactly enjoy being under the water, so I'm fast. Too fast. And it didn't help that the mikvah water was especially deep and buoyant that day. I just couldn't get far enough under, or stay down long enough. I finally had to rely on my old heter, for at least 1 Kosher tevilah. I had one definitely good dip, two probably okay ones, (and at least half a dozen "sorry, I couldn't tell if all your hair got under" ones) and I was done. Oh and next time, I am bringing a hairnet.* It's already in my purse.

*ask your own shaylah, by all means, but I already have permission to use a hairnet from my early married days.
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The other day I was talking with someone about publishing a guide to synagogues, comparable to the Zagat guide for restaurants. That sounds fine, I said, but what the Jewish community really needs is a Zagat guide to mikvahs.

What would you want it to cover, he asked? So many things, at first my brain was working too fast for anything out to come out of my mouth. The number one question, if you ask me: is the bathroom inside the prep room, or do you have to drip down the hall in your bathrobe to get to it. How crowded is it / is there usually a wait. How much do they charge, and is tipping expected. Which prep items they provide and which they don't. Where can your husband wait to pick you up.

Is the mikvah lady nice, he volunteered. YES!! I can't believe I forgot that one. How many questions will she ask. How much will she poke and prod your fingernails. And does she have a meshugas [crazy idea in her head] about not touching the wall.

Obviously there would be some controversy about negative ratings; no one wants to embarrass people who give their time and energy to serve the community. On the other hand, we all know of cases where the mikvah staff could benefit from answering to the public, where the reluctance to talk about bad experiences is doing no one any good.

It could also be the first branding opportunity for Mayim Rabim. T-shirts, anyone?

I came across a comment on beyondbt (a blog for and by "returnees" to observant Judaism) that I found very very disturbing.

as a bt in progress, i just have to say that it’s so hard to fit in sometimes. bt’s do things differently but honestly. we try so hard, and when the ffb community snickers because we might not know as much, it can be a major turn-off.

years ago, i had a horrible experience at a mikvah, where a mikvah lady yelled, yes, yelled, at me because i was having trouble with the bracha. i had only gone to mikvah a few times at that point, and it was still new to me, and i was still getting used to the whole ritual, and because of that one episode, i actually stopped going, and then gradually stopped practicing for many years. it wasn’t until recently that i came back to odoxy.

what the ffb community needs to do, instead of snickering and criticizing, is to give support (yes, i realize that many odox communities are very supportive) and constantly remind themselves that there are jews out here who struggle just to remember the things that most ffb’s learned in kindergarden.

This poor woman actually stopped using the mikvah and practicing T"H and all other mitzvot because a mikvah attendant criticized her for having trouble with the brocha? Instead of helping her? As familiar with the "basic brocha on a mitzvah" (asher kidishanu...) as many of us are, it's generally posted on the wall (in many mikva'ot) for a reason!!!! It's easy to trip up on the words, especially if you can't see the poster without glasses or contacts, or to just blank for a moment, since after all, you're standing there naked, feeling exposed and vulnerable in the water, which I would assume isn't the most comfortable situation for most of us! How dare she!?! (The attendant, not the woman using the mikvah)

Okay, I'll stop steaming out my ears now, and I'll jump down from my soapbox in just another minute, but as I said, I was deeply disturbed by this woman's comment. Before I end, I just want to say, please, please, please, anyone who is in the position of being an attendant, make it easier, not harder! And for G-d's sake (literally), don't yell or intimidate, or laugh or poke fun at someone using the mikvah. We don't want to drive her away from the mitzvah entirely!

Last year, I wrote about how I'm never tehorah on my anniversary. This year, though, for some reason, my cycle was such that I could have immersed the night before my anniversary.

I could have -- except that my in-laws were coming to town to take Husband and me out to dinner, and they had scheduled the meal to overlap entirely with the mikvah's hours. Since they would already be here, they were going to take us out the following night as well, again precluding tevilah. The night after that would be Shabbat, and the mikvah isn't within walking distance. So not only would I not be tehorah for my anniversary, but I would have to delay tevilah for three extra days.

Husband accepted the situation, but I was unhappy. I could forgo the "special occasion sex," but for some reason, the idea of losing Friday night really bothered me. I lay awake in bed thinking of ways to get around my little hurdle. Hiking to the mikvah on Shabbat was out of the question, since Husband and I would have to miss shul, and we were temporarily in charge of the minyan. (I guess that's one of those "strange consequences of egalitarianism" things.) I thought of skinny-dipping in the river late at night, but I didn't think that Husband would take to the idea. Finally, I remembered that there was another mikvah in the area, a liberal one designed to accomodate men as well as women for a wide variety of rituals, and it occurred to me that they might be open during the day.

I checked their website, and indeed, they had daytime hours. I scheduled an appointment for 11 AM the morning of my anniversary. I had never been to the liberal mikvah before, not for halachic or hashkafic reasons, but simply because it was further away than the Orthodox mikvah and I don't have a car. To my surprise, it only took a little over an hour to get to the mikvah by public transit -- about the same length of time that it takes to get to the Orthodox one.

The attendant who greeted me was very friendly. Because it was my first visit, she had me fill out some paperwork, gave me a small tour, and explained the mikvah's mission. She told me that about 25% of the mikvah's visits are for niddah purposes, and that these usually take place in the evening during "women only" hours. The majority of immersions are for conversions or to mark major personal events, such as recovering from a serious illness.

I had always thought that the local Orthodox mikvah was rather luxurious, but the liberal one was truly spa-like. The preparation rooms were spacious and well-equipped. Each had a toilet as well as a bath or shower, and a set of sliding doors sealed off the bathroom area to provide an appropriate space for prayer and meditation. Some observant women might object to the white washcloths and towels and to the absence of slippers, but the floor was clean and the preparation rooms all led directly into one of the mikvaot.

The attendant informed me that since I was the first to use the mikvah that day, I would have "the mitzvah of unscrewing the ball cap." The "ball cap," I learned, was the cover on the pipe that allowed fresh rainwater to flow into the mikvah. After removing it, I was immediately instructed to screw it back on.* I immersed twice, as usual, reciting the blessing in between. Then I went back to the preparation room, dressed, thanked the attendant, and took the train home. In the end, I thought to myself, tevilah is tevilah.

*I think this may be why some Orthodox rabbis objected to the mikvah's construction: the natural water source is not in constant contact with pool. I haven't studied these laws in detail, though, so I may be totally misconstruing the issue.

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.

This haunting feeling that something was missing lay over me the whole week. The first inkling that something was strange was when I realized I had a chance of getting that elusive day 5 hefsek! Okay, so maybe it was only day 5 (and not 6) if you don't count the spotting on day 0, but I've always counted this way, and still never gotten a day 5 hefsek taharah before. So I tried anyway, and surprise number two was that it worked!

There was a bit of anxiety over where I'd be going to mikvah (That's a story in itself, which I may post about eventually!) when half way through the week dh uncovered the notice from the local mikvah that it would be closed for repairs.

And that was when I realized. I was perhaps anxious about the hoops I jumped through to figure out how to obtain an appointment (actually making the appointment was the easy part, it was figuring out who to talk to that led me in circles!). I was maybe nervous about the longer drive and timing it so that I arrived on-time. (I can do early and I can do late, but promptness has often been about as elusive for me as that day 5 hefsek.) I was somewhat apprehensive about visiting a mikvah I'd never been to before. But I wasn't the least bit scared.

Now, some of you may be thinking, okay, Desde, this is what, your third post about not being scared of the water? We hear you, you're not scared anymore, get over it, okay? But please understand, being scared of the water has colored my entire life, even before I was observant. It took on additional importance when I first decided that I would be living an Orthodox lifestyle and learned about the mikvah's prominent role in that lifestyle. It gave me panic attacks when I became engaged and started Kallah classes.

It hung over me each time I made a hefsek taharah and started counting the days until my next mikvah visit. I tried not to think about what I was counting toward, trying to instead focus on the reunion with my husband. Each month was a balance of putting off making that appointment so I wouldn't have to think about it, and making it early enough that I didn't have the additional fact of not yet having an appointment to panic about. I forced myself to make the trip to the mikvah. I did my preparations, (actually, I'm surprised that I've never been obsessive-compulsive about the preparations, so that at least I had no excuse besides my fear for not calling myself "ready") and took an extra few minutes to compose myself, searching for something else I hadn't checked, but finding nothing, before calling for the attendant. I then had to compose myself again in the water before each dunk, gathering my courage each time. My fear was so very REAL and so very PRESENT, a constant companion.

I hesitate to say I miss it, but I definitely notice its absence. So I counted the days, without any fear. I (mostly) prepared at home, without any fear. I drove to the mikvah, without any fear. I finished up my preparations there, without any fear. I called for the attendant, made small talk while she checked my hands and feet and picked three million hairs off my back, without any fear. I entered the water, without any fear. I took a moment to compose myself before each dunk... to daven for myself, and others, not to gather courage. And it was a much shallower mikvah than I am used to, so I had to make an extra effort to get all the way under, but I did it without any fear. I did it all without any fear.

And while once I was afraid (ha!) that my mitzvah was somehow diminished through the lack of fear, this time I exulted in my lack of fear. Like a cancer patient in (permanent!) remission who will always be a "survivor," I have survived and surmounted my fear, and while it no longer follows me, it haunts me by its absence, and adds an extra dimension to my observance.

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

I knew it was, on paper at least, the right thing to do. Touch with an erva is forbidden. I was a nidda, and therefore an erva to my beloved fiancée. Every hug, every hand-holding- assur at least derabanan, possibly deoraita. But one magic dip and- not even a derabanan.

We’d stopped being shomer negiah three months into our courtship, with firm agreements as to “this far and no further.” I knew we would never transgress an issur karet, and aside from the terminology of issur and heter, we were both totally committed to not having sex before we got married. Going to the mikva seemed out of the question for us.

For one, it would put me in the awkward position of living out an urban legend, the frum single girl at the mikva. I thought casually about buying a twenty-dollar ring to match my engagement ring, throwing on a scarf and heading out to the suburbs. Or going to the heimish mikva, not all the women who go there wear wedding bands anyway.

I grew up in a very intellectually open household. Knowledge of mikva and sex and holiness was as accessible as the English books on Nidda I devoured as a teen and later in college from the original sources. I knew how to do a bedika, could have told you what was and wasn’t a hatzitza according to who and why. I wanted to go. It would have been so easy. Hafifa at home, clip my nails short, untangle my hair, hide it under a hat- inconspicuous enough in wintertime- pumice scrub on my heels and elbows, scabs carefully peeled away, nail polish meticulously removed.

We decided to go through with it. I sat with him and hugged him one last time. We were going to be shomer negiah through my next period and I’d count 7 clean. Then I’d prep and we’d make the trip out together. He’d be waiting for me outside, I wouldn’t be alone. We were both glowing with the excitement of choosing goodness, righteousness, and purity.

I cut up an old white t-shirt. Inspected the cloths. Made a hefsek on day 7. Bedikot, bedikot, and more bedikot. They hurt a bit, (more than I expected really, I’d used tampons before), even though the cloth was soft and thin.

I got back from work early, about to get in the bath and soak. It had been a cold, grey, unfriendly day and I certainly needed a hug and an its-all-going-to-be-ok more than an unknown trip to a place of utter nakedness where my flimsy disguise could be pulled aside at any moment. Something in the way I’d done my nails, some innocent remark I would let slip- anything could tip the mikva lady off that I wasn’t your standard scarf-wearing-but-modern housewife. I hated more than anything this Sabbatean inversion, this lie necessary to become pure. Sometimes, something just feels weird or wrong, even if it is intellectually honest or a better option halakhically.

I called him and let him know that we weren’t going to the mikva that night. I explained to him that even if he came with me, I would still be utterly alone and exposed, and I didn’t think I could bear it. He understood.

~ Bat Planya

Bat Planya is a very ordinary observant girl in her twenties who reads more than
she should. She lives in a major metropolitan area and has had dreams about mikvaot. She is very into sociology and halakha, although she sometimes struggles with both.

If you've ever had warts, you know how they come and go without warning, usually in groups. A while back, I had a crop of warts on my hands. I visited a dermatologist, who sprayed them with liquid nitrogen. Blisters formed, some clear, some black. A few of the black ones burst at various points, leaving my hands covered with blood.

Needless to say, the blisters elicited more comments than the warts. "Are you okay?" "Did you hurt your hands?" For a cosmetic treatment, it wasn't very pretty.

When the mikvah lady asked about them, I apologized and told her that I'd washed them as well as I could.

"That wasn't what I meant," she said. "Do they hurt? Are you seeing a doctor?"

I was relieved, but also annoyed, though not at her. I didn't feel like explaining that a doctor had given me the beauties.

Eventually, the blisters dried into scabs and then went away. No sooner had they healed, however, than a new crop of warts appeared in their place. I had my hands sprayed with liquid nitrogen a second time, and then a third. Finally, I switched to an over-the-counter salycilic acid treatment. This had the advantage of not causing blisters, but it didn't get rid of the warts, either. When the treatment ran out, I decided to simply leave them alone.

Some time later (it might have been weeks or months, I'm not sure), I noticed that the warts were shrinking. And then they were gone.

Time went on, and I got used to having wart-free hands. Then, one morning, I noticed a Thing on my right hand where one of the warts had been. It was roughly the size and shape of the wart, but it was black and didn't rise above the skin. I showed it to my husband, who shrugged. Not eager to see the dermatologist again, I decided to wait a while and see whether it went away on its own.

By the time I had to visit the mikvah, I had gotten so used to the little, unobtrusive thing that I almost forgot that it was there. After my shower, a young, friendly attendant escorted me to the mikvah and introduced herself.

"I'm new," she said. We made a little bit of small talk, and I showed her my hands.

"What's that?" she asked.

"Um, I don't know. I just woke up one morning and it was there."

She smiled nervously. "Isn't it funny how your body just does these weird things?"

I smiled back, not sure what to say.

"Did you try to get it off?"

It had only been there for two or three weeks, but I was already so accustomed to its presence that I felt like I was being asked whether I'd made a good faith effort to remove my nose.

"Um, I washed it," I said lamely.

"Hmm, well," she said, "let me ask [the head attendant]." She smiled apologetically. "I'm sorry. I just wouldn't want your tevilah not to be kosher."

She was so kind, and so apologetic, that as she left the room I thought to myself that it would be nice if she were my attendant next time. At the same time, I was annoyed and a little bit nervous. I couldn't imagine that the Thing would be declared a chatstista, as it was obviously under the skin. But then, if I was so sure, why wasn't she?

The young attendant returned with her supervisor, who took my hand and examined the Thing.

"Did you rub it?" she asked.

"Yes," I responded, not sure whether or not I was answering her question.

"Could you rub it again. With the robe." It was more of a command than a question. I took the corner of my robe and rubbed the hapless Thing.

"If it doesn't come off, it's under the skin," she declared. "No problem." And that was that.

This was months ago, and I'm still not sure what I think of the whole affair. Intellectually, I realize that it's not worth getting hung up on. The mikvah attendants did their job, I did mine, and we all lived happlily ever after. Still, the incident has left me with a vague sense of irritation at the System, a System that turns every bodily blemish into an issue. There is a positive side to this, of course; the more attention we pay to our bodies, the more likely we are to become aware of any medical condition before it becomes serious. And yet. . .

I haven't seen the young mikvah attendant since that night. I'm sure that this has nothing to do with me, but I sometimes wonder why she didn't stay (or, if she did, where she's been hiding). As for the Thing, it went away as suddenly as it appeared.

I approached my first after-baby mikvah appointment with trepidation. No, nothing to do with my husband, my feelings had everything to do with the mikvah itself. It had been on the order of 11 months since my last visit, when I had suddenly realized that I wasn't actually afraid of the water anymore. And I worried that I had imagined it, that maybe I was actually still afraid of putting my head under the water. In fact, I wasn't sure if I was more worried about still being afraid, or of having no fear.

As I walked down the steps, I knew that I was not still wary of the water, that I felt no fear at all. The attendant, someone I knew socially but had not seen at the mikvah before, was completely unaware that I had ever been afraid of the water, and I felt no compulsion to enlighten her. I skipped my usual shpiel completely. No explaining that I was terrified of putting my head under, no mention that I had a heter for only one Kosher tevilah, and that having that heter made it possible for me to get the three, et al. No, I simply told her that I dip 3 times, making the bracha after the first dip. Out of habit, I had brought a washcloth with me, so I gave it to her to hold until I would use it to cover my head during the brocha. (Still not sure how I feel about the need for that, but I've fallen into the habit, as I said.)

I composed myself before each dip, formulating my prayers each time, (I can't think while under the water) then pulled myself under by the handrail, letting go before resurfacing.

"Kosher"
"Kosher"
"Kosher"

And then I came out of the mikvah, got dressed, paid her, and went home to my husband.

And yet, was that it? While I don't claim to have felt that deep connection to other women, past, present and future, who have used and will use the mikvah, I've always felt something after, stronger somehow, empowered by the knowledge that I had once again conquered my fear, and the security of knowing that my mitzvah observance was pure: Obviously, I was doing this only because I believe it to be a G-d given commandment. Without that, you wouldn't have gotten me into the building! But this time I hadn't had my fear to overcome. Was my mitzvah somehow lessened by this lack of fear, by not having this huge wall to climb over? When we don't worship idols because we don't have a Yetzer Hara (evil urge) for worshiping idols, are we stronger or weaker than those who felt the pull to worship idols and overcame it?

I don't have all the answers, obviously, but in the days that followed, I realized that I did feel different. Not stronger, as in the past, but somehow lighter. Like a heavy weight I hadn't even known I was carrying was lifted off my shoulders. And I realized that perhaps Becky was right when she suggested that the removal of my fear was my "reward" for fulling the mitzvah in spite of my phobia, and a sign that I no longer needed this fear. And I think that my future mikvah visits won't be less of a mitzvah for me: All those past visits will accompany me, and remain a part of me. I will remember them each time, and I will give praise to G-d for removing my fear... and using the mikvah, like every mitzvah we do, will continue to bring me closer to him.

I feel burned. I was so excited when I heard about this blog. I loved the mikvah. I loved going, I loved prepping, I loved knowing I was maintaining a mitzvah that goes back so long. My heart stops when I read about mikva’ot found at Masada or buried under buildings in Europe or hidden away cisterns in S’fat. The stories that we’ve all heard about Russian women chipping through the ice in frigid temperatures so they can immerse gives me goosebumps. The danger women put themselves in to immerse during inquisitions, progroms, the Holocaust just astounds me. Would I be as strong as they, I often wondered.

I even liked the wait. The first week of “freedom” – not having to respond to pressure from my husband, not having to feel bad if I wasn’t in the mood, enjoying the space in the bed and the shyness of covering up. The second week of anticipation, building to frustration and annoyance. Isn’t it mikvah night, yet?! Then of course, there’s the actual mikvah night. Full of expectation, nervousness, anxiety, but regardless of how we – ahem – observed the night, finally being able to fall asleep in each other’s arms again. Bliss. I couldn’t wait to write about all that, and share my enthusiasm and maybe, possibly, even get someone else to start observing taharat ha’mishpacha.

Now I just find it annoying and painful. Yet another month in a long, unbroken chain of months of going to the mikvah. A long, unbroken chain that will keep going and going and going until menopause hits. Everything is compounded. I’m dealing with mild depression as a result of the infertility treatments not working, which is pounded into my head each month when I get my period, and then when I get to the mikvah: “YOU’RE NOT PREGNANT. YOU NEVER WILL BE. And you’ll have to do all of this again next month. And again. And again.” So I get more depressed. And because, while I’m niddah, I can’t get any hugs or other physical comfort from my husband, I get more depressed. Then comes the mikvah, and well, you get the idea.

So it makes it very hard to be enthusiastic about mikvah. And very hard to write about it. I had no idea so much time had passed since my last post. I made a commitment to post a certain amount and I have not been able to live up to that. And I didn’t want to be a stick-in-the-mud, only writing “boo hoo, poor me” posts, but that’s all I’m feeling lately. So if y’all will just bear with me, I might not have the most upbeat posts, but I’ll at least try to do better about posting at all.

Another link in the chain...another mikvah opens.

Someone forwarded this article to me. Rather than send a link, based on what happened when Kuzo linked to the Atlanta article, I thought I'd just cut and paste...with full attributions.

Jews' ritual bath makes comeback
Tuesday, November 15, 2005 by Nancy Haught The Oregonian

For many Jewish women, keeping mikvah -- immersing themselves in natural, flowing water -- is a private matter. Their husbands probably know when they leave home to visit a mikvah. Attendants may know if a woman immersed herself so completely that not a strand of her hair floated to the surface. But only God knows, quite literally, the sincerity of a woman's prayer.

Water flows through many religions in rituals that symbolize transformation, from death to life, rebirth and renewal. The mikvah is an ancient Jewish tradition still practiced in the modern world both because it is required by Jewish law and for a handful of other more contemporary reasons.

The word mikvah is Hebrew for a "gathering" of mayim chayim, or "living water." Centuries ago, in accordance with Jewish law, women immersed themselves before their weddings and monthly thereafter, seven days after their menstrual periods ended. Only then did they resume physical contact with their husbands. Jewish men immersed themselves, sometimes as part of their daily spiritual practice and, in other cases, before Jewish holy days.

Today, many Jewish men and women never set foot in a mikvah, but the practice is preserved for those who find it meaningful and for those whose conversions to Judaism demand a ritual immersion. It is probably most important to Orthodox Jews, but some others use it for nontraditional reasons, immersing themselves before or after surgery or after a divorce.

Portland has two mikvot (the plural of mikvah), one that dates from 1958 and another that, after five years of fine-tuning, will be dedicated this spring. The Jewish Federation of Greater Portland has undertaken a fund-raising effort on behalf of the older community mikvah, which is administered by the Oregon Board of Rabbis. The newer facility, Mikvah Shoshana, was built by Chabad of Oregon, and at their invitation an expert on the mikvah is visiting Portland on Thursday for a lecture.

Sara Karmely of New York City is a traveling authority on keeping mikvah and the ancient tradition's power to revitalize modern marriages. Married for 40 years herself, she is past menopause and misses her monthly visits to the mikvah. In a telephone interview, she is almost wistful as she recalls her monthly preparation.

"It meant that that morning, I would wake up with a sense of anticipation," she says. She would soak in a bath for half an hour, scrub herself from head to foot and shower to remove any foreign particles from her body. A woman may not wear nail polish or even contact lenses when she steps into the mikvah.

"Each month you come out of the mikvah and see your face glowing," she says. "It is a rebirth. As soon as I came home from the mikvah, I became a new bride and my husband was a new bridegroom for me."

Avoiding physical contact during a woman's period and for seven days afterward encourages a couple to work on communication and respect for each other's sexuality, she says.

For Sima "Simi" Mishulovin of Portland, a member of Chabad-Lubavitch of Oregon, a Hasidic group that encourages Jews to practice mitzvahs or "commandments," sees the mikvah as a link to the Jewish women who preceded and will come after her.

She remembers her first visit to the mikvah, before her wedding almost two years ago.

"I felt a strong connection to the women of the past and, being the first grandchild (in her family) to be married, I felt like the beginning link of this mitzvah for the family."

Karmely and representatives of other community mikvot see a resurgence in the spiritual practice, but because visits to a mikvah are so private, it is difficult to tell whether the number of women using them is on the rise, and still more difficult to describe their reasons for doing so.

But Rabbi Joseph Wolf of Havurah Shalom, a Reconstructionist community that meets in Northwest Portland, understands the wariness that many Jews feel about the mikvah. It originated in a time, they say, when women were judged to be inferior to men and in need of purification after their periods.

"Spiritual practice is everything," Wolf says. "If women are finding this empowering to their own mind, far be it from me to want to undermine their practice."

Nancy Haught: 503-294-7625; nancyhaught@news.oregonian.com

Hello, all. Sorry about the long hiatus.

Last week, when I called the mikvah to schedule an appointment and heard the recording listing its hours, I noticed something: the mikvah is open on Shabbat but closed on Yom Tov. This peculiarity doesn't affect me, since I don't live within walking distance, but it strikes me as strange. Shouldn't the same leniencies and restrictions apply, whether it's Shabbat or Yom Tov? Is tevilah allowed on Shabbat simply because it is the preferred time for men to fulfil their conjugal obligations to their wives? I'd always assumed that Yom Tov was similar to Shabbat in that regard, but perhaps I was wrong.

If anyone understands this phenomenon, please explain.

Just wondering if anyone else goes through the stomach churning anxiety that surrounds making a mikvah appointment for motzei Shabbat?
Maybe if you live in a larger community with many mikvaot this might not be a problem. In my community, it's an ongoing issue, and add to it that the particular attendant on duty for Shabbat and Saturday has a habit of returning calls rather late.
The mikvah's voicemail recording announces that one should make a Saturday evening appointment at least 48 hours in advance. OK, with bedikot and counting, I'm fine with this. And being the Type A person I am, I often give even more notice with a caveat.
But, what gets me is that I don't get a return call in a timely fashion. I mean, hey, hello. It's Friday afternoon. I don't have all day!
Any suggestions...aside from taking a deep breath?

My husband had to sit in the car alone, anticipating my return and our reunion, a few extra minutes one recent cycle. I waited to call the attendant because of the beautiful song I heard outside of my preparation room.

(splash) "kaaahh-sher"

(splash) "kaaahh-sher"

(splash) "kaaahh-sher"

(pause)

(splash) "kaaahh-sher"

(splash) "kaaahh-sher"

(splash) "kaaahh-sher"

(pause and repeat)

The beauty.. it renewed me as much as my own participation in the song, the cycle, the life..

I know these are not the things to focus on. Taharat hamishpacha is not about the picky details; there's a grander drama going on, of separation and reunion, of longing and anticipation. It can be a pain, but it can also be high romance. As my kallah teacher memorably said (this will probably identify her to some of you), "If you come home from mikvah upset by the hairs the woman before you left on the tub, you've really missed the boat."

But the details can make a difference, at least for me. Being at an unfamiliar mikvah last month threw some of them into higher relief for me.

- All-white bathrobes, towels, and wash cloths. Why? Why??? Am I the only one who never sits down on anything white, from the moment my 7th day is over? Am I the only one who sometimes makes it to mikvah by the skin of my teeth, and worries until I'm actually under the water that I'll look down and see fresh blood? I don't need any more anxiety at the mikvah, thank you, I can manufacture enough of that on my own.

- The lack of consistency about how much of my backside the mikvah attendant wants to check. It's not a big deal to me, either way; check just under my hair, or check the whole thing -- I don't care. What I don't like is trying to feel out which it is, dropping the top of my robe first, then guessing from her hands whether she's trying to pull the rest of it off. What I especially don't like is shrugging out of the entire thing, then realizing she didn't want to see that much of me, at all. (But thanks for sharing!)

And here's one that made a difference in a good way: my home mikvah has recently switched from frumpy beige, never entirely clean, healthcare worker-looking slippers -- or paper slippers which fall apart at the first drop of moisture -- to embroidered plastic mesh slippers in girly colors: blueberry, lime green, hot pink. Does it matter that they obviously got them at the dollar store down the block? Not a bit. They make me feel pretty.

I don't know about you, but by the time I'm ready to immerse my hair is half sopping and half faster drying frizz, I'm wearing my never-leave-the-house glasses instead of my contacts, and my skin is splotched red from the steam and scrubbing. And of course I'm about to be naked in front of someone who has no reason to overlook my figure flaws out of love. I'm vulnerable, I guess. And I'm supposed to go home in fifteen minutes and feel like a love goddess?

Every bit of pretty helps, that's all I'm saying.

For me, PMS is not pre-menstrual, or post-menstrual (as it used to for me) but now pre-mikveh.

After I get my period ceases for the cycle, I generally get moody : very cranky, irritable, snappish, headaches, total horror to be around. I don't think it's a iron thing.. I've tested fine. Anyway, it generally ends about a week after I stop bleeding. Now, that time frame has different meaning for me and my husband.

Now my husband has something tangible to use to guage my mood swings. Side benefit ? He now is looking forward to mikveh night! This past time *he* wrote it in his calendar and then reminded me of it (since I hadn't added it to my civil/daily) calendar yet. He was quite excited. We still a bit unsure of remembering kisses and things are now ok after I came back but our entire relationship in this time-period has improved greatly. :)

A visitor to our site wanted to ask us the following... please post your replies so we can possibly help her with her situation!

Mindela writes:

I am a young widow. I originally thought that it would be improper for me to go to the Mikva after he died because it seems like an announcement that I am available. Now that a few months have passed, I wonder if going to the Mikva again, one last time would be a carthartic thing to do. Perhaps I'd reconnect with my husband in a new spiritual dimension. What is proscribed halacha? I welcome all comments.

OK, so it was a river. That's a technicality.
Remember how I volunteered to go in the freezing mikvah waters in La Paz, Bolivia? Well, I just got my chance...albeit stateside.
We were on vacation and my night finally came. I might add we were on vacation with my entire family...siblings, their spouses, kids, parents...the ganse mishpocha.
We were three hours from the closest mikvah but minutes from a river. So during the daylight hours on the day of the spouse and I scouted out a likely location and I made my preparations.
We found a calm spot -- not far from the Class 5 rapids. The only challenge we figured would be spectators. You see the "marina" (the dock and shallow access to the water) was in sight of a restaurant.
I should add the spouse said we could wait until we got home late Monday if I didn't think I could do it. I dipped in a toe to test the water beforehand. Brisk but bearable. I told him that if women in Siberia could do it, so could I. And, anyway, since we'd be getting home at midnight Monday, and he was leaving until the following Sunday on business and I was leaving on Tuesday for business that would leave us all of 2 days or so of together time. I decided that we might as well try to carve out another day or two.
Luck was on our side. When we came up to the site, it was deserted. While I know this was probably not the most "kosher" we had the toddler tucked in the car seat as we drove to the spot. There was no way to leave the child with the aunts/uncles/grandparents. Trust me on this.
The spouse served as my mikvah attendant. He didn't check my toenails quite as thoroughly, but then he was rather a good sentry.
We had a tiny flashlight; the restaurant was closed. Good signs. We clambered onto the dock and he held up a towel as I stripped in the cooling night air. On the count of three I plunged into the water. YOWIE. COLD.
But, I did it. I immersed, said the bracha with chattering teeth and heaved myself back onto the dock. I didn't do my usual number of dunks or the Yehi Ratzon but it was kosher.
As I got out of the water and shivered, I looked up at the night sky. It was gorgeous -- clear and sparkling with twinkling stars. So far from the city the air, the quiet and the smell of the trees was magical.
The spouse wrapped a towel around me and draped another one over my head. The we looked over at each other, giggled and held hands as we walked back to the car.

So the last time I went to mikvah, I had an epiphany. The mikvah attendant was new to me (well, new as an attendant, I had met her socially before) so I launched into my usualy spiel about being afraid of the water, and having a heter to only get one Kosher tevilah, but always trying for three anyway, and how having the heter had helped me not need to use it... (For the history of my fear of the water and mikvah use in spite of it, see here, here, and here.)

And while I was talking, I changed the beginning to "When I first started using the mikvah, I was afraid of the water, so..." Half way through, I heard what I had said, and realized that I was not afraid! I hadn't even noticed exactly when the fear disappeared. I'm still not sure I wouldn't be afraid in another setting, were I to try putting my head under water at the beach, for example, instead of for the mitzvah of mikvah. But it didn't matter.

I wasn't afraid!

Naturally, the mikvah lady invited me to come back during the week in a bathing suit and "practice." "It's great that you aren't afraid," she said, "But you should be comfortable." Why everyone always jumps to try to get me there in a bathing suit, I have no idea. I didn't even know where my bathing suits had been packed away, or if they even still fit, not having used them in 10 years or so. (I since found them, just so I would know where they were, but haven't tried them on.) But I wasn't interested, then, or ever. What I really wanted to do was go home and savor the realization that I wasn't afraid!

So that's what I did.

So there I was, unhappy with the idea of trying to fit myself into a mikvah schedule I didn't understand in the jam-packed days before my wedding, and equally unhappy with the idea of my first immersion taking place like some kind of nasty secret at night. Something had to give. As it turned out, it was the mikvah.

Some time back, Eli and I had made arrangements to travel to a large Northeastern city for a professional conference of his about six weeks before the wedding. Said city had (and has) a recently opened liberal-run mikvah. A few weeks before our departure, I thought about both of these things simultaneously, and before I could lose my nerve, I called and left a message requesting an appointment. The woman who called me back was friendly, sympathetic, and professional; she answered my questions about how long it would take to reach the mikvah from our hotel, and she made me an appointment for the one morning we would be in that city after I'd taken off my birth-control patch (but before there was any real chance of my period starting). Even better, they emailed me a confirmation -- and their website was gorgeous. So I packed extra Q-tips in my luggage and off we went.

The liberal mikvah was (and is) gorgeous. The preparation rooms are ceramic tile and cherry wood and gleaming modern chrome fixtures, with enough toiletries to constitute a small spa. The instructions on the wall are phrased as a series of "kavvanot," which is kind of goofy, but they're still observably instructions (and nothing there I didn't already know). I had spent half the morning at the hotel scrubbing various parts of me, so that rinsing off in their shower was merely refreshing -- and slipping into the pool felt great. It was warm, only faintly chlorinated, and the mikvah attendant had me open the pipe to the rainwater source myself, so that I felt the two temperatures blend. There was daylight coming in through high dormer windows. Nobody asked me anything except whether I knew the blessings and whether I had any questions; I only asked the mikvah lady to check my back for hairs and to leave me alone in the mikvah for a few minutes after immersion. Their mikv
aot, you see, are these tall stone chambers, and I could tell they'd have great acoustics. I sang as many psalms as I knew by heart before I returned to the prep room.

So that was my first immersion, and afterwards I made my way back to the hotel and dealt with various work-related chores of my own, with shipping books home from the conference, and with going out for the conference's final dinner. Each task made me feel a little bit grimier. By the end of the day, I had independently figured out why nighttime immersions might be preferable: ten hours is too long for that post-mikvah buzz to really last. (At one point, I reflected that the result of wearing metaphysical lingerie all day is probably a metaphysical wedgie.) Somehow, though, we managed.

Of course, my period came three days later, right on schedule, and I knew I had only postponed the problem -- I did actually want to immerse before my wedding, no matter what anyone else said. ("But you already did it," my mother said, baffled.) Only now everything seemed clearer: I knew what I was doing, and it was my choice. I called up the local Mikvah Lady and said I needed an appointment on Thursday such-and-such. I didn't explain that it was ten days before my wedding and the absolute last evening not Shabbat, Yom Tov, or inhabited by mandatory familywide dinners; scheduling, I had decided, was my prerogative. Through no fault of my own, I wound up with a ladies-only wedding shower earlier that evening, so I even had a party, although it ran later than scheduled and pretty well nuked my prep time. Thank G-d I'd done it before, so I knew what I was doing!

The local mikvah isn't as pretty as the one out of town -- standard institutional fixtures in the bathroom, standard toiletries (if you forget your toothbrush like I did), vanity sink not quite working (I washed my hands under the bathtub faucet after a final pee) -- but all the right stuff was there. I read the instructions on the wall and rolled my eyes at what I knew to be a particularly stringent set of rules being labeled "halachah," then panicked and cut my fingernails short Just In Case. In person, however, the Mikvah Lady was friendly and slightly maternal; she didn't check anything I didn't ask her to, and although the immersion wasn't quite as ecstatic as my first time, it felt good. Thanks to the resultant high, I acceded to the posted "halachah" of not showering after the mikvah (note: eau de chlorine = NOT sexy), cheerfully swapped birth-control patches, and wrote a check (note: the local mikvah is a lot cheaper than the Big-City Liberal Mikvah) with
good cheer.

When the Mikvah Lady asked where I lived as I handed the check over, I wondered if she was fishing for demographic information, but it turned out she needed a ride home -- the only other woman dipping that night wanted to swing by the grocery store so she could tell her kids that's where she'd been. Anyway, the Mikvah Lady didn't live much out of my way, and it was pleasant to chat with someone on the way home, even if we didn't quite speak the same language. ("Who's your rov?" she asked. "My what?" I said, distracted by driving. "Your RAB-BI," she enunciated carefully. "Ohhhhh," I said.) She reminded me that any prayers I held in my heart on my wedding day were sure to be fulfilled, and I believed her.

I suppose that's the end of my mikvah story, really, except that I have been nudging my RAB-BI to take up the issue of bridal mikvah scheduling with the Powers That Be who run the kivah, and to maybe put a little educational material into the wedding packets he hands out during premarital counseling. I also seem to keep reading about T"H -- I suppose it's become a habit. I haven't been to the mikvah since my wedding, but I've thought about it each time I end my period, and very nearly went once except for the inconvenience of needing an extra patch. Maybe at my next gyn appointment I'll ask about mikvah-friendly alternatives to the patch. Or maybe I'll just wait till we start trying for a family -- it won't be all that long. Meanwhile, I keep reading -- it's gotten to be a habit. And next time I go to the mikvah, at least I'll know how to schedule the appointment.

~ Dulcie

Dulcie is a thirtyish Jewish woman who averages out Conservative; she is writing about her experiences with tongue firmly planted in cheek. This essay is the final one of a three-part series; the first essay is available here, and the second essay is available here.

One Friday night, the subject came up at our table. One of our guests had served as a rabbi for a number of years, and his experiences working with congregants had led him to a particular perspective on the role of the mikvah attendant. He told us that before he had smicha ("ordination"), he was sometimes called upon to assist in various lifecycle ceremonies. At weddings and bar mitsvahs, he said, he always made a point of the fact that he was not yet a rabbi, and that if the family involved needed rabbinic guidance, they should turn to someone else. At funerals, however, he made no such point, and even went so far as to call himself "rabbi." He explained to us that people coping with a relative's death are very vulnerable, and they need the illusion of authority. His feeling was that the mikvah lady plays a similar role, presenting the illusion of authority to women in a vulnerable position. By comporting herself in an authoritative manner, she allows them to feel that they are performing the mitsvah correctly, with the sanction of someone who knows the rules.

My feelings on this asessment are mixed. It is logical, but is it accurate? For my own part, I'm much happier to be helped by one of the assistant mikvah ladies, who don't always seem sure of themselves, than by the head attendent, who has an air of authority -- the assistants make me feel like my sense of vulnerability is shared. In theory, this could be because I'm less concerned about the halachic side of tevilah than other mikvah-goers, but the impression I've gotten from previous discussions of this subject is that my feelings are shared.

It has ocurred to me that observant women today may be too educated to need or want the sort of false authority that their foremothers required. The reality, however, may be more complicated. Perhaps our needs are so different that there is no such thing as a one-size-fits-all mikvah lady. This would mean that no matter how an attendant conducts herself, she will make some women uncomfortable or unhappy.

Unfortunate if true. What do you think?

This photo and extended caption from the New York Times (free registration required) is somewhat interesting and somewhat inspiring. It's also somewhat about men, but I've never been one to turn down a chance to ogle some shirtless men.

I'm very possessive about mikva'ot. I feel like men have been given so many mitzvot - tefilin, tzitzit, minyan, learning Torah (among others) - and we have been given so few. Yes, when the Temple stood mikva'ot were used by both women and men for ritual purification. But in those days many things were different, and I get the impression that gender roles were both more and less polarized. It's rather irrelevant today, as the Temple is not there and ritual purity for men is basically a nonissue. Today, only women are required to use a mikvah. Tumah and taharah are practical concerns directly for married women, and for their husbands only by extension.

When Orthodox women try to edge into the world of "men's mitzvot," they are often told to be happy with their roles as women, to appreciate the differentiation between the sexes and to first seek meaning in those mitzvot which are incumbent upon them before venturing into the world of the voluntary. Why, then, do these same men feel the need to share in our special mitzvah?

So tonight's the night.
The spouse has been sweet and kind and looking forward to it. He promised candles, kids asleep!, a romantic atmosphere...just like those first times.
And wouldn't you know it, I've picked up a stomach virus from Child #2. How sexy is that? Instead of looking forward to the evening, I'm spending the day in my pjs and barely moving.
At least I can get a backrub tonight.
If this is a joke, I'm afraid I fail to see the humor in the punchline.

Ok, I’m probably just blowing this whole thing out of proportion, but it has come to my attention that a man passing through our town wants to make use of the mikvah in the morning before davening. While I think this is a very admirable thing for any man to do (I mean would you want to dip every day?) I can’t help but feel a little selfish/protective of our little mikvah.

Since we only have one mikvah for everything (women, dishes & men) it’s well known around our town that men should bring their own towels and we strongly suggest that they shower before dipping. But a traveler would not know that practice and since it is during the Nine Days my mind is drawing up little images of him not showering at all during this time and considering his daily dip sort of like his refresher... and all I can say is “eww.” That’s the mikvah we have to dip in too.

I asked my husband to tell him to shower and bring his own towel, but he said that it was not his place to do that, and I agree with him. It’s not his place or mine to tell a stranger what to do, but part of me wants to draw up a big sign that says “Please shower before entering” and run over and post it on the mikvah.

Am I just being a bit too mental? A bit too overprotective? How am I going to get these silly images out of my head before I have to go to the mikvah next week?

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 there was a giant concert at the beach. And thousands of people would be there.

Okay, well, that’s the best beach for tevilah, but there are a couple of other places to try. So we pick a nice beach, drive out there, and hey – they close at 10. Yep, pretty much right around the time for me to immerse. They have big, mean-looking gates and big signs saying, “giant ocean monsters come up onto the beach after dark and will eat you, so stay out.”

Fine. So the signs didn’t really say that. But I don’t get it. Why close the beach? We have lots of beaches that are unattended, so it can’t be a lifeguard issue. Whatever. Now we have to find another beach. In the dark. Ah, we have a brainstorm and head out to the only other beach we can think of – very far away. Their parking lot is closed off, but there are no finger-wagging signs (can’t you just hear your Aunt Gertie now: “what are you thinking coming out here when there is a perfectly good mikvah?! You don’t know what’s in this water or what kind of people might be lurking in the bushes. And it’s not like it’s August, you know – you could catch cold in this water.”).

sigh

We walk past sign after sign warning that swimming is not advisable in this area. Um, why? Fecal count? Boat traffic? Jellyfish? Why, WHY?

Anyway, we finally find a clear spot (and no signs!), and make it down to the water. I should mention that while I love the ocean and beaches more than any other place in the world, I’m not a big fan of being in the ocean (there are waves, unseen dropoffs, riptides, crawly things…) and add to that that it’s dark and things were bumping into me (turned out to be parts of a branch, but still). Anyway, I finally mustered up the courage, got down to my skivvies, dunked my 3 times, hightailed it back to the beach, got myself completely modest again and realized that there had been a couple on the beach the whole time.

Of course, it was dark, and they couldn’t see me, but still.

The highlight was walking back to the car along the beach, holding hands, looking at all the stars. Very romantic.

My husband really enjoys these TaB’s, but then, he’s not sticking his head underwater. Next time, if there is a next time, I’m making him go all the way under, too. Naked. Three times. See if he still enjoys it. Oh, yeah, and next time, I’m checking the community schedule at least 3 days before my mikvah day!!

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 we can use. The demand for a mikveh in our congregation for halachic reasons is almost nil. The demand for other uses is moderate, but I'm still betting only a few people will use it, and very few on a regular basis.

Contrast this with Rivka Slonim's famous quote from Total Immersion, which is also reprinted on the front page of our site:

Most Jews see the synagogue as the central institution in Jewish life. But Jewish Law states that constructing a mikvah takes precedence even over building a house of worship.

I understand that GoldaLeah's personal priorities may be different, and I'm pretty sure that no one's going to change her mind about that (though she is asking about the best way to go about making her views known, or not). Still, I'm sad. I'm sad for the handful of families in her community (if even that many) who are observing T"H and have to juggle other responsibilities to make the two-hour round trip to the nearest mikvah. I'm sad for the others who may be considering mikvah use, but who will decide that it's just "too much trouble" without a community mikvah. I'm sad for the (probably hypothetical) couple already struggling with T"H, perhaps contending with short cycles or halachic infertility or frequent weekday business trips, who finally throw in the towel when the wife's tevilah night turns up on Friday one too many times and there's no mikvah within walking distance. I'm sad for the children growing up in her town who will never learn to value T"H (even if they choose not to observe it as adults), because their elders did not place enough value on having a mikvah.

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. :)

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 get what other infertile women were saying about the difficulties of facing the mikvah. On an intellectual level, yes, I got it. But now I understand. I so don’t want to face the mikvah again. And again. And again.

But it’s much warmer now. Maybe we’ll try the beach again.

I do have to say that I am extremely grateful, b"h, that my period came a few days after we got our negative results. It gave me and my husband a few blessed days of being able to hold and comfort each other. The hugs were a blessing.

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 hungry after swimming?

Does this happen to anyone else? Because maybe I'm just a bit mental with the mental associations.

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 her was, "Mommy is going out to do a mitzvah." Thank goodness she didn't ask any more than that!

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.

I'm not the type of person to relate my experiences at the mikvah, or even in less intimate places, but I have to get this off my chest. Here's what happened: I found a nice mikvah. I rang the bell and waited, happily (because there was no line and because in ten minutes I'd be going home) to be called to immerse. I was called. A very nice attendant, smiling, signaled me to hold out my hand. A warning light went on: she was one of those, from the old mikvahs, the ones I'd run away from, where they check to make sure you've cut your fingernails and don't have any specks on your body or loose hairs clinging to your back. I held out my hands, like a first grade student holding out his hands to be checked for cleanliness. The attendant gently passed her finger over a suspicious finger of mine, but she decided to let it pass. Afterward she checked my face, proceeded to my hair, and remarked with a smile that it was short, so surely there was no reason to suspect any loose or hanging hair. I decided to subject myself to the pressure. (Why didn't I say anything? I have a response. I thought of it later, when I was dressed. It's easier to think when you're dressed.) Did she intend to continue checking my entire body? Apparently not. Instead of checking my body, she gave me a pop quiz. The nice, smiling mikvah attendant asked: had I done a hefsek tahara? I answered that I had, only so that she would let me in the water. But she persisted: when? At this point I was seriously nervous. I blanked: what is a hefsek tahara, when the flow of blood stops, or the final self-examination on the seventh day? I gambled on the seventh day. (Why didn't I ask her what it was? I have a response. I thought of it later, when I was dressed. It's easier to think when you're dressed.) I said: this morning. The smile on her face disappeared, and an expression of shock mixed with censure took its place: today?! I understood that the answer I'd given was incorrect. Make a mistake, try again. Like a child trying to guess the answer on an oral exam. What the hell is eight times four? Twenty four, right? Maybe thirty six? If only they'd leave me alone! Finally I said, yesterday morning. The shock on her face increased. Yesterday morning?! I realized that I was stuck, that I wouldn't get into the water, that there was a chance she might send me to the principal, to the religious court, to the chief rabbinate (and that wouldn't be pleasant, I still wasn't dressed, a towel hanging from my body -- how embarrassing). Or maybe, at that point, in the depths of my miserable soul, some consciousness was kindled, some tiny spark of self-esteem, a glimmer of awareness that I wasn't actually taking an exam, and even if I was -- why shouldn't I ask the teacher to give me some hint, even if it meant they would deduct a few points! So I asked: wait, what is a hefsek tahara, is it the end of the flow, or the self-examination at the end of the seven clean days? And the smiling teacher/ supervisor answered with a question: when did your flow end? That kind of question I could answer, without doubt. I straightened up and responded: seven days ago. This almost satisfied her, but then she remembered my previous lie, and asked: wait, then couldn't you have come here last night? My self-esteem was almost entirely restored and I responded, lamely: no, I couldn't have. Somehow, this satisfied her and I made it to the finish line, to the edge of the warm waters.

Big Sister is Watching
I entered the water, and I wanted to stay there, for the life of me, to drown myself from all the humiliation, from all the misery of the situation, and from my own misery. Why hadn't I said to her calmly: excuse me, I want to immerse, and I have no interest in answering these questions, I'm competent in Jewish law and observe it, and that's why I'm here. I'd be happy to talk to you when I'm dressed, whenever we have the time. Instead, I lied like a little girl! I got nervous, I didn't know the answer, I lied twice, and then I had to lie again in order to complete the picture. Why had I allowed her to humiliate me? Why had I taken part in the act? Why did she have to know whether and when I'd done a hefsek tahara? Her authoritative position in combination with her clothing, in contrast to my position as customer/ guest/ beneficiary in combination with my lack of clothing immediately made me an actress with a script that I would not have have allowed myself to be afflicted with under any other circumstances. If I came to the mikvah, presumably I wanted to immerse, presumably I needed to immerse. And what if the attendant had discovered that I hadn't counted seven clean days, would she have sent me home with a note to my parents and a copy for the Master of the Universe? Is this what they teach in the course for mikvah attendants? Is there any other commandment that the authority is so involved in making sure I fulfill properly, to the point of pedantry? Why don't deputies from the religious authorities come to my home from time to time to see what I'm cooking for the Sabbath, and how, and whether I finish all the preparation before the Sabbath begins? Why aren't there examinations of my meat and dairy pots? Why don't they help me avoid speaking badly of people, and prevent me from gossiping -- someone, some Big Brother -- each time I stumble (after all, I do stumble, and I do, after all, need help)?! Why don't they appoint an overseer in the synagogue to reprimand us when we, God forbid, chatter during prayers, or appear unfocused? After all these thoughts, all that was left for me to do was to dry myself off, feel sorry for myself, and be comforted by the fact that it would be another four weeks before the next time, and that at some point I intended to become pregnant again, and that in the more distant future I would be entirely free of this mix of emotions, this purification ritual. When I arrived at home, after being angry at the attendant and at myself and after laughing at the attendant and at myself, I suddenly cried out: I'm going to be a mikvah attendant. If you want to change something, it doesn't help to just complain. I'll be a different kind of attendant, I'll show that it's possible to do exactly what's necessary to help a woman, that I can ask each woman how she wants to be helped and not turn myself into an oppressor in the name of Jewish law and humiliate her. Later, I decided to sleep on it. I woke up in the morning and was no longer certain that I was such an idealist, that I would be able to join some women in the mikvah (since at this point I'm free of obligation for four weeks between immersions), and beyond that, I wasn't certain that I'd be able to be answerable to those women who did want me to examine them, or, worse than that -- I would scratch their bodies trying to locate any obstructions to immersion that remained on them. After all, there was a reason that I didn't choose to study medicine or the related fields, but rather, decided to involve myself in the spiritual realm, right?

Up to this point, I've related my experiences and feelings. Do I have something learned and reasoned to say, or am I just whining? Before I started writing, I said to myself -- if you're going to write something serious, and if you want people to pay serious attention to it, you have check: maybe this really is an exceptional area of Jewish law? Maybe there is some reason that, with regard to this issue, you aren't trusted, and they appoint overseers and examiners to make sure you're behaving properly?! Later, I thought it over and said to myself -- I don't care. Let them say that I don't really understand the subject of the purity of Israel, let them say that I'm making a mountain out of a molehill, let them say that, in the end, the nice mikvah attendant helped me fulfill the law, let them even say that it's an obligation and find proofs for it in the Torah. I'm not out looking for them.

I'm just not willing to take this. I'm not willing to have a woman oppress me, to oppress in the sense of acting as a helper from a position of inequality, under unfamiliar conditions and unnecessarily. I'm not willing to experience humiliation. Let me be clear: I want to immerse. It is a legal obligation and I want to fulfill it like the other commandments. It isn't clear to me why they have to add to my hardship. Why women think that when I'm naked, on the edge of the mikvah, that's the time to quiz me on my knowledge of Jewish law or my mode of religious observance. Why they think that after I've checked myself -- as Jewish law requires -- they have to check me again, in case they find something. After all, we're on our own, and there's no Big Sister to say "nu nu nu" and smile as a sign of approval. Or maybe this isn't something they think up on their own, but rather, something they teach them in preparation for the job? Then why is this what they teach them? And why don't they think a little for themselves and rebel or object, or at least temper this behavior a bit -- after all, they're dressed, they can think comfortably, weigh issues and make decisions. True, you could look at my formative experience and conclude: in the end, it's your problem that you got nervous and lied. The fact that you're a liar doesn't mean that world, or Jewish law, or the religious establishment has to change. Work on the way you respond to pressure, you could say, be mature. You could. But it seems to me that my little lies aren't only my problem. I go around lying or feeling sorry for myself or dreaming about being a mikvah attendant. Other women simply don't go. Everyone has her own struggles, but it seems to me that for most of us this is a struggle, and not exactly a religious experience, this mikvah. And if not -- then say so, after all, hardly anyone ever talks about it! And one more thing -- this is really what I think and feel, and I really want set this matter right in order to fulfill the commandment of immersion and not in order to mar it or to rebel. Really, I'm not lying about this (I'm dressed).

Michal mentioned getting pregnant after her worst mikvah experience and others had noticed a similar correlation.

Funny, for me it was the opposite... I tended to conceive after my most comfortable mikvah experiences. But then, for me, going to mikvah was always uncomfortable, since I needed to face the water.

Still, the years passed, and as I didn't spend them all pregnant, and didn't nurse clean for very long, there were multiple mikvah visits to get through. Every time I went, I dreaded it a little less, was a little more comfortable. One time the attendant even commented on it, on how much more comfortable I was than when I'd first started using that mikvah. But I still began each visit with an unfamiliar attendant by explaining my fear of the water and my heter for only one kosher tevilah, followed immediately by assuring her that I hadn't had to use the heter in a very long time. But I needed them to know, because each time I was to go under, there was a long pause as I gathered my courage, then pulled myself under by the handrail... and the last thing I needed was to feel rushed.

Oh, and I always face the mikvah attendant, because I need to know that someone is there if I don't come back up on my own. Again in a reversal of other's comments, it never occured to me to not face her!

another motzei shabbos mikveh visit.. since it's erev [day before] shavous there was an extra buzz in the air. everyone seemed relieved that they were going before yom tov. there was wait for a room and i was warmed by the diversity of women waiting. I don't normally see such variety in my day-to-day existence, and it made me really happy that so many are keeping t"h.

shavuah tov v'chag sameach!

This month when it was time for me to go to the mikvah, I couldn’t do it. Just couldn’t make the phone call. Not that I didn’t want to be with my husband, that wasn’t it at all. I just couldn’t face yet another month of making an appointment, going to that place, making small talk, having some relative stranger stand over me, declare me kosher, then pay money we don’t have because every stinkin’ penny we earn is going to fertility treatments.

So instead, I had the brilliant idea of going to the beach. I thought my husband and I could go, sit on the beach and watch the sun set, and when it was dark, I would go immerse. Of course that’s not what happened. Because there was no “appointment,” he felt no pressure to be timely, so we completely missed the sun setting. By the time we actually got to the beach, I was really frustrated and angry that my grandiose, romantic plans were shot. It was also quite dark, so I didn’t have the chance to pick a nice, secluded spot – I had to go where the path was. And I couldn’t tell if there were people on the beach, but figured if there were, they could probably tell that I was in the water, so I had to go in with all my clothes on, and take them off underwater. Then hope that they would float long enough for my husband to grab them before they sank to the bottom. He did bring a towel, and held that up. I should point out that with all the discussion about immersing at the beach instead of the mikvah, my husband didn’t pick up on the part about how he would have to get into the water, too! Once he stopped complaining about getting wet, I immersed, he said “kosher,” I said the bracha, he said “amen,” I immersed, he said, “okay.” I said, “what?” He said, “okay.” “Does that mean it was kosher?” “Oh, yeah, sorry – kosher.” sigh

The hard part was getting my sopping wet clothing back on underwater, while my hubby tried to help AND keep the towel up. That caused lots of giggling, and walking back to the parking lot across the beach holding hands was delightful. We even laughed over the fact that my husband forgot his wallet and the flashlight were in his pocket when he went into the water. I’m so glad we did that instead of going to the mikvah.

Except for one thing: Y’all do realize it was May, right? There’s not a single beach north of the Mason-Dixon line that is WARM this time of year…

I know going from tehorah to niddah (and back again) isn't fun or easy. It's why we are supposed to calculate onot, in anticipation of niddah. It's why we count clean days in anticipation of mikveh.

But I really wasn't prepared this month for my husband's reaction after I came home from mikveh.

We both had a difficult time with harchakot this past cycle. I was doing ok (some extreme physical pain made me really not want to be touched) but well, as the days wore on (5,6, shabbos) it was quite difficult.

Not to mention that the mikveh opened really late motzei shabbos. And I was a bit worried. Would they remember me? Would I have the same receptionist? Attendant? Would I remember to do everything? As it was late I convinced my husband to drive me to the mikveh.. there's a small patch I'm not to comfortable walking alone. He agreed and asked me how long it would take. I told him that all I had to do was shower and dip, I had already bathed as soon as shabbos finished. He agreed and brought along a nice thick book. We parked around the corner and down the block... I went in. I paid cash this time. I knew exactly what I needed, "a shower only please". I walked with a bit more confidence. I fit in how I felt, unlike last time (the "first" time). This time I was eager to reunite with my husband. This time I understood the look in others eyes. The anticipation, the unspoken stress. "Room 9" I was told... I went. Locked both doors successfully. Showered. Checked my feet. EEP! dry skin flaking everywhere. I fixed it the best I could (see extreme physical pain above. b"H I'm ok, it's just uncomfortable to bend). i called the attendant and hoped for the best. a very nice woman came. I apologized ahead of time for the flailing skin all over my feet. I could barely bend my leg for her to check it. She was very nice and gentle to me. She helped me to snip all the extra bits. We then went directly to the mikveh. She let me wear my glasses down so I wasn't too scared of the steps. Dunk. "kosher". Made the brachah successfully on my own. Omein. Dunk. "kosher". Ye'hi Ratzon. With help. Silly me forgot my glasses were right there on the step next to me. Oh well. Dunk. "kosher". With modesty I went back up the steps (she had the robe in front of her). A gentle warm touch. "How often have you been here?" she gently asked. "Twice". She smiled and wished me a gut voch and a pleasant evening. I left. Walking to the car I realized I forgot to leave a tip. Oops. Next time. We've decided we'll play this game for a year.

I got into the car and leant to kiss my husband and he responded by starting the car and getting out of the parking spot. No one would have seen us. I had been looking forward to that kiss for two weeks.

I hid my disappointment and we went home, stopping at the store for the next morning's breakfast. (not what *I* had been planning on, but whatever). Then we went home and he got ready for sleep.

I tried to snuggle with him but he sort of "threw off" my advances.

This happened more or less for the next two weeks. We advanced to hand holding, a wee bit of snuggling, and a bit of sex. Today I am niddah again. We were anticipating it but ...

But we still haven't fully resolved this er... not really his lack of his interest.. I think it's more an imbalance in timing? I think it also has to deal with some other areas of our lives (i.e. how I display my married status), but, well, his behavior surprised me.

In any case, I'm eagerly counting down to mikveh night again. It should be another motzei shabbos if my body continues to act on medicated clockwork.

We'll see what this cycle brings.

By way of DovBear's blog, I found this bit about a woman who was denied tevila at a Brooklyn mikvah because she was wearing artifical (nail) tips. Of course, this sparked a long and interesting string of comments back on DovBear, but I was wondering what the readers here would have to say about it.

A woman wants to tovel with artifical nails, or nail polish, or hair extensions, or some other such thing that is probably but not definitely a chatzitza. Or she didn't do the right number of bedikot, or any at all. Or something else that makes the mikvah lady say (or want to say), "You should not tovel like that." Should she prevent the tevila? What if the woman is going to go home and have sex with her husband anyway? Or what if she won't have sex with her husband - is it really within the attendant's rights to force that kind of separation between husband and wife?

...that is the question. I was considering not going back to the mikvah, but have since thought better of it and I'll tell you why all of this has even crossed my mind.

The miscarriage was over three months ago now, so I have been un-pregnant longer than I was ever pregnant. In that time, my husband and I have been fighting like cats & dogs. Yes, we're getting help, but it is not working.

It occurred to me that I could simply just not go back to the mikvah. Not to punish him, you understand - that's not my style. It's just that in the past three months he has displayed much autocratic and separation-type behaviour and our marriage has been severely jeopardized. My reason for remaining in niddah was that I have deep misgivings about sleeping with a man who has, by leaps and bounds, suddenly become a stranger to me.

And then I started reading all about it. There are so many entries in our history and law about mikvah use and marriage, but what it all really comes down to is sex. Who gets to have it, under what circumstances and why. More importantly, who gets to control sex.

There is a story of how all the women in Maimonides' community a thousand years ago refused to return to the mikvah until they were treated better. Although their wives were all threatened with divorce, the men caved.

In Jewish law, we learn that if no marital relations take place, then a divorce is mandated. But what I wanted from my husband was not a divorce. I just want him back. I also had no desire to hurt him by remaining in niddah. It just felt like he wasn't so married to me anymore and nothing we do seems to help, so physical separation seemed ideal to me.

Then I began thinking about the positive aspects of mikvah, like its soul-cleansing, spirit-liberating power and I thought to myself: that's what I really want.

I need the mikvah to take away the following:
niddut, stress, fear, anxiety, pain, grief, and all the other things in daily life which leave a crust of schmutz over my heart.

I need the mikvah to grant the following:
open-heartedness, safety, purity, faith, trust, groundedness, and all the other things that are required to have a deep, intimate relationship with G-d and others, especially with my spouse.

So even though my inclination to withdraw is valid and only a method of protecting my most vulnerable parts, I recognize that I will reap more expansive benefits from continuing my mikvah practice. It will help heal me each month ever so slightly so that I am rejuvenated and can once engage in the fray that our marriage has become.

I am trying to pump myself up into going to the mikvah this weekend. Don't get me wrong, I can't wait to be able to hug my husband... but in our small town going to the mikvah is like walking into a public restroom, you don't enjoy being there, but you have to go.

For the past few months I have been reading all the posts on this site. A lot of them have evoked sympathy and a lot has evoked joy... all in all it is nice having people who are there and going through the same thing you do month after month. Especially the infertility postings, I share the same feelings of the women I read who have been going to the mikvah without pause since marriage. In a culture that regards this mitzvah as personal and discreet, it is hard having a doctor know your entire sexual schedule.

Still, the pain of infertility is only made greater when you see the other women in our community suffering through what is supposed to be the most magical moment of the mitzvah of Taharat Hamishpacha — the mikvah. I'm not going to downplay how much it hurts to go through the infertility process (those of you also going through it know how it is) but sometimes it is harder watching other people suffer than to go through your own pain. Let me explain...

When I read the posts of mikvahs with multiple rooms and marble floors and even a check-in desk up front and a waiting room I'm baffled. I've never been to another mikvah but my own, so I have no concept of what it is truly supposed to look like. Our mikvah consists of a narrow room, tucked into the front corner of our shul that has been divided into three sections: a bathroom, an entrance hallway, and the mikvah. We only have one mikvah in our town (in which the religious community is steadily growing) so the same mikvah is used to tovel women, men, and dishes. There is a filter that runs to supposedly clean and heat the mikvah, but you always have to skim away (or just ignore) the grime and styrophome bits that float at the top of the water. The bathtub is too gross to use, so we all bathe at home and most bring their own towels.

One time I came to the mikvah on a Sat night and it looked like it had just been used. There was water dripping all over the bathroom (in the shower, on the door handle, the sink, etc) and all the towel and bathmats were wet. When the mikvah lady arrived (we all basically use the same woman, she is a wonderful, wonderful blessing to our community) I asked her who used the mikvah before me and left it in such a state. She sighed, took my hand and said "no one." It seems as though the fan was broken again, and when the fan breaks the moisture from the mikvah showers the entire little room with condensation. At that point I realized where all the mold I saw and the mildew smell I always smelled came from. I saw that it hurt my mikvah lady to see me upset at the state of the room, so I quickly perked myself up and said to myself "the harder the toivel the bigger the mitzvah".... right? Except that I'm finding myself having to say it every month I go, it's become sort of a chant in my head "the harder the toivel the bigger the mitzvah, the harder the toivel the bigger the mitzvah, the harder the toivel the bigger the mitzvah."

Then I started looking around, it's not just me. I can see it in the faces of the other women who use the mikvah. When it's time to go they are not smiling, it has become a chore and many have said they wish they had a blindfold when they walked into the room, one woman trying to find humor the situation said she's happy she can't wear her contacts in the mikvah, it makes it easier. I've heard countless stories of women stepping on glass in the mikvah (left from dishes) and ruining their toivel and women arriving to find that the heater was broken again and having a toivel that literally took their breath away because of the cold. There is lots to say, the hot water in the entire room has been broken for a while, the lighting is very poor, etc etc.... but all these complaints could be looked past easily when you see the face of our wonderful mikvah lady who will take time out of any day, at any time of night to do whatever it takes to give you the best experience possible at our mikvah. Even if it means that she picks you up in her own car so your identity is kept a secret (the mikvah is right at the front of the shul next to the front door, so it is impossible to park and go in without someone seeing your car or you), she will do it for you.

The reason I am writing, what is actually my first post ever, is because last week I saw my mikvah lady loose her will to continue trying to make the unhappy women happy. You see we had a wedding last weekend, and the kallah needed to go mozei Shabbos. The mikvah lady arrived at the shul to ready the room (she wanted to dress it up a little with candles to mask the smell). She had been keeping in contact with me the whole night because she wanted me to toivel after the kallah as a segula for getting pregnant. I was at the store when my phone rang. "It's going to be a while" the voice on the other end of the phone said, "the mikvah is ice." She spent the next hour calling the kallah to calm her while she drained and tried to refill the mikvah with the waning hot tap. And then my mikvah lady did something that I had never heard her do before... she broke down and started crying right there in the mikvah. "It's not supposed to be like this, it's supposed to be nice your first time." I went in that night to follow the kallah (around midnight) hoping that at least the kallah would have ended up having a pleasant experience... I went in the water and I started shivering. "Did the water turn out OK?" the mikvah lady asked hopefully (she had not been there with the kallah, the kallah had a special friend with her), at that moment I felt a little wave of warmth in the water so I said "yeah, it's not too bad" and then I prayed that the kallah at least felt comfortable when she toiveled and did not have the chant the "harder the toivel the bigger the mitzvah" mantra on her first visit.

Since then our mikvah lady seems to have lost hope. She'll still offered to come and pick me up to take me this weekend, but I could tell there was something wrong in her voice. She now doesn't want to be there either. It's too painful for her too. Without the calming spirit of this mikvah lady where are we? What will happen to us?

I am beside myself. I don't know what to do. I know what we are going through is in no way as tough as what our ancestors did when they had to travel all night and break ice in a lake to toivel, but there has to be something out there that can keep the moral going until we find the way to get the money to build a new mikvah. Every day it is getting worse and worse and more women are deterred from wanting to go when they see where they are going. My brother-in-law came up to me one day last month after toiveling dishes "Does the mikvah always look like that?" he said, "because I've been talking to a friend who is thinking of taking up Taharat Hamishpacha, and I'm afraid to tell her to go there because I think it will push her in the other direction." "Yes, it always looks that way," I say, "I'm sorry, if you want me to talk to her, I can tell her how to get past it."

Is that what we all should do... just look past it all the time? How can we get the beauty out of the mitzvah if we feel dirtier than we ever do right after you walk in the door?

Please, I need help finding a way to give my mikvah lady hope, it is killing me to see her like this. There's hope right?

So, anyone else have mikvah nightmares?

Last night I had the most insane one, in which the mikvah was the bathtub in my house growing up, and the mikvah-, er, bath-room had an inordinate number of women passing in and out. I thought it was my turn, but the mikvah attendant said no, I had to wait. So I put my jeans back on (?? I don't wear jeans, and ouch, not wearing anything underneath!) and tried not to get anything dirty or messed up. Except I somehow got the impression I wasn't going to make my turn at all, so I gave up and put gel in my wet hair, and then when the mikvah lady called me I said oh no!! How am I going to wash this out on Shabbos?

I know, what?? Exactly.

When I have these the night before I go to mikvah, they're pretty easy to figure out. And usually they're made even more transparent by plot devices such as Blood Found Right Before Immersion. But this one is a week after. I should have at least another two weeks before mikvah anxiety hits.

Armchair psychologists, feel free to have at it. But know that if your translation involves Freudian symbolism I will laugh long and heartily.

For those of you in the New York area, Nishmat is hosting "Women’s Health and Halacha Day" this Sunday, May 15.

There's info here: http://www.yoatzot.org/healthday_LI.php

This is appropriate to Mayim Rabim:

Opening Session: “Scenes from a Jewish Marriage:
Taharat HaMishpacha from Chupah to Menopause".
Deena Zimmerman, M. D., Yoetzet Halacha

This intrigues me:

Infertility and the Orthodox Couple.
Matthew A. Cohen, M. D., Dassi Jacobson, Ph. D., Zamira Ostrowski, Yoetzet Halacha

Has anyone noticed that infertility is the hot topic among Jewish organizations these days?

And this was just funny:

"Baby is available from 10:30 a.m. through 4:15 p.m."

Hmmm... for rent or purchase? ;)

I had a weird night tonight.

But let's start at my point for posting - sometimes mikvah comes at an "inconvient" time. Albeit it was not my fault, I spent every night this week out of the house - not giving my kids the quality time they needed. Sunday we had relatives over and then a l'chaim to go to. Monday night we had a surprise l'chaim to go to (BH I got a babysitter at the last minute). Last night I had a doctor appointment followed by a major grocery shop at the kollel store. And tonight I had to scramble (AGAIN) for a babysitter so I could go to the mikvah.

In the end I found someone an hour and a half before I was due to leave for the mikvah, and boy was I sweating it. My kids didn't cry when I left, but I see that they are suffering because I haven't been home at night this week.

When the car service brought me to the mikvah, the haitian driver asked me, "So what is this place? A hospital or something? I'm always bringing people here. Is it a doctor's office or something?" I didn't want to tell him the emes, so I just said, "Or something." and got out of the car.

And then when I went inside there was someone ahead of me who was arguing with the front desk clerk about whether or not she could use conditioner - except the clerk basically only spoke Russian and Yiddish and the lady ahead of me only spoke French and Hebrew. Comical to say the least.

And then I had a mikvah lady I've never had before, and she was so attentive - it was a pleasure - she really inspected each fingernail and toenail instead of just glancing them over.

And then when I called for a car service to go home and I said, "I'm going to XXX Street," the driver answered, "123 XXX Street?" I answered, "Yes, and how do you know that?" His response was that he had heard them call for my pickup (on the way to the mikvah) over the radio. Ah, to be famous at the car service, lol.

And then when I got home, BOTH my children were still awake. Just what I don't want when I get home.

Although before I wished I could toivel on another night, in the end I was glad I went tonight. Gam Tzu La Tova!

After my unsettling telephone encounter with the Mikvah Lady, I wasn't sure what to do next. I wanted to discuss the whole pre-wedding mikvah business with someone who would understand. Someone familiar. Someone I had actually met in person. The problem is that I have a great family, an awesome network of friends, and wonderful in-laws, but very few of them fit the criteria for discussing this particular problem: I needed an adult Jewish woman who could discuss sex frankly, who had gone through a traditional Jewish wedding, who was observant enough to both know and care about taharat hamishpacha, and who was liberal enough to have a sense of flexibility about it. Most of my local friends were disqualified for one reason or another, and when I called an aunt whom I'm close to and who had had an Orthodox wedding, it turned out she hadn't actually bothered to immerse -- although she thought it was a nice idea for me. (Were people just really not into T"H around 1980?) Then I called my mother-in-law to chat about the whole business and discovered that she hadn't immersed either, but after several minutes of hilarity at the whole Mikvah Lady episode she averred that she'd be happy to accompany me to the mikvah. (I also found out that she has a previously undisclosed tattoo.) Finally, I called my own mother, who I knew had never immersed -- and floated (ahem) the idea of doing Girls' Night At The Mikvah. She announced that if I really wanted to do it, I shouldn't attend the mikvah with anyone except her. Oy.

Well, as G.I. Joe said, knowing is half the battle. (G.I. Joe, of course, never had to schedule a mikvah appointment. Give me ninja counterintelligence ops in the Arctic any day.) I had more than a few books on Judaism floating around the house, I had access to several libraries, and I had a DSL connection, so I embarked on a merry little course of self-directed research into taharat hamishpacha. Eli and I both enjoy learning all the things they never taught us in Hebrew school, but I'm pretty sure I was more into this than he was. All the same, he dealt admirably with sudden T"H-related intrusions into our daily conversation. ("Pass me the pepper, sweetie. If we were Orthodox and married and so forth, you wouldn't be allowed to do that right now. But since we're not worrying about it, I'd like the parmesan too.") He even joined in from time to time, scanning websites, paging through my books, and listening patiently as I tried to explain what I thought our ancestors might have been thinking over all the centuries of piling prohibition atop prohibition. The end result of all this was that we both knew a lot more about the history and symbolic/cultural significance of taharat hamishpacha than when we'd started, and we agreed that it was a fascinating example of halakhic development, not to mention a real pain in the tuchus. Unfortunately, none of this did much to answer the Scheduling Question.

As a matter of fact, it helped to complicate things a little further. I had already known that I'd have to remove things like contact lenses and nail polish before I immersed, but it took contemporary readings to make me realize that my birth control patch was basically the textbook definition of chatzitah. This was an important point, because I'd already realized that I'd need an extra patch to get through my wedding without starting my period -- but I usually switched patches on Monday night, which was way too early to get away with attending the mikvah unless I actively lied about when my wedding would take place (and I dislike lying). But even if I resigned myself to getting two extra patches -- and I had -- the rest of the week was already crowded: Tuesday there'd be a Yom Tov ending (I didn't even want to think about those complications), my in-laws were showing up Wednesday, my parents on Thursday, and most of the other wedding guests on Friday, when we were all getting together for dinner. Shabbat on Saturday wouldn't end till super-late, although I thought I still might prefer ducking out after Havdalah and trying to squeeze my dip in as inconspicuously as possible on the one night when nobody would expect us to show up for Yet Another Event. Only, in that case, when would I find time to paint my toenails (nevermind maybe getting a manicure and pedicure) before we started taking pictures at 11 am on Sunday?

The whole business was making me crazy (not too far to go at that point). I had florists, photographers, caterers, a job and a number of important relationships to juggle, but the mikvah thing kept hanging in there. One of the things I had discovered about planning a wedding is that it's a matter of identifying your half-conscious dreams and deciding which ones you want to go to the trouble of making real (dancing, yes; Renaissance costume, not so much). I hadn't thought about mikvah immersion much, but I knew I wanted to do it -- my research had, oddly enough, only strengthened that conviction. I'd always envisioned sunlight streaming through into the living waters, softly but intensely spoken prayers, and a sense of sisterhood complete with slightly wicked smiles on everyone's faces as we anticipated what we were preparing for. It would be -- it had to be -- a celebration of new life. But the likely scenario that emerged from my reading was nothing like that: women covering every inch of themselves, creeping into the mikvah under the cover of darkness, being carefully segregated from each other at every turn, undergoing clinical inspection from a stranger. It sounded almost shameful. Now, I consider myself a reasonably private and modest person by secular American standards. Both my menstrual cycle and my sex life are nobody's business except mine and Eli's, and I don't generally run around announcing them, but there's nothing shameful about either, and G-d knows our tradition has been happy to discuss these issues at the drop of a bedikah cloth. My first time wasn't going to be in the dark, I decided. My first time was going to be special.

I dislike lying, but I love figuring out ways to bend the rules.

(to be continued...)

~ Dulcie

Dulcie is a thirtyish Jewish woman who averages out Conservative; she is writing about her experiences with tongue firmly planted in cheek. This essay is the second of a three-part series; the first essay is available here, and the final essay is available here.

OK, I just have to ask: do you tip your mikvah attendant? the woman who cleans up the preparation rooms (if it's a different person)? How much? How? I've been going to the mikvah for a few years already, and I feel so out of touch for not knowing what to do...

primal waters of
soul stirring live drown the howls
from my empty womb

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.

As I sit here cutting my nails in preparation for my first tevilla in about four months, I wonder...why do the attendants at my local mikvah always have their hair covered? It's not like any men are coming in!

Certain recent posts have reminded my how much there is to appreciate about my LOM. It's a well-maintained building, with a comfortable waiting room, luxurious preparation rooms, and mikvaot that are very clean and pleasantly heated. In the prep rooms, guidelines for performing breast self-exams hang on the walls, and piles of discrete business cards for the Shalom Task Force sit on the counters, belying the notion that Orthodox Jews don't care about the well being of women.

The attendants have good and bad days, like anyone else, but on the whole they are very considerate. I often come in slacks, with my hair uncovered, and I am treated as congenially as anyone else. On my first visit, I didn't clip my nails, because I wanted to get a manicure for my wedding. The attendant (aware of the fact that this was a matter of custom, not law) checked my hands, saw that they were clean, and let me right in. I dunked only once (the standard custom for Ashkenazi women being at least two dunks, usually more), and still she said nothing, simply smiling pleasantly and handing me my robe as I emerged from the water. Technically, I was tehorah. Why should she make me uncomfortable and possibly discourage me from coming back?

In spite of all this, I have often been uncomfortable at the mikvah, especially during my first year of marriage. A few times, I wore a long skirt and a hat in an effort to fit in (even though, logically, a mikvah is hardly the place to worry about modest dress). Once, I came home crying. I couldn't shake the feeling that I was a phony, a modern girl masquerading as a frummie, and that if the mikvah attendants knew what I was really like they wouldn't approve of me at all.

It's hard, being the type of person who has always wanted everyone's approval, to acknowledge that my concerns were probably legitimate: these women wouldn't "approve" of many aspects of my lifestyle, just as I would not "approve" of many aspects of theirs. That is precisely why it is so commendable that they treat me like a mensch. And that is why I have to keep reminding myself how indebted I am to the attendants, to the rabbi who oversees the mikvah, and to everyone else involved, for making it possible for me to observe this mitzvah with dignity and comfort.

One day, I may live in a neighborhood with a Mayyim Hayyim type mikvah, where I can go and "be myself," so to speak, halachic incongruities and all. For now, I have a perfectly adequate mikvah -- much better than adequate, in fact. Yes, indeed. It could be much worse.

It seemed like a good idea at the time: as the week before our upcoming wedding became more and more crowded with services and meals and miscellaneous gatherings, we decided that it was time to figure out when we'd fit in our mikvah dips. Not that my intended -- we'll call him Eliezer -- and I were necessarily planning on monthly visits, and we certainly weren't holding off on the horizontal hora till our nuptials, but a mikvah trip was what you did before a Jewish wedding, wasn't it? I definitely wanted to, Eli was less sure but thought it might be an interesting experience, and we both knew that mikvaot existed in our community somewhere or other. Clearly, I realized, we needed to learn more about our options -- and since Eli was doing invitations, I figured I could do mikvah research.

After checking for local mikvah information online with no luck, I decided to call the number provided by one webpage, which turned out to involve leaving a voicemail message on a particular extension at the local Jewish organization which coordinates my town's mikvah resources. I tried to explain the situation, the timing of my Sunday afternoon wedding, and my question about when a mikvah would actually be available for both me and Eli. The next day, I received voicemail from a pleasant but strongly accented female voice with a name I couldn't quite catch, wishing me mazel tov and urging me to call her at a home number on Friday morning; I did so twice, getting an answering machine each time, and finally a man (her husband, I guess) called me back and asked whom I was trying to reach at his number. "The mikvah lady," I said, slightly flummoxed but drawing on some ancestral memory. "Hold on," he said - in the same accent - and went to get her.

My actual conversation with the Mikvah Lady was equally puzzling. When I could come to the mikvah, she said, was quite simple: either Thursday night or Saturday night after Shabbos. Wouldn't the latter be awfully late after Daylight Savings kicked in, I asked? Yes, she admitted. And could I immerse first thing Sunday morning instead? No, but Eli could do so at the men's mikvah if he wished.

I was perplexed - I'd taken a class on women and Jewish law back in college, and I remembered that the original preference for women to dip at night was relaxed in cases of danger or even inconvenience. I was also fairly sure that Friday evening was a valid mikvah time, judging from the tradition of Shabbat shenanigans. And I knew from the website that our town had one full-time and one part-time women's mikvah: were all the women really supposed to fit themselves in in the evening? How long did it take to go to the mikvah, anyway? Besides, I rather liked the idea of dipping as soon as possible before the wedding to add a special dimension to the first time we had sex after the wedding, and the odds of my holding out from Thursday to Sunday were slim. But I was worried about sounding ignorant, and I was equally unenthusiastic about discussing my sex life with a strange woman I'd never met face-to-face. So I switched to the other question I had planned to ask.

"Actually, I was wondering if I could drop by the mikvah some time before my wedding and immerse, so that I'll know where everything is and how the procedure works." I figured that would let me meet the Mikvah Lady in person for further consultation and let me, well, see how it worked, how long it took, what I needed, and so forth. It wouldn't be nearly as weird to speak to her face to face. Plus, seeing the mikvah in advance would be kind of nice.

"Oh no," she said, very firmly. "You don't need to visit the mikvah until you're ready to get married." Uh-oh. I hadn't thought about it - after all, I knew people in our town who liked to use the mikvah for "spiritual cleansing," whatever that was - but apparently the Mikvah Lady wanted to discourage me from premarital Goings On, and pointing out that nothing she was likely to do would discourage us for a second was clearly not the way to go. So I tried to sound curious yet chaste.

"I know I don't need to, but what if I want to? To see what it's like?"

"You're welcome to make an appointment and visit with me - I have some pamphlets I can give you - and that way it won't be so terrifying." Terrifying? I opened and closed my mouth, realizing that any questions about what I was supposed to be terrified of would lead us to a Bad Place. Instead, I tried again, expressing my complete lack of terror and my genuine desire to experience the mikvah before wedding plans drove me insane, but no dice: since the Mikvah Lady knew I was single, she wasn't going to make me an appointment to actually immerse. So I politely affirmed my intent to call her nearer our wedding date, wished her a good Shabbos (not Shabbat, I knew that much), and hung up.

"Well," I announced to the apartment around me. "That was weird."

(to be continued...)

~ Dulcie

Dulcie is a thirtyish Jewish woman who averages out Conservative; she is writing about her experiences with tongue firmly planted in cheek. This essay is the first of a three-part series; the second essay is available here, and the final essay is available here.

I'm not a very "spiritual" person. Shortly after I got married, I mentioned the fact that I was practicing T"H to a couple of women, a friend and a Conservative rabbi. Both asked about my "experience" using the mikveh. Both times, I replied with a complaint about the train ride.

This really was how I thought about mikveh (and often still do): an hour and some-odd long train ride in each direction, which makes me motion sick; a lot of hot water, which makes me sleepy; the trouble I have combing my hair thoroughly without leaving half of it stuck to my body. The tevilah itself goes by so quickly that I barely notice it. This may not be terrible; I know from experience that observing halacha habitually, even without the greatest kavanah (intention) can have an effect on one's consciousness. Still, the reading I've done on the subject recently, and my participation in this community, has made me realize that there can and should be more.

So I'm working at it. If there's one thing I believe about spirituality, it's that you have to create it yourself. I've tried davening mincha (the afternoon service) right before leaving for the mikveh (it's always light out when I leave, what with that danged train ride). I've tried staying under water a little bit longer than I used to, focusing on every part of my body, thinking about what it means to serve God with the whole of my being. I've tried thinking of my mikveh visit as a mini Yom Kippur, a chance each month to get a fresh start at trying to be a better person and a better Jew. It's hard, though, especially for a two-dunker like me -- not much time to focus. While I've considered spending some extra time in the water to pray (as per frombeneath's post), I'm sure I'd be too self-conscious about keeping the attendant waiting to concentrate properly.

I remember reading something in Total Immersion about the menstrual cycle being something like a winding staircase. It seems like you're going around in circles, but if you pay close attention, you realize that you're moving upward. It's been that way for me these past few months. No earth-shaking spiritual experiences, but for some reason, when I step out of the mikveh, I'm just a little bit happier than I used to be. And when I get home, I'm less annoyed about the nausea and the fatigue. I know that it will pass. And when my husband puts his arms around me, I remember that I'm doing all this for a reason.

"Oh it was you" sighed the exacerbated voice on the other end of the line. "Yes", I replied. Ok, to be fair let me back up a bit, like four or five days..

I had been neglecting to call the mikveh. Well, not exactly neglecting. I just didn't know what time to call... working hours? my working hours or working hours for a mikveh. Well, finally a few days before I decided to call during regular business hours. After navigating my way through a long phone tree I discovered kallahs were supposed to call 10 days in advance. I still wasn't quite sure when I was supposed to call, so I called back and tried a different navigation route.. aah, business hours were when the mikveh was open, until 10. That night I called. A very exacerbated voice responded and said she was very busy (I could hear receipts printing in the background), I said of course and hung up. Half an hour later I called back and explained who I was (a kallah) and that I'd like to use the mikveh. Her voice turned completely sing-songy and she was very kind and told me to be there at a certain time, with the mikveh opening 25 minutes before that. And she named a price.

Great! I took off early from work as prelude (none of my colleagues could understand why I came in at all) and started getting ready. I tried to get a pedicure with just buffing and the woman threw me out of the nail salon after I said I would pay $20 for it. I still don't understand what went wrong, but there was a miscommunication of some kind. All I was asking really was "just don't put on nail polish please".. I really just want for you to cut my toenails. I don't bend well enough to get them (tight hamstrings).

So, I saved a bunch of money and had a super long bath instead. I cut my own toes and pumiced. I checked the rest of my body and spent a very long time flossing. I really hate the flossing part. My teeth are quite bad and it's very difficult to floss. But I did it.

So, I walked to the mikveh arriving 10 minutes after it was to open. There was a young girl their (with shaitel) looking very nervous and standing there taking off nail polish. She said, no it wasn't open yet. So we wait outside (it was warm, but not that warm). An older woman comes in and starts complaining that it's not open yet. "When <so and so> was working, it was fine, I understood, but now she's not"... and she went on and on... another woman came in (I have no idea her role) and she started in. Then more and more mikveh users started waiting. Finally 5 minutes AFTER my "appointment" the woman with the key shows up. B"H! We all say. I was worried something had happened.

So, we all file in and go to the receptionist desk. There are about 10 women there as we troop there and another 5 showed up in the next 30 seconds. She was grouchy. They took checks (by auto-deducting from your account) or cash or credit. Oh, I missed saying -- the lobby was nicer than any hotel I've been in. I've not been in lots of very nice hotels, but I have walked through lobbies. It was gorgeous beyond my imagination... especially after the mikveh I converted in...

I look around. Lots of women looked eager and frustrated at the same time. A woman about 12 behind me said, "What? There's a line already?" I look up to see when last showers and baths are. And when the mikveh closes. Next to it is a big sign: Nails should be cut short. If you have a problem with this please speak to the attendant. I file that piece of information away and start looking at my really short nails.

I snap back to reality, it's my turn to pay. She (the poor woman who was over 30 minutes late and was the only one with a key to open it) hurriedly asks me what I need and I blurt out bath, followed seconds later ... I meant shower! Oh, and a pack of cloths.. Please? What kind? She asks. Oy! That I have choices? I just grab whatever and show it to her. She rings me up and it's significantly less than the number I had been quoted on the phone.. The line gets larger (I think it's growing exponentially) so I just give up and give her a check. And then it had problems going through the machine, so as I look to see how much cash I have or if I remembered to bring a credit card (though I'd prefer an electronic payment so I can track it) it goes through.

She hands me my receipt, "Room 42" she says (number changed, but there is a 42 there).

I go through the door and look for my room. Here comes the fun part.

WOW. It's a bit bigger than my apartment's bathroom (which is 7'x7'). It's beautifully tiled. There's a bathtub and toilet and anything i could desire on the immaculate sink. I just stood a few minutes taking it all in.

Then came a voice, "42, 42?" Yes... "Please lock your door" Which one? "Both". Is that better? "Yes".

WOW. It has an intercom system and buttons and lights!

<flashback to conversion mikveh. The room I was in looked like a public toilet stall. it was dirty, I don't even think it had a place to sit. The head for shaitels was on a shelf above my head. There was a full length mirror, I need to give it that>

Ok. So, I figured I paid for a bath, I should at least soak my feet a bit. So I do... and then I shower. Brush teeth again. Check nails. Pee. Check nails again. Get out scissors and start snipping. Not obsessively (I'm proud of myself) but things that were definitely hanging off. I look at the clock. I'm bored. So I ring for an attendant. Wait, immediately cancel that. Pee again. Ring and wait.

She comes in and points to the clock and says that I have over 15 minutes to wait.

"I'm a kallah" I start to explain.

She ponders this a second, probably not sure to believe me or not. "Why don't you have the kallah suite?" I said I called only a few days before not the 10 they asked for because I didn't know. I said I was told to come at a certain time and I was here and the rush, this was the room I was given. It's gorgeous!

I wanted to tell her about where I've been before. B"H all women should have such choice and freedom to use mikveh.

"B'seder" she decides. She is wearing a white doctor's coat (I discover later because of the pockets).

She moves some of my clothing off of a bench and points to the toilet. "Sit".

Ok. She starts by asking my who my kallah teacher was. When I did my h"t, if I did my bedikot, if I brushed my teeth, had lice, etc etc. She was a bit annoyed h"t was a day and a week before I was at mikveh, but as a kallah "I could choose when most convenient". Actually, without a calendar I couldn't tell you what day I did it. I couldn't even tell you what day of the week it was that night. I had guessed. I really had actually done the h"t the week exactly before my mikveh visit.

Whew. I passed. She lays a towel on her lap and takes my hand. She starts looking at my nails. "Your kallah teacher taught you well. You did very good preparations". I smiled. She had such a calming mame air about her. I wanted to take her home with me and have her bake me chocolate chip cookies. Ok, back to my nails. She trimmed a bit of skin on my dominant hand. She had seen my scissors out. I told her I tried but I just couldn't do any better. She said it was beautiful. She says so many people come in very dirty and nails in such disarray, I was a pleasure.

Then she got to my feet. Apparently my big toe nails needed some filing because the nail bed was a bit rough. Oops! But she fixed it and said they looked really nice.

She left to make sure everything was ready and because we needed to kill some more time until skia. What's 5 minutes?

Well, I was bored as anything. I paced the room, I started obsessing over my ears and belly button which have been cleaning twice daily for 3 days so I wouldn't forget. I peed again. I waited. She finally knocked.

And started leading me to the mikveh.

The mikveh was beautiful as well. Clean water. She explained what I needed to do, and pointed to how the brachah and yehi ratzon were posted on the wall. I said that was nice, but without my glasses I could barely see the steps. She suggested I put them in the pocket of my robe and held out her hands to take it and shut her eyes.

<flashback to conversion: before the beis din asked me my final questions in acceptance of mitzvot and judaism I was wearing the robe in the water. Standing there also (where they could actually see ALL of me given how that mikveh was set up) was a girl who converted a few minutes before (we were questioned together), her future mother-in-law, and a rebbetzin. The beis din, for tznius purposes was behind a wall and could only see my head. They needed the rebbetzin to assure them that my tevilot were kosher. I'm still not sure why the girl and her fMIL were there, but I was concentrating on something MUCH more important, I really didn't think to ask them to leave. Though it did bother me that they could see ME. Naked me. When the other girl toiveled, I stayed in my little bathroom. I listened, I heard splashing, but for all I knew she did not convert and they just made it sound like it. What she did was between her and Hashem. Who was I to watch? Anyway, I digress>

She directed me to where I needed to go. I moved a bit away from the wall. I did a practice one. Beautiful. Then came the real one.

"Kosher."

She handed me a washcloth and helped me through the brachah.

She said she had turned around and I should throw the washcloth back at her. I missed and it sunk into the depths of the mikveh.

She asked me to go again.

"Too fast".

"Kosher".

I had to swim to find the washcloth before I stumbled through yehi ratzon. Which, I don't know as well without a siddur or the words in front of me. I was effectively blind to whatever was posted on the wall. I think I'm going to write out and laminate everything so I can have it in front of me (it should float) and then I'll pronounce things much better. This time I got smart and put the washcloth somewhere I could reach it.

Number three: "Kosher"

She asked me to daven for 2 people to get married soon. I added some silent prayers of my own.

She asked me to wait before I started up the stairs. "Ready".

I realized why as I looked up. She was holding the robe over her eyes so she couldn't see me. How tzniusdik!!!

<flashback to conversion: the rebbetzin had watched me walk out of the mikveh in all my dripping naked newly jewish glory. then she handed me a towel and reminded me to wash. That bothered me. BTW she (conversion mikveh attendant) appeared very frum, I know the beis din, they are. Perhaps she was looking for chatzitzot that she hadn't so carefully checked before? I don't know. But I felt very uncomfortable.>

I drip into the robe and rush to put on my glasses. She wishes me a very hearty "Mazel Tov" and hopes to see me again soon. And I thank her very much for her kindness.

I get dressed. Walk through the drying rooms (I rarely to never blow dry my hair, plus I'm wearing a hat which incidentally covers all of my hair.). I exit.

I get outside and call my chosson. He sounds happy. He was very happy that I was surprised at how gorgeous the mikveh was. He is very happy to hear me happy and knows now that I won't be so stressed. I had been trying to stay away from pens all week. I look at them and they explode on me.

I walk a bit more and realize there was a message on my cell phone. It's from the mikveh at a half hour after my sheduled appointment time. She said "it's the mikveh, has anything changed? please call". And at that point I realized they had made an appointment for me. I thought she had said it opened at a certain time and she suggested i come 25 minutes later so that it wasn't the opening rush nor would I be really late and deal with those stressed.

So I continue walking and dial the number. Someone had chosen that line and was trying to dial out. I hung up.

After another block I call again. the exacerbated voice answered. I get what was written in my intro and she was really frustrated. I explained that there was a rush of many women and they were all frustrated and she was flustered and I was flustered and unsure what was going on so I just paid and took "any room"

Any room? that was a spa I wanted to shout at her. I explained that I didn't realize they were making a kallah room just for me. I misunderstood the setup when I had called. I told her how beautiful and clean my "any room" was. She was annoyed, and justifiably so, but just wished me mazel tov and hung up.

I felt really badly about it and sent a short note and a small donation. They did take the time to set up a kallah room for me. I'm very sad that I couldn't enjoy it. If any old room was that luxurious, I cannot imagine what the kallah suite looked like. May our daughter(s) have the luxury.

I feel badly for her. She must have a very difficult position sitting at that desk after a long day of doing who knows what. I tried to be as kind and pleasant to her as I could. I was very nice to the attendant who helped me check for chatzitzot and was shomer to my tevilah. But everyone talks about being kind to the mikveh attendant. [begin soapbox] Please, be nice to the women at the front desk, cleaning the rooms, etc. It can't be an easy job. Just smile at them, please and thank you. Yes, I know you are stressed and eager to be with your husbands again. You may have had to er, "go to the grocery store" in order to go to mikveh. Kvetching (bikering) about someone being late to open the mikveh does not help anything. Try smiling at it. Hashem has the plan. Let's live it. And may the temple be speedily rebuilt in our days. [/end soap box]

Bli neder, I will try to post about the rest of my adventures soon. I have other more important things to do now...

"Yes dear?" ... he says I've been on the computer too long (yes it is a long post). "One more minute?" Toda. Ok, really fast: Thank you and yasher koach to Shanna and everyone who is a regular contributor or a guest and everyone who commented and will comment. You make this time much easier for me and my bashert (soulmate). It's a wonderful community and I'm very thankful to be a part of it. "I'll be right there..."

Well, it wasn’t quite. But it was a closed, cloistered, ultra-frum neighborhood in Jerusalem, and I was only visiting. We were pretty much newly weds, and this whole mikvah thing still felt awkward.

Our had trip started with a bang as well – the first morning, jetlagged and exhausted, we were awakened (in bed, together) by the maid who was used to cleaning rooms by 8:00 am. I was horrified; so was she. My husband wasn’t quite conscious enough to notice.

Then, later in the trip, I had a sheilah on a bedikah cloth, and we didn’t know who to ask for a name, so my husband dialed our Rabbi in the States from memory – and got the wrong number, but someone else in our community, who recognized his voice – so he took advantage of the situation (there I was, cringing), and just asked for the number directly. (OK, he didn’t *say* it was for a niddah sheilah, but they knew we were in Israel, and to my mind, why else would he call from overseas?!)

Which eventually got us a Rav (an American, at least), whom my husband visited, . . . and came back long after, having schmoozed halacha while he was there. I was wound tighter than a spring. In any case, I needed to use the mikvah after Shabbos.

We were visiting a friend of mine that Shabbos, sleeping in her neighbor’s empty apartment and eating meals with them, so it seemed to make more sense to use a mikvah in her neighborhood than to go searching near our hotel. I felt awkward asking her directly, so before Shabbos, I had my husband call the Rav who had answered the sheilah for an address and directions.

The entrance was a non-descript, unmarked door at the rear of a building. The directions weren’t TOO bad, but it was behind a narrow alley between the mikvah building itself (maybe the front was a shul?) and some other building, and I wandered around for probably 10 minutes in the dark before deciding that must be it. At least I had been warned by my kallah teacher to ALWAYS bring my own preparation stuff on trips, as “you never know”. I could barely understand the attendant’s Hebrew, there was a wait, and I was very conscious that my dear husband was sitting by a bus stop with his gemara and our overnight bag; I couldn’t not say goodbye to my friend, so we had packed up and “left” first.

I finally got a room, prepared, rang for the attendant, and got to feel like I was a misbehaving child; the attendant (a different one) came into the prep room, looked at my hands, and without a word – except tsk, tsk - immediately took a pair of nail scissors to my hands – I was horrified, embarrassed, furious, and scared that she’d cut me! When she was finished (at least (?) she filed them after), I had NO nails to speak of. And no real interest in mikvah anymore. At least not there.

I went, though. And we went back to our hotel, and I cried in my husband’s arms until I had gotten it all out of my system.

Several weeks later, I discovered I was expecting.

~ Michal

Michal is an Orthodox woman, "over 30," living in a fairly large city with a reasonably cozy Orthodox Jewish population

Good grief.

OK, I will write a proper entry soon, bli neder, but I just realized it's Thursday night and I forgot to make an appointment for my Friday night tevilah AGAIN. Two months ago when I forgot the first time, I called the mikvah lady Friday morning in a flurry of apologies, my words tumbling over each other to convey how foolish I felt, how unlike me this was, how bewildered I was that it had slipped my mind. What do I say to her this time??

It's not like I haven't known about this for the past 6 days. OK, it's true I was waiting from Friday till Sunday to hear whether my hefsek tahara was good, and I couldn't be sure what day I would go to mikvah until I got an answer. But still. Since Sunday, then. Together with this little oversight, you'd be quite justified in starting to wonder: what's WRONG with me?

I went back to the mikvah in the prescribed time after my last period. The period had been "normal", for me, which is what my doctor had asked me to look out for. If I had a normal period, she said, then I knew that my miscarriage the month earlier was complete & that it would be safe for my husband and I to start trying for another baby. An actual baby this time, not a spontaneous abortion. I couldn't imagine.

My feelings walk that line between eternal hope & utter faithlessness as I dial the mikvah attendant for the night of the week I need to go. She answers, treats me with total indifference, then hangs up. I am ovulating. I won't go to mikvah until the next night, so we will probably miss our opportunity to conceive again, just as we did each month of our marriage...except once.

I feel so blessed that I got the mikvah attendant that I did for the immersion I made two weeks after the miscarriage. She was so kind & sympathetic. But this other woman I'd had before. She made out like it was inconvenient to be there for me & that she was bored while I got ready. I'd done my preparation at home, but there's still a bit to complete at the mikvah & she was quite obviously bored. She didn't check me at all, so when I asked, "Aren't you going to check my hands (or anything else)?" she said, "I only check what people ask me to. I don't want to turn anybody off." I explained to her that I was fully mitzvah-observant & was comitted to taharat hamishpachah. I'm not sure she heard me.

I felt very conspicuous dunking under her supervision.

So I was on my way back now, second visit since losing the baby. I was 10 minutes late. "We'd said 7:15, yes?" she greeted me at the door. I apologized for being late. She told me another woman was coming at 7:45 who was being supervised by somebody else, & that we'd have to clear out before then. "I'm sure you will be ready to leave." she stated.

I relieved myself, washed, said Asher Yatzar, showered & rang for her in my little towel. Alone in the silent cold marble chamber.

When she retrieved me, she wasn't all business anymore. She stood me under the bright white heat-lamp while she checked my back, hands and feet. She was quite amiable and chatty, which was a total surprise. I accepted her sudden friendliness with only slight suspicion and responded accordingly. She hadn't brought me slippers, so I asked her to check the bottom of my feet. Somehow in the few feet between the preparation room and the steps to the mikvah, I had picked up all sorts of debris. "Oy!" she exclaimed, "You know, this wouldn't happen if they just put the slippers in the rooms, but they don't. They put them out of the way & then we forget to bring them to you & now look. It's a good thing you asked me to check." She left me next to the pool as she recounted all of this, returning with a damp wash cloth. She washed my feet for me right there, on the mat just above the water.

"Okay, now whenever you're ready." She turned away, as she does, leaving an outstretched hand for me to hang my towel on. There is no need to invade my privacy by watching me walk nude into the water.

"Okay." I said. I positioned myself, tried to focus & ground. "Be careful of your hands," she called out from behind me, "your arms are spread quite wide & you don't want to touch the sides." I swallowed my protestations, being very familiar with procedure & this particular mikvah, & thanked her.

I exhaled, shut my eyes & went under, the bubbling loud in my ears. Let go of everything. Divest. NIFTAR: release, separate, die...

She pronounced it kosher & passed me the humorous doily to cover my head. I crossed my arms around my own waist & squeezed tight. "Baruch Atah HASHEM, Elokeuinu Melech ha-olam, asher kideshanu bemitzvosov vitzivanu al ha-tevilah."
"Amen."

I placed the doily back up on the marble-tiled shelf & made my next immersion. Water cover & envelope me until there is no ME. Egoless: Ayn Anochiyut. Ayn Sof.

"Kosher."

Exhale. Relax. Disappear.
Empty me, please G-d: RAYKANUT!

"Kosher."

Transform my soul into a whisper.
A whisper among the myriad voices of Your Creation: LAV!

"Kosher...Pefect!"

11:30 Saturday night. My husband gets home, sees the envelope on the kitchen counter with my name on it, grabs it, slams the door behind him. Doesn’t wake the kids. I sit in bed, reading, not reading, waiting for him to return. 10 minutes later, he saunters into the bedroom. “I dropped it off. In the rabbi’s mailbox. It’s late. He didn’t open the door.”

Midnight. Phone rings. It’s the rabbi. My husband answers. “No, it’s not too late. Thanks for calling. She’s right here.” I take the phone. The soft, soothing voice of my niddah rabbi on the other end. “Mrs. X? I’m not sure what the shaelah is.”

So I tell him that the last three periods have been weird, but he knows this already because I’ve called him so many times, dropped off stained underwear and not-quite-clean bedikahs, waited for the verdict, which was always that they were fine, I could keep counting, hold my mikvah date, wouldn’t have to delay our separation any longer.

Until tonight.

I tell him about the four days of dark spotting at the beginning. He remembers from my phone call asking whether I was officially a niddah. I tell him about my four days of bright red heavy flow, how I’ve never had that many before. I started craving meat and bought chopped liver for Shabbat lunch because my iron was so low. I tell him how I tried on day five, laughing all the while, to get a clean hefsek, but there was no way that was happening, and I tell him how on day six, erev Shabbat, I didn’t even bother because the bleeding was so heavy. Then I tell him about how I tried again on Shabbat, and I surprised even myself by getting a clean hefsek, and I tell him how later that night, the blood was back again and bright red, and that’s my question, that’s what he’s looking at on the pad that I stuffed in an envelope for his scrutiny.

The rabbi is quiet. He is thinking, maybe he is trying to find a way to make it not niddah. “It IS red,” he says. It’s the first time in nearly five years of marriage that he’s told me I had to start all over again, that I couldn’t keep counting down to the day when I could embrace my husband after the peace of the mikvah waters. He is quiet when he says, “Maybe you should go to your doctor, Mrs. X. I don’t want it to be fibroids or something.”

I’d heard urban legends of niddah-expert rabbis catching cysts, cancer, and other conditions from simply looking at a stain and talking with a woman, but this was my first time experiencing it. He repeated what my midwife had said when I called her, panicked, earlier in the week. I felt cold though the furnace churned in the basement.

I hung up the phone and went to my computer, clicked on a search engine, typed in “fibroids.” I had two precious babies upstairs, 19 months apart, whom I had no trouble conceiving, no trouble carrying, no trouble birthing. Would I now face fertility troubles like my sister, my friends, so many people I knew? My husband walked in. “Please,” he pleaded. “Please turn off the computer and go to bed. This won’t help. You’ll just scare yourself.”

I looked at him. Oh how I missed him, and it hadn’t even been that long. We were brazen with our together days, fighting and insisting it’s ok if we don’t hug tonight, we always have tomorrow. I remembered what my kallah teacher had said, niddah sensitizes you to the details of life. I never thought I’d care whether I could pass the salt to him or not, but I do.

I shut down the computer, went upstairs. Moonlight streamed through the cracks in my bamboo shades. I listened for my children’s sweet breathing, saw my husband’s darkened form, banished in his bed against the wall. His body lifted and released. He slept.

The next day, as twilight neared, my hefsek was clear. Clean white. I began counting. Although it was only two days longer that we were apart this time, the week ached as it crept along. I missed my husband. My bed was huge, an empty sea, a lonely raft. Still, I was amazed at how my rabbi, with no medical training, could predict a condition by the strength of his Torah knowledge. I’d been questioning, cynical, stopped covering my hair four months before. I was fed up with people around me meticulously checking lettuce for bugs but trusting their children to unlicensed, dangerous day cares because they were run by Jews. I judged everyone harshly, seeing people walk the legal line of Halachah but ignore its ethical mandates. I wished I could take my niddah questions to a woman, hated having to ask men for permission to keep counting. I kept hitting my head on this glass ceiling. It was everywhere. I didn’t want to be kept in a corner.

But my compassionate rabbi, he knew. It’s eerie how Torah has everything, is all-knowing, far-reaching. Where was God in all this? I hadn’t thought of Him in ages.

The week passed. On Sunday, my husband left on a four-day business trip. That night, with the children tucked into sleep and the babysitter sitting on my couch, it was the first time I went to the mikvah knowing I’d come home to no waiting arms.

There was a line at the reception desk, so many women needing to purify themselves. I paid my money, walked to room 13, took off my clothes and filled the tub. Forty-five minutes later, I descended into the warm water of the mikvah, got to the platform and turned toward the wall. I could hear my breath against the tiles.

Taking a deep breath, I submerged. “Do it again,” she said. No one had ever told me that before.

I focused on the shiny blue of the pristine tiles; the water gulped as I went under. “Go deeper,” she said.

Third time, my hands massaged the warm water, I bent my knees, buried myself in the water’s promise. When I emerged, the mikvah lady announced, “Kosher.”

A second time. “Kosher.” A third time. “Kosher.” Then she stepped out of the room as I had asked her to and left me alone for that minute that I treasure each time, my one chance to contemplate and connect with the Source. “Please,” I whispered to the tiles. “Set me straight. Remind me that You’re here. Help me connect with what is true. Please.” Then I turned, ascended each careful step until the cold air hit my warm, wet body. I burrowed into my robe and returned to the world someone new.

~ Leah

Leah is a 33-year-old ba'alat teshuvah living in the Midwest region of the United States. A follow-up visit with her doctor revealed no medical problems.

Tall Latte's experience and the attached comments reminded me of something that's been bothering me for a long time. Whose business is it, exactly, why you use the mikvah?

If you've been to more than one mikvah, you've probably run into a range of degrees of intrusiveness on the part of the mikvah staff. At some places, they're trained to do nothing more than ask if you want them to look at your hands, feet, & back of the neck; they don't want to scare anyone away. At some places they ask if you've read the preparation checklist on the wall. At some places they actually READ you every item on the checklist, and you have to answer yes, I did that. None of these surprise me, although I think the last one is excessive - it still might be helpful to hear the items out loud, maybe you'll remember one you missed.

But then it starts to get hairy. At some places they ask you when you made your hefsek tahara. Now they're not just helping you prepare on mikvah night, they're checking up on what you did for the entire past week. Again, maybe this is meant to be helpful - perhaps once out of every hundred or thousand women, they hit one who doesn't realize she did the math wrong.

But to me it's a lot more like peeking into your bedroom. What if you have some kind of unusual heter to make a hefsek on an earlier day, do you have to explain that to some stranger now? What if she doesn't believe you? Do you have to give her your rabbi's phone number so she can check up on you? What if he's not home, or you asked the shaylah anonymously because you didn't want him to know your name?

And what if you're deliberately not making your hefsek on the right day: is that any of her business?

Which brings me to the next examples. I know of one mikvah attendant who was told that if she realized a woman had been sent to the mikvah by the nearby Kabbalah center, she should call the rabbi, and he would as diplomatically as he could turn the woman away. I don't even know what his issue was: whether he suspected they were not keeping T"H correctly, or maybe they were doing some kind of non-traditional rituals at the mikvah, or maybe these women weren't Jewish altogether.

That's probably a unique geographical issue, but here's a more universal one: I had the experience of going to an unfamiliar mikvah during Rosh Hashana, and when I called to make the appointment the mikvah lady asked me if I was single. I was flabbergasted. Was she wondering, just because she didn't know me, if I was going to the mikvah because I wanted to have premarital sex? When she insisted that I come by on Erev Yom Tov (the eve of the holiday) to pay her, even though most mikvaot just ask you to mail the check later, I was sure it was because she wanted to see if I looked religious and married.

Months later it occurs to me that maybe she was just asking because of the custom for single women to immerse in preparation for the High Holidays - if I said I was single, she would have explained that I should make my appointment before the holiday rather than on it. But I don't know. This was an area with a large single Jewish population; it seems just as possible that the mikvaot there are rumored to be unwittingly helping single people to sleep together, and maybe in defense they've decided to be aggressive about questioning everyone new.

Most likely none of this is the mikvah attendant's idea. In every case I've listed, it's almost certainly a policy decision by the rabbi, who has told the mikvah attendants that they must ask such-and-such question. And I can see why a rabbi would feel the responsibility to take action based on what he sees as a communal concern - whether it's asking too many questions, for fear of encouraging single women to become tehorah so they can sleep with men they're not married to; or not asking too many questions, for fear of women deciding to give up mikvah altogether and sleep with their husbands while niddah.

But I can't help feeling this is not what a mikvah should be. What business is it of theirs who comes, or what their story is? Why can't the mikvah just be a place that makes it possible for those who want to observe the halacha, to do so, and not worry about the rest? When I go to mikvah, I expect the attendant to tell me my tevilah was kosher. That's it. What I did beforehand, what I do afterward, I don't think of her as pronouncing "kosher" on any of that. Why does she think she is? If I volunteered something I was doing wrong, maybe then I can see her feeling she couldn't knowingly help me commit a sin. But why go asking?

Frankly I think this would be a problem for me, if I was asked to work at the mikvah; I don't think I could enforce such a policy. When it comes down to it, taharat hamishpacha is a private responsibility. What goes on in your bedroom, it seems to me, is your business.

From the crowd here I tend to expect at least some agreement. Not all of you are Orthodox, and I assume you'd be upset - as Tall Latte was - if you were turned away because your practice did not conform to the rules of the mikvah. But I don't think we're representative of the thinking of traditional mikvah staff, or the rabbis who supervise them.

What do you think the rationale is: concerns about communal behavior? A belief that they are somehow responsible, if they aid & abet you in sleeping with someone against halacha? Do they think you might taint the mikvah water? What?

If you ran the mikvah, what would you do?

The first year of observing t'h I truly believe brought me and my husband closer. We were starting to get into that married couple rut of being too tired to be intimate. We didn't seem to be as excited in each other, and t'h brought that back for us. Always affectionate, not being able to hold hands or touch became sort of a game. Then we started trying to have children. Now, I need those hugs. I need the hand-holding. I need the cuddling. It's no longer a game. I'm in a limbo stage where I can't start treatment just yet (probably about two months), but, as my doctor said, I'm "old." Every month when I get my period, I feel like that's x many eggs closer to being depleted. What if those were my last good eggs and next month's will be worthless?

Now, I get worked up about going to the mikvah. Our fertility problems aren't mine. At least not yet. We haven't officially started any treatments yet, so we're assuming my systems are a "go". The stress of wondering if that's true is starting to wear on me, though. And that stress always rears its head at mikvah time.

I'm not a deep person, or particularly profound. I appreciate things for what they are, and don't go looking for the deeper meaning. As long as I know it all came from G-d, that's good enough for me. Oh, don't get me wrong - I enjoy discussion. I was excited about this blog, because I loved observing t'h, and participating in a spiritual ritual that's been observed by women for thousands of years. I get chills when I read about/see pictures of mikva'ot on Masada, or uncovered by archeologists at a tell dig. That amazes me. I was looking forward to writing about that, the highs of observing t'h, while recognizing the occasional temporary lows.

But these days it all makes me sad. Even though I know I can't start treatments for a few months, even though I know there's no chance of me getting pregnant, I get depressed when I get my period. And all I want is comfort - to be held - from my husband, during the one time when I can't have it.

This seems to be a common theme. Infertility and the mikvah. Sucks.

Well that's it; the mikvah lady has officially run out of things to chitchat with me about, as she checks my hands and feet. We were reduced to reminiscing about the renovations last summer. Reminiscing. Did you catch that? Not too many people she can do that with, most likely, because no one else has been there every month before and since.

On my way to the mikvah one month, I met the attendant heading over to open the building, and she said to me, "Wow, that’s amazing. I was just going to call you." Are you recruiting too? I asked, because the other two attendants had already approached me about whether I was willing to replace one of them (who is – you guessed it – about to give birth.) “No,” she said, “but there’s a woman in her ninth month who has to immerse in the mikvah tonight, and it’s a big segulah to immerse right after her.”

I'd never heard of this before. Just to clarify, I asked - You mean, you were going to call and see if I wanted to come and immerse, even if it wasn’t my time of the month to go? “Right,” she said, her eyes shining at this example of what she saw as Divine providence. “Isn't it amazing how things work out? You were coming here tonight anyway.”

Others might disagree with my definition, but to me, a “segulah” seems pretty much like a good luck omen. I don’t believe in segulahs. As a general rule. But it’s pretty clear from the context what the good luck omen must be FOR, yes? For getting pregnant. The attendant clearly thought of me because she’s seen me coming to the mikvah every month without pause for the past five years. And so, although we don’t know each other socially at all, it's obvious to her that I have not been pregnant once in that whole time.

I was so surprised by my reaction. My husband thought I would be upset that she approached me like that, upset that she broached a topic I’ve never brought up with her, upset that people are thinking about or talking about or pitying us. And I wasn’t, not at all. It’s the first time I’ve had any evidence that she noticed. I’ve wondered, for a long time, and although in the past the idea of the mikvah attendants feeling bad for me has made me cringe, lately I’ve been more amazed that no one seems to recognize it might be difficult for me to keep going back every month.

I’m not proud of it, but I have to admit that was part of my reaction when the other attendants asked if I was interested in working there: I thought, don’t you realize this is a painful place for me? For all I know they approached me for the same reason: just trying to think of a way to help me. Maybe they thought that if I give my time for the community in that way, if I make it possible for other women to conceive, perhaps Gd will finally reward me with a child too. I don't personally think it works in that neat measure-for-measure way, but who knows?

So on the whole I was touched by the gesture. And I think it helped that I’ve known her all this time, and she’s always been so discreet. I don’t have even a shred of concern that she’s gossiping about me. Just wishes she could help.

So I said thank you. And I didn’t make light of her belief in signs, or Divine arrangement of events, or immediate reward & punishment, or whatever it was. I tried to take it as a prayer on my behalf by all these other women -- just a prayer they had made more concrete. And I do believe that prayer counts with Gd, especially prayer coming from people more devout than I am. I tried to think about the woman who had immersed before me as I went under the water, although I didn’t quite know how to do that. Were there pregnant vibes emanating through the water, or what? I’ve been too cynical, for too long, to have any practice at this.

And there’s the rub. The mikvah attendant, when she approached me, had no idea why I’ve not been getting pregnant. It was a risk she took, in fact, because for all she knows I might have no uterus. And no amount of prayer or segulah would change that. In fact she was on target, and there is no reason anyone can come up with for why I’m infertile.

But in this case I’m pretty sure I ovulated before I went to mikvah, as I so often do. And it comes to the same thing: I don’t really believe in miracles, not blatant going-against-nature ones, not in this day and age. In my heart I didn’t believe any amount of prayer was going to get that egg back, and I certainly don’t believe that if my prayers and efforts to be a good person – to somehow deserve this pregnancy, if that's possible – have made no difference, what will finally do the trick will be a bit of symbolic theater.

I tried to believe, a little. But I think I failed.

As we found out two weeks later.

~ Anonymous

I had a miscarriage Rosh Chodesh Adar. Ironic, isn't it? The Jewish month of joy, the new moon, Ash Wednesday, Chinese New Year...any way you slice it, it was a big day.

I was at the end of my first trimester. The time when finally parents-to-be cautiously breathe a sigh of relief that the most fragile third of the pregnancy has been successfully navigated. The time when family & friends may be privileged to hear the good news of an immanent new baby Jew.

Instead of sharing this news with the excitement and awe that we had been looking forward to on that day, we buried our fetus, along with its placenta, under a sapling. The hopes for our first child crushed. We really wanted this baby. No ritual or name for this little one, yet its early departure left me with the status of a yoledet - a woman who has recently given birth - according to Jewish Law. Which means that if we ever manage to conceive another child & it is a boy, that my husband, who is of the Israelite class, will not be allowed to perform pidyon haben. This makes sense to me, as the "first born" is the one who opens the womb initially. And this child did just that. A blindingly painful 5 hours of contractions, nausea & chaos. But not really. I delivered the entire contents of my womb on my own, thank G-d, and the only medical advice I received was, "Don't stick anything inside you for two weeks".

Well, being an Orthodox couple, we knew that a yoledet bears a longer period of nidah from her husband than a woman who has only experienced her menses. There was no way we could be intimate again for at least the next two weeks anyway, on religious grounds. And to be honest, I was feeling very protective of myself "down there", so was in no hurry.

I needed time to grieve our loss, as did my husband. And to deal with this flow of blood that signals death. One of the reasons given for a woman to go to mikvah before she unites with her husband is that she is brought so close to death by her cycle. Whether it is the loss of an ovum or a stillbirth child, G-d forbid, she must ready herself for intimacy by counting a minimum amount of time after her blood & then returning to another womb of sorts.

The mikvah is like going home. Like both your Father and your Mother enveloping you - but not your Earthly parents, The Supernal Aba & Ema. G-d.

The blood never seemed to stop. I felt like I was dying, but I knew it was just my fears there there might be something wrong with me. I confided in my friend Ariellah, who said, "How do you know that this wasn't just a very high soul who visited you temporarily because it needed to do a last little bit of teshuvah? How do you know that this Being did not find joy in you while you held it within you?" I wept.

As my breasts & belly shrank, I brought confusion and anger into my davenen. I had said a special prayer, traditional to Medieval Italian Jewish women, to protect myself & my pregnancy from any disaster. It hadn't worked. There were no answers. I didn't know what to do with my agony or questions, so I gave them all to G-d.

I tried so hard to focus on the things I had to be thankful for each time I threw myself on the bed & cried. I was so disappointed. But my womb did its job, B"H, and I did not hemorrage, B"H, and I did not require a D&C, B"H, and I was never in any physical danger, B"H, and my doctor is not concerned about my body. She is only very sorry for me.

During the "white" days I dreaded the bedikat. I didn't want to see any blood because I wanted to feel like I was healing and yet seeing the wrong color would assure me that I could postpone intimacy, that I could remain cloistered in my private grief. I hated all the counting & all the rules, which I had never hated before, because I just wanted to be free and on my own and not have any externally applied boundaries to my process of letting go and coming around.

Mikvah night came, "finally". I was full of mixed feelings during my preparation, partly because I wasn't sure if I felt emotionally ready to share a bed with my husband quite yet, as wonderful and supportive as he had been during this difficult time. My body seemed ready, though, showing me that I was already ovulating again. Eager to risk another miscarriage, or possibly a living child.

I was extra scrupulous in the tub, as it would be Shabbos when I immersed. I had never done tevilah on Shabbos, so I checked with the mikvah lady ahead of time about what extra or different or special things I would need to do or be aware of during my prep & while in the water. She reminded me to floss before candle lighting and to be more careful about my hands and feet. She also asked me to tie my hair back with an elastic after I had combed everything out, as knots in hair could not be unsnarled after Shabbos and those disqualify the tevilah. She was very nice about it.

I arrived at the mikvah and she let me in happily. She was 8 months pregnant. I tried not to feel jealous. I don't want to put the ayin hara on her or her baby. We wished each other a Shabbat Shalom and she showed me into one of the changing rooms so I could undress. "Don't worry," she said with a smile, "it's really fast on Friday night, because there's nothing for you to do."

I came out into the light in my towel for her to check me over. She said I looked pretty, which was very sweet of her. Then we went into the mikvah room and I stood in front of the steps. Such a beautiful, sacred place where all my fears, my shortcomings, my veneers of Self, of Ego which cover my neshamah get washed away each cycle. A place I used to be so eager to visit and now, not so much. As she closed the door behind her I suddenly broke down in sobs.

"Aw, are you okay?" she asked as she came over with a sympathetic look on her face.
"No," I answered through my tears, "I'm here because I had a miscarriage, so I was just hoping that I would not have had to come back to the mikvah this early. I'm sorry - I didn't think I would do this."
She gave me a great big hug, her with her great big belly & me in my white cotton towel. She looked me in the eye reassuringly & told me that this was a new beginning. She was right. I thanked her for reminding me.

I gave her my towel and descended into the warm, healing waters. The soft swirling whisper they made as they surrounded me was comforting. Because it was Shabbos, I dunked one time "for my shower" that normally I would take when I arrived at the mikvah on a chol day. Then a second time as usual. she pronounced it kosher. So I reached for the cloth to put on my head, crossed my arms in front of me and said the berachah with very narrow focus. After her "ameyn", I went under three more times.

Once with the hope that G-d would heal my body and soul so that I would be ready and able to birth a living, surviving child one day, drowning my tears and washing them away.

"Kosher."

Once with the request that G-d would help my husband and me through our sadness and strengthen our marriage from this crisis.

"Kosher."

Then one final time that I be enabled to make myself and my work and the way I am in the world all one, doing G-d's will.

"Kosher."

May this be the will of the Holy one, HaKadosh baruch Hu.
A new beginning.
Yeysh mey-ayin.

After my first baby was born, it was a long time before I got to mikvah. (I was stupid, and didn't ask about my brown and then yellow bedikahs that were probably fine, for many reasons, including the fact that putting off going to mikvah, while not fair to my husband, was just fine with me! Getting those bedikahs to a Rav would have been complicated, but it could have been done. There's always the US Mail.) I wanted to have gone to mikvah, I just didn't want to go to mikvah...

But eventually I went. And when my period returned at 5 months post-partum, boy was I upset. Whatever happened to nursing clean! I was robbed! And no, he wasn't on solids yet! Since then I've spoken with a lot of women who've had similar experiences (usually, we all have children born really close together!). Okay, so I learned nursing wasn't adequate birth control for me. It didn't even save me from having to use the mikvah. Totally unfair! So I got pregnant again, fast. Another hiatus, truly earned.

But I couldn't do that forever. I mean, I like kids and all, but sooner or later, I had to come to terms with my fear of the water.

My fear of the water had earned me one thing: A heter. No, not special permission not to use the mikvah, no Orthodox Rav is going to say that! The attendant had asked on my behalf, and I was granted a heter to only get one Kosher tevilah. That's it. Not 3, not 9 or 7, as some have the custom to do, 1. (As in all things, this was my heter, not yours, ask your own Rav. The normal minimum is 2 without extenuating circumstances, one before and one after the brocha.)

This was the deal we made... one to get wet, don't worry if it's kosher or not. Make the brocha, dip again. I would make at least three tries, and then additional dips as necessary to get my 1 Kosher Tevilah, but I would no longer be trying for 3 times Kosher. One was enough, and I could get out!

The true turning point came one night when after 8 or nine tries, the attendant said, "I'm 98% sure that was Kosher," and let me out of the mikvah. Half way up the steps, I stopped. Could I really go home and say, "I'm 98% sure I'm tahor."? I turned to the attendant. "Should I go back in?" I asked. We agreed we would both be more comfortable if I did. And no, it wasn't one more try, but more like another 5! But by then, we were both sure it was 100% Kosher.

After that, it got easier. I was still uncomfortable in the water, still tried to "not think about it too much" during the sheva neki'im, but that was the one and only time I truly used my heter. After that, I was much more relaxed about my ability to get under, and I usually got my three Kosher tevilot, although we still agreed that after one, I could give up and declare myself done. I started every mikvah visit by telling the mikvah attendant of both my fear and my heter. Knowing I didn't "have to" gave me the strength to dip the additional times.

Discussing mikvah just isn't done. Because of its inheret tie to the resumption of marital relations, the fact that you're going is something shared with your husband and the mikvah lady, and that's it. (Maybe your hostess if you're traveling and staying in someone's house and can't come up with a reasonable explanation for your absence.) One of the problems with all the secrecy surrounding going to the mikvah is that it's really hard to keep secrets from your kids. Although they know nothing of the details, sooner or later they start asking questions. Where is Imma going? Why aren't you taking any of us with you? Imma, you never go anywhere without the baby. Why aren't you taking him/her? I had to start leaving the baby more often, going shopping by myself, going to shiurim (lectures) and not explaining myself every time, so it wouldn't be so strange when I left without any of them.

I make a point of being honest, with myself and with others. So even though I may manage to slip out without telling the kids where I'm going, my husband and I prepare a cover story. Then I call home before I actually come home, and ask if he had to use it. If he told them I was going to the grocery store, I have to actually stop at the grocery store on the way home, and come home with groceries!

We did the same thing once when my parents were visiting. Feeling a little guilty, we asked them to babysit so that my husband and I could go for "a long drive." My leaving by myself would have looked a little strange, but us both leaving, and leaving them with the kids made more sense. When he picked me up after, he insisted on taking that "long drive" (rightfully so, I was just feeling more guilty about how long the whole process was taking, since I couldn't really prepare at home with a house full of guests!) before we went back.

And preparing at home with kids... well, I often wind up borrowing a trick I learned from my kallah teacher the first time I needed to go to mikvah Friday night. "I can't take time to prepare right before Shabbos!" I protested. "So take a long bath in the morning when you get up," she suggested. "Then do all the little things thoroughout the day, and just before Shabbos go take a good shower."

I know, many of you have heard that you can't eat or do anything else once you begin preparation. That's the ideal, but it's not the only way. [Like the people who tell you a hefsek taharah must be done within half an hour of sunset. Ideal, but not the only way. But that's another post.] Anyway, preparing over the course of the whole day gives the preparation more meaning for me, somehow imbues it with more sprirtuality. I'm not sure why, or how, but the whole day becomes more focused, but in a more relaxed way.

Before my husband and I got married, I really wanted to go to the mikvah. I had no idea what t"h actually entailed, nor did I think it was something that I would observe, but I felt very strongly I wanted to go to the mikvah before we got married. I didn't. There was too much to do, I didn't know how to tell our non-observant families that I needed time to go to the mikvah, oh, and could someone find a mikvah for me. I regretted that deeply.

I still don't remember how the topic actually came up, but I started becoming more and more interested in t"h, and like the new kid standing on the sidelines of the dodgeball game, afraid to ask to be let into the game, I wanted to play, but was scared. I talked to everybody about it: my friends, my rebbetzin (we'll call her rebA), a rebbetzin (rebB) with whom my husband and I are friends. RebB loaned me Rivka Slonim's book, Total Immersion. I greedily consumed it, but it didn't speak to me. There were wonderful stories there; some inspiring, some moving, some astonishing, but none of them touched me. Nothing addressed issues of being naked in front of another person. In every story each woman talked about her private time, her private conversation with G-d, her personal space, being all alone - but I kept thinking, "YOU'RE NOT ALONE! There's a mikvah lady there! Talk to me about the mikvah lady staring at your naked cellulite!"

Then came the film Tehora (Purity). It caused a lot of angst in the Orthodox world, and also inspired a lot of conversation. Even though I still wasn't yet observing t"h, I found myself defending the practice to women who insisted that this practice was yet another way of subjugating women and saying that women are unclean. I don't think I won any of those arguments, even when I got the whole of idea of tamei (ritually impure) and tahor (ritually pure) clear to myself. But it did reinforce my desire to start practicing t"h. But I just couldn't get over this apprehension over being naked in front of someone else, whose job it is to stare at my body. Back in highschool, I hatedhatedhated gym class because the girls' shower room was a bunch of stalls with no curtains. No way was I going to shower naked in front of a whole bunch of other girls. So how was I going to be naked in front of a woman who is supposed to be looking at me?

Finally, rebB and I were talking one day, and she asked how things were going with my t"h quest. From the look on my face, she pulled me away from the other people around. I explained to her my naked apprehensions, and bless her, she proceeded to explain to me in detail what she does when she is the mikvah attendant. How she checks for hair, looks at nails and feet, and most importantly, holds the towel up in front of her, and doesn't drop it until the woman says she's ready. Relief! It was like a weight was lifted off my shoulders! I could totally deal with someone looking at me after I was already in the water. The water distorts, so they wouldn't have a real view of me.

My husband and I discussed this some more, and we felt strongly that since we were about to start trying to get pregnant, we wanted to ensure that we did everything according to G-d's will. So my next cycle, we started. After my period, I counted my clean days, realized my mikvah day would be motsei Shabbos (after Shabbos was over) and had no idea what to do (understand, I was counting every day because I wasn't sure I was understanding the whole erev plus the day, versus just the day). So on Shabbat, I asked my rebbetzin about counting and we figured out that I was right, and that night I should immerse. I was disappointed, because at that point, I already knew that the mikvah appointments need 24 hours' notice, and I am SO not one to cause trouble with rules, no matter how hard you try to convince me that this is a higher priority. My rebbetzin does not share the same hangup, thankfully. She called the attendant immediately after Havdalah, who said "of course I'll make room for her." The attendant happily gave me plenty of time to prepare, they both made sure I knew what to do and where to go, and off I went.

After all that buildup, it was not special.

In comments to my previous post, My first time... I said I had always thought taking the mikvah lady up on her idea of "practicing" sometime in bathing suits (to get me more comfortable with the water) was a good idea, but had just never gotten around to it. In retrospect, that was a lie. Since I pride myself on being honest, here's the real reason I never accepted what seemed like a perfectly reasonable offer.

First, understand that we're talking about real fear here. I had a brief but traumatic experience as a child, where I was swallowed by a wave (on the beach). I've blocked out any actual memories of this event, but I can assume that for a moment there, I was completely engulfed by the water, and had no sensation of which way was up, no firm contact with the ground.

I'm plenty comfortable in a pool. (I've never since liked the beach.) At least before I realized mixed swimming was an issue, I'd happily put on a bathing suit and go "swimming," either meet a friend at the neighborhood pool, or join my sister in the hotel pool on vacations. I had two rules, though. Rule 1: I had to be holding onto something... either my feet firmly on the bottom, or my hands firmly on the side or on a handrail... I was slightly less comfortable holding onto a person, but that was also acceptable. Rule 2: No dunking me. My head must remain above the water at all times.

You can see how both of these rules are incompatible with the whole mikvah experience (especially the second one!). Just thinking about it sent me into panic mode and left me shaky. It was bad enough I was having trouble getting a kosher tevilah and needed to try many times when I had to go to mikvah. Obviously, meeting the mikvah lady at the mikvah in a bathing suit would entail my having to put my head under additional times, or what would be the point? I was perfectly comfortable in the water with my head out of it.

Simply put, I wasn't willing to submit myself to water torture for anything less than a divine commandment. Especially when I got pregnant so soon after marriage... I saw it as a gift, not just of the new life I was carrying, but the gift of not having to dunk myself for almost a year. I needed that hiatus, and I was darn well taking it!

I put off making a hefsek taharah as long as I could, but I finally did it. Partially I stalled because I wasn't supposed to see my future husband once I did it, and we had paperwork to take care of if we wanted to be married legally, not just halachically. Mostly it was because it started the count-down to going to mikvah. As it was, we wound up seeing each other anyway, to take care of that paperwork. Once I went to mikvah, though, we didn't even talk on the phone, except through intermediaries.

I was supposedly frum, but I was very new to everything, and I was far from home. The community had adopted me to a certain extent... made my bridal shower, made sure I had invitations for Shabbos meals, a place to stay the Shabbos before my Sunday wedding so I wouldn't be alone... but it occurred to no one to offer to accompany me to mikvah.

Yes, I was scared of the water, but I was determined to go anyway... I wanted to be married, and that was stronger (minimally) than my fear, but I had panic attacks and an adrenaline rush that left me weak and shaky every time i thought of my upcoming "trial by water." I was to be married on Sunday, and my kallah teacher decided I should go to mikvah Friday morning rather than Saturday night.... so my preparations wouldn't be rushed, and so my time in the mikvah wouldn't be rushed by knowing others were waiting. She told me to meet her at the mikvah, and that I could bring a friiend, but I didn't know who to ask... people are busy Friday morning. So I came alone.

When she met me there, there were three of us on the front steps. "Oh, good, you did bring some friends," she said. But they were there for the same reason. One of them was also getting married on Sunday, and her sister accompanied her. (They had arranged to meet a different shomeret there.) Still, it was nice to not feel completely alone, and I wished for my sister's company. As alien as my life style seems to her, she would have come and offered moral support... but she wasn't in town yet, and she was traveling with Nita, who would definitely not have been invited! So it was just as well.

I don't remember anymore how many times it took me to actually get my three kosher dunks. My long hair floated, so they offered me a hairnet. I found it hard to remember not to breathe under water, and choked as the chlorinated water burned the inside of my nose and mouth. I especially found it hard to get far enough under, as I felt that I was drowning as soon as the water closed over my head. And picking up my feet at the same time was another hardship, as I lost my connection with solid ground.

All I really remember is that, pale and shaking, I accomplished my objective: a kosher tevilah. Oh, I was still terrified of the water. I would still spend the sheva neki'im in subsequent months trying not to think about what exactly I was counting up to. But now I knew that scared or not, I could and would do it. In a way, it was empowering. And imagine what it meant to my husband: here I was, doing something that scared me to tears, all for him. (Well, that's how he saw it!)

Over the next few times, we (the shomerot and I) worked out some details to make it easier. I held onto the metal hand rail, as far down as I could reach, with one hand, held my nose with the other. Wore the hairnet so I wouldn't have to worry about stray floating hairs. Pulled myself down by the handrail, pulled my feet up as I let go of my nose, then broke the surface of the water. It still took me many tries before I heard the shomeret say "Kosher!" And everytime I met a "new" shomeret, I had to start by explaining that I was scared of the water. One time when I went to mikvah the shomeret said, "So get pregnant. Then you won't have to come for a while." "Fine," I said, through gritted teeth, "but I still have to get through this first!" (And yes, I did, in fact, conceive that night.)

So I got a hiatus, some needed time off. At least until after the baby was born...

I think I’ll get my proverbial “feet wet” with a mikvah story about a friend, rather than myself. I was still a single girl when a good friend told me this story.

She was in her 30s, after being frum for a number of years. She was married for over three years and had been told by a few infertility specialists that she and her husband could never get pregnant without medical assistance (funny how often you hear that). She had been given a heter to only make bedikahs on the first and last day of counting (I don’t recommend this practice unless you absolutely must). The trick to this is that you must remember to make that last bedikah; if you forget you have to start counting all over again. (Just a technical note, this is a complicated matter and you should consult with a Rov and a Kallah Teacher if you have such a heter/practice and if you experience what happens next.)

So here was my friend who had made only her first bedikah, and she and her husband went “out of town” to help friends who were running a Purim Party at a Jewish Old Age home. She was due to make her last bedikah that day and toivel that evening. As everything Jewish goes, the Purim party started late, ran late and they left back to Brooklyn late. Sure enough, they got stuck in traffic, and between the craziness of the day and the traffic she either forgot or couldn’t make the last bedikah before sunset. She called the Rov who told her, unfortunately because she had not made any bedikahs other than the first, she would have to start all over again – i.e. if she had made even one bedikah in the middle she could have started counting seven again from that middle bedikah. But now she would have to start over again.

Devastated and with great mesiras nefesh, she counted again, feeling that now this was a wasted cycle, and that by the time she got to the mikvah it would be too late to get pregnant. Gam tzu la tova she told herself. This time she made sure to make her bedikah on the last day. She went to the mikvah feeling sad and blue. She bathed and prepared herself for the mikvah. When she was ready she rang the desk, and in a few minutes one of the mikvah ladies came to take her to the mikvah. Now this is a busy mikvah with four or five mikvah ladies that split up the days of the week amongst them – you never know which mikvah lady you will get on any given day. The mikvah lady, who hadn’t seen my friend in some time said, “I haven’t seen you in such a long time! Do you get a mazel tov? Did you have a baby?” Now I’m sure the mikvah lady had the best of intentions, but this just pushed my friend over the edge.

She began to cry and couldn’t stop. She explained that no, she wasn’t pregnant yet. The mikvah lady apologized, but my friend couldn’t stop crying. As she told me, “I couldn’t tell if the water I immersed in was rain water or my own tears.” She toiveled, the mikvah lady apologized again, she got dressed and went home a broken woman.

Of course, I’m sure you figured out by now, that she had a beautiful baby nine months later; a child that has gone on to be a bright star – a smart, funny, and beautiful six year old – and the now the oldest of four with a fifth on the way.

I tell this story not because of the miracle or divine providence in her getting pregnant, but because of her mesiras nefesh to keep halacha and to remind everyone to watch what they say. The mikvah lady in question was oblivious to this person’s situation and made what she thought was a nice comment. It devastated my friend instead. But perhaps that devastation was the teshuva she needed to get pregnant. I don’t know. I just know that if it was me I would have probably hauled off and belted the mikvah lady.

Hello, my name is Tziva. I have to admit that the whole mikvah process is a mixed bag for me. I enjoy the results. The actual dunking I find a spiritual experience. The prep I dread, it is stressful and tiring. It brings out OCD tendancies in me. I could spend a whole day sloughing off dead skin, cleaning my belly button and ear ring holes and recutting fingernails until they hurt. By the time I leave for the mikvah I am exausted. I need to find a way to put some perspective into my preperations and maybe even a touch of spirituality.

Do you all know about the Mikvah Project? When I first saw the photographs I was in love. Although the idea of looking at images of other women using the mikvah was jarring, considering the degree of tzniut we usually try to preserve, for me the photos really do capture something of the poetry I feel in those moments under the water -- which is part of what made me want to write about mikvah, too. But I must say, I'm a lot less excited about it now that I find out they used models!

I suppose I should have realized, right? Orthodox women, for example, would never agree to pose nude, whether or not their faces were showing. And it's not that I object -- I'm all for people using the mikvah once even if they never plan to go again; I don't mind people making up their own "purifying" rituals that may have nothing to do with normative Judaism; I don't even have a problem with non-believers using the mikvah. But still, for me, it takes something away from the viewing to know that many of these people probably didn't really get what mikvah was about. It's not just about being naked underwater, although that can be profoundly affecting. It's not just about the mystery of something larger than yourself; there are plenty of mystical rituals in other religions, and I don't consider them interchangeable. It's about Gd -- our Gd -- isn't it? Or at least, about connection to the centuries of Jews who did this because they believed in Gd... and if you don't believe that Gd commanded this, or even leave a question in your mind open to that belief, are we even having the same experience?

So to be clear, I don't object to their using models, or to the models using the mikvah. And it's clear from the rest of the project that they wanted it to be as authentic as possible, but for the photo part that was just an impossibility. Still, I see myself in those photographs less than I did before I found out. I'm wistful about that, because mikvah is such a private, maybe even isolating practice. I know intellectually that I share it with many other women, but it was nice for a moment to feel it was shared.

I guess it goes back to the whole nature of this observance, and the question of what we're trying to accomplish by writing about it here. Can an experience so private really ever be conveyed or understood? Should it be?

I've gotten so much better about my obsessive/compulsive relationship with taharat hamishpacha. Partly thanks to my therapist, who convinced me that Gd would actually approve of my becoming less afraid of making a mistake. Partly thanks to our (second) rabbi, who finally - when all else failed - told me, "once you get home to your husband, don't ask any questions NO MATTER WHAT you notice." It still takes some effort on my part, though, to get through mikvah day without a knot of tension in my stomach.

I give myself twice as much time to get ready as it should normally take, both so that I'm not rushing around (because that physically feels like I'm nervous, even if I'm not), and so that later I won't be as likely to say to myself "How do you know you didn't miss that? After all, you were rushing around." I used to even put on soothing music during my bath, but I've gotten so I don't need to do that anymore. I still spend a long, long, long time on my nails, because ragged cuticles are the one thing I can't convince myself that I don't care about... and not surprisingly, they were almost always the thing I used to find after I got home. Or on the way home. Or even, agonizingly, on the way from the mikvah room back to my prep room. So if I know I've been completely thorough with them, I can more easily tell myself that anything I notice as I'm getting dressed must be new. I couldn't have missed it before.

But although I'm better able to sit through the anxiety when it does hit me, I'm still susceptible to it hitting in the first place. Friday nights and Yom Tov, as you can imagine, are the worst. What if I notice something tiny after candle lighting, when I can no longer do anything about it? Will I ask a shayla, with all the stress that would entail, or will I attempt to ignore it - tell myself I'm just obsessing - and instead be eaten up by guilt later? This last time, I davened Kabbalat Shabbat almost primarily as a way to keep myself from checking my hands. I figured Gd wouldn't mind me using Him a little. For a good cause.

All's well that ends well, I thought as I headed for the mikvah, or it's about to anyway. Only to find (as almost never happens, in my tiny neighborhood) that there was a line of people ahead of me. OK, maybe it does happen, but if it's a weeknight I can do something while I wait: I just keep going over my nails, or if even *I* get sick of that, I can read something from my backpack. This was Shabbos. There was nothing I was allowed to do; there was nothing I had brought with me. I sat in my robe, trying not to look at anything or touch anything, trying not to let even a stirring of nervousness begin.

Add that to the fact that - as much as I love and miss my husband - mikvah night has by now become synonymous, for me, with Yet Another Futile Effort to Conceive. And suddenly for a second I was Angela from My So Called Life, forced to wait for a room so she could reluctantly lose her virginity to Jordan Catalano.

"It was *exactly* like when I was waiting to get my flu shot, only I didn't even have a magazine to read."

IwishIwishIwish mikvah attendants would leave after I'm technically finished in the mikvah. I feel like there's an unwritten law: 3 dunks and yerrrrrrr OUT! I was inspired by someone special to me to spend a few minutes alone with myself in the mikvah after my 3 dunks, 3 "ko-SHER"s, and 1 bracha. This is private time, I'm squeaky clean, I'm sparkling fresh, I'm blessed, I'm holy again. I'm in the re-birthing waters. Now is the time when I feel like I have a direct line to G-d; it's as if He's waiting for me to speak. Persephone said it exactly in her blog, In the Barren Season:
"...I felt, in the water, like this is the moment when there's nothing between me and Gd."

Except, it's me and G-d... and the mikvah attendant. I have to break the spell and ask if she minds if I "take a moment." Usually, the attendants get the idea and quietly leave. Sometimes, the person attending doesn't get it, says "sure" and then stands there. I should work up the courage to say right up front, "after my 3rd immersion, I like to take a moment alone in the water; I can see myself out." But I'm a little intimidated by the mikvah attendants. They have the power. If the attendant decides I'm not kosher, she can make me go back and re-wash, immerse 20 more times, or come back the next day... She can keep me from my husband. Granted, I don't really think any attendant would ever do that. But they could.

Anyway, when the attendant gets it, and leaves the room, and I have my few moments of solitude with G-d, I feel holy and heard. I really feel like, unlike other times when millions of us are praying relatively the same thing at around the same time, when I immerse, G-d is watching me, G-d is with me, purifying me with each submersion. So naturally, He'll stick around to hear what I have to say afterwards.

He's never answered me at the mikvah, though. from Beneath the Surface

The post about not actually going to the mikvah in La Paz reminded me that every mikvah is different, and if you've only ever been to one, you might find a very different experience at a second one, while traveling, if you move, etc. I wanted to share some aspects that were different at some different mikva'ot I've been to. (For anonymity, this post was edited to be point by point instead of mikvah by mikvah, well after it was initially posted.)

Point A. At one busy mikvah in a smallish but not tiny community there's a waiting room, you ring the doorbell and are buzzed in, but you pass throught the waiting room, and if all the preparation rooms are full, you stop there and wait... very likely to see other women you know... but while appointments are prefered, you don't actually need one if you come during "standard mikvah hours" At two others in smaller communities, you must make an appointment, and they try to schedule it so you don't meet anyone coming or going. One is extremely careful about this... you knock before leaving your room when you are dressed. The other will ask you both if you mind seeing anyone before allowing the person leaving as you come in to walk past you... but doesn't require you to get permission to leave your preparation room.

Point B. Making appointments: At one place you leave a message on an answering machine, only expecting a call back if there's a problem with the time you want to come (one example I was given is if you live in the same city as your MIL, you probably don't want to run into her at the mikvah.) At another, you call voicemail to find out who the attendant is, then call her at home to make the appointment. In a third, you call a voice mail line and leave a message... the attendant calls you back to set a specific time.

Point C. Some preparation rooms may have their own toilets, but in at least one mikvah you must walk back down the hall to use the bathroom... and if they are very busy, someone may be using the bathroom to prepare!

Point D. One mikvah gives you a white sheet, one mostly has robes, a third only gives you the towel. (Towels are provided by all of the ones I've been to... the robe or the sheet are for wrapping yourself in.)

Point E. Standard procedure in one place is to ask you what you want checked. Standard procedure elsewhere is to check your hands, feet, and back. Some places the attendants are slightly more paranoid, and will check anything you'll let them, even on Shabbos, where at least one attendant told me "well, you can't really fix anything, so we don't really check..." as she checked my hands, feet, and back... But one place told me to check myself on Shabbos, and she didn't check me at all.

Point F. Some places they are much more careful about not looking as you descend into the mikvah and ascend after dunking (sheet, towel or robe in front of their faces for this part) but some are less obvious about it. Also, some attendants have a practice of specifically touching you after you come up out of the mikvah, shaking your hand or patting your arm and again saying "Kosher."

Point G. Buying Bedikah cloths: at one place, a woman in the community sells them and you contact her separately. (she's also an attendant, but only brings them with her if you ask in advance) The others have them available at the mikvah if you remember to ask... get the extra-soft if they give you a choice. There are fewer in the packet for the same price, but it's worth every penny.

The ex and I took a trip to Peru and Bolivia to celebrate the end of his medical training. The trip was amazing: the Amazon, Macchu Picchu, surviving off granola bars and canned tuna, the gold museum in Lima, the alpaca wool shops (I knit). It was such a learning experience and culturally enriching.

But, let me tell you, getting your period in the Andes and having it continue while in the Amazon was no picnic. First off we were pretty high up in the Andes. Like needing to take medication up. Like crisp cold air up. Like some people needing additional oxygen up. Like altitude sickness up. And then down in the Amazon – below sea level – it’s hot, buggy, muggy and muddy. Oh, and did I mention the pit toilets.

OK, so the trip continues. The cans of tuna dwindle. The staining stops. The counting begins. Everything goes like clockwork.

We arrive in La Paz a day before it would be time to use the mikvah. I’d done my homework and knew there was a mikvah. This, being in the days before ubiquitous email addresses and Internet sites, I had a phone number and the name of the attendant. Of course, like many telephone numbers over seas, this one was not working.

I tried looking up mikvah in the phone book. Yeah, right. Baño religioso? Nada.

I tried looking up the synagogue in the phone book. For security reasons, not listed.

OK, so now what? At least the ex spoke Spanish.

So, being the resourceful person I am I said let’s look up Jewish names in the white pages. I found one Esther Levy. Sounded promising. Said ex got on the phone and asked 1. if she was Jewish (she must have been more than a little concerned) 2. and if affirmative did she have the contact information for the baño religioso? Si!

Ex then called the rabbi and explained – in his high school level Spanish – that he was Ploni ben Ploni and a member of Congregation XX in City, U.S and that Rabbi So and So was our rav. He then said that his wife, Plonit Plonit bat Ploni Ploni ha Kohen, needed to use the mikvah. The rabbi seemed more than a little surprised at the request. He did, however, pass on the name of the attendant.

Ex then called the attendant (a man?!). He repeated the same spiel. No dice. Mr. Attendant said that the water was cold. So, I could handle a few dunks in unheated water. I thought back to the many stories of women in Communist Russia who braved ice covered mikvahs in secret. Nope. Mr. Attendant said it would take several days to bring up the temperature in the mikvah and no, I could not use it – freezing or otherwise.

I’m not sure if Mr. Attendant thought I was some nut bar who wanted to get into the mikvah for nefarious purposes. Right. Malicious skinny dipping. Face it, if I listed my Hebrew name, my father’s Hebrew name, the location of my shul and the name of my rav and if I actively sought out using the mikvah wouldn’t that say something? Guess not.

I remained unavailable for the rest of the vacation. Considering that part of my marriage and ex's lack of abilities in that department, it wasn't such a hardship. Notice: he's my ex.

We flew home two days later and I was back to using my community mikvah by nightfall. Later I shared this story with our rabbi who was mildly amused. Happily I’ve arranged subsequent vacations to coincide with my available times or pregnancies. And so ends my South American vacation and my attempt to use the La Paz mikvah.

I was born frum, to non-frum parents. Not exactly a comfortable situation, but I made the best of it, although I did struggle mightily against being made to wear jeans! Ha, I won, I get to wear skirts all the time now!

Eventually I grew up, went to college, and fell head over heels in love... with Shabbat and orthodoxy. It was like coming home... well, that's why they call it Ba'alat Teshuva, right?

Met a nice guy, first generation frum (second generation ba'al teshuvah? you know, frum parents, non-observant grandparents) eventually convinced him there was a future for us, and we got engaged.

Then I met up with the first real snag with my becoming observant, besides the parents not being thrilled: Going to mikvah. Oh, I always knew I'd go, at least once, before I got married. That info was ingrained in me somehow, perhaps by my grandmother, who helped raise me. And since I was now an Observant, Orthodox Jewess, it would be more than just that one time, if I wanted to stay married!

There was just one small problem.

I was afraid of the water.

OK. I’ll come right out and say it. I am a contradiction in terms. I can just hear my grandfather asking “Are you on foot or on horseback?” I’m not sure.

I’m not exactly Conservative - although I currently attend a Conservative shul. I grew up Reform, left it behind at 13 and I’m definitely not that! I know I’m not Reconstructionist because I’m not sure what it even entails. And, yup, I’m not Orthodox either.

For years I tried to be frum. I lived in Israel and New York. I did the no pants, long skirt thing. I did the mid-length skirt look. I did Chabad. I did the Upper West Side/East Side shtick. It didn’t work. Or it didn’t stick. I’m not sure. I don’t think I wore the right length skirts.

It’s not just that I’m too much of a left-leaning liberal and sometimes feminist (most of the time really). It’s that I can’t tow the line. It’s not that I have a commitment problem. It’s more that I have trouble being told what to do. I’m a wannabe though. In my dreams I’m FFB. I’m even hassidishe. I’ve tried. G-d knows I tried. But then I just have to tear toilet paper on Shabbat…or drive to shul in the pouring rain because I’m running late and I’m dverse to being soaked. Little things like that.

On a good day, I’m Conservadox. On a really good day I think I could buckle down and follow the laws completely. On a medium day I’m confused. On a bad day I’m guilt ridden. So, here I am.

And how does this ganse megillah relate to mikvah? Honestly, it does.

Back in 1995 I was engaged to be married. That’s a story in and of itself. Look for it in a future contribution. Anyway we were to be married by a local Sephardic Orthodox rabbi.

I knew I wanted to keep the laws of T”H. My not-at-all-religious fiancé had zero choice in the matter. I bought several books on the subject and dutifully plowed through them. Aryeh Kaplan. Tehilla Abromov. Some little blue book with a detailed calendar section. I was neither inspired nor instructed.

The wedding date approached and I made my mikvah appointment. Then I panicked. I was put in touch with the wife of the local Ashkenazic rabbi. She agreed to give me an hour’s crash course in the laws of T”H. (Side note: she was a very cool person. She put on a skirt over jogging tights when she went running in the neighborhood.) OK, I can tell you that an hour with this rebbitzin was not enough. I learned basically bupkes.

My first trip to the mikvah was not a magical experience. I was not transformed. I did not feel the mystery. There was no Shekinah. There was no connection to the past or to the future. There was a kindly Holocaust survivor who checked for a stray hair on my shoulders. There were funny paper slippers, a decaying building with out-of-date tile in need of caulk and a bulletin board with hand-lettered signs offering sheitel styling and bedikah cloths. Huh?

I’ve heard that some kallahs are accompanied by ululating friends and relatives. I’ve heard that others come with their mothers. My experience was like much of what I did in my Jewish life: I was alone and clueless.

My then- fiancé tried to be supportive. He even drove me to my appointment on the Thursday before our Sunday ceremony and we made plans to go out for dessert afterward. So, what did I know about not seeing each other the week before the wedding?

When I think back to my first mikvah experience, I feel a tinge of regret. I didn’t know fully what I was doing but I knew why I was doing it. I wanted to start off my marriage on the right foot. I wanted to keep T”H because HaShem said so. That was good enough for me. That I wasn’t sure then – or now – if I have any real faith is irrelevant. I’m hedging my bets.

But here’s the thing. If you’re not frum, BT or FFB, there really aren’t kallah classes out there – at least not in my community. There aren’t enough Jewish weddings here even to merit a formal educational system.

Our average Conservative or Reform rabbis don’t point engaged couples toward using the mikvah to sanctify an impending wedding or as part of a Jewish marriage. For conversion? Yes. Marriage? No. Most of the women who use our mikvah are frum. Those handful of non-Orthodox women come to using the mikvah with different stories and with varying degrees of preparation.

Anyway, I wish there were kallah classes for the non-Orthodox. I wanted to do things right. I still do. I had no idea then about bedikah or veset or charting or candlelighting times and so on. I knew to clean my ears and belly button. Gee, that’s useful. I knew to take off my contact lenses and nail polish. OK, that’s helpful. But the actual mechanics of the white days, checking and not passing the salt to your spouse? There’s still so much to learn.

The years have passed. Mikvah is still a part of my life. It’s like these two things are bookends. In the middle the chapters have definitely changed and the book is not at all the one I started reading. I still want to take a class to learn how to observe T”H properly. Perhaps being a part of this new venture will spur me into action. I’m looking forward to learning from you, toward growing in my observance and to finally, hopefully, really, doing it right.

It's interesting how much the experience of mikvah has changed for me, since I first started going. When we were first married it was all about excitement: the anticipation of reunion with my husband, whom I hadn't touched in almost 2 weeks. We weren't...

I was thinking they should give you a prize if you have to visit the mikvah more than a certain number of times per year. A gift certificate, a movie pass, oh I don't know, how about just not having to pay for the visit that month?

It's gotten so hard to hold my head up at the mikvah, month after month, year after year. Yes, I'm back. Yes, I'm still not pregnant. The mikvah attendant is so nice, she makes me feel like a person, not a pity case. But it's hard.

I know everyone’s sex life, which is kind of funny when you think about it. I am a guardian of secrets. I know the most sacred things about a woman’s life. What her body is doing inside. When she is going to sleep with her husband. When she’s holding ...

If you are a woman who has had it with tests, examinations and what not from "mikveh ladies" (or has a wife who has had it), then this (Hebrew) article "Oppression of Women by Women" by Ma'ayan Cohen is for you. "The excessive supervision by 'mikveh l...