Mayim Rabim

I have been seeing a gentleman and it appears to have real potential. My biggest issue to date is that he isn't frum very long. In fact, the gap in yiddishkeit knowledge between the two of us is pretty vast. I lived and practiced TH for six years. He has ZERO knowledge of TH, much less practice of it.

It was a delicate issue to bring up, but since he hasn't been frum very long, I suspected he didn't really know any pratim of what the halachas are, or even what the basics were - in other words, while I know Alef through Tof, I was pretty sure he only knew Alef. I wanted to make sure he knew Alef Bet and Gimmel before we went forward.

I asked him, "I'm not trying to be forward, but have you learned anything about Taharas Hamishpacha?"

"Well, I know that a man and his wife have to be seperate at certain times of the month, but honestly I was planning on taking the classes that are offered in the community," he replied, referring to "chosson classes".

"I think it would be worthwhile for you to have a conversation with your Rov about the very basics of TH even before you get to the idea of chosson classes. Because TH is a very complicated and difficult mitzvah, and I want to make sure that you feel it's something you can take on," I said. "You can choose to ignore my suggestion, but I think you should have a better idea of what's involved before you just say that you're going to do it."

Now I know the man is a total yirat shamayim, and is going to do whatever the halacha says he is supposed to, but after being in a marriage with a man who had serious issues with the harchokas, I am a bit more wary. I want to make sure any man I marry is completely committed to practicing TH fully.

Sure enough, he spoke with his Rov and his Rov told him that a) knowing him, he won't have any problems following the halachas happily, and b) that he will learn everything he needs to know in the chosson classes, and he doesn't need to know more before them.

This answer scared me a little, because really, I don't know if I can go into an engagement/marriage without knowing that the man is committed to it 100%. TH is hard enough as it is, so much more so with someone who resents the practices (not that this man does).

I thought about it some more and the truth is, at this point, I'm so out of the loop in terms of TH, I will have to relearn everything all over again. Counting, Calendar, harchokas, etc. I realized, you know what, we will be going forward together - even though I've done it before, it will in some ways be new again to me.

And hopefully it will be new because I will be with someone who wants to do the right thing and follow the halachas instead of with someone who is doing it begrudgingly...

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!

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.

Sometimes the amount of rabbi-juggling in my life seems both inevitable and normal. Sometimes it works out to my benefit, sometimes it doesn't. Sometimes it just seems entirely out of control. And that's when I take a step back and wonder: how on earth did this happen?

The course of our association with a rabbi did not, let's just say, run smooth. I had a rabbi before I got married. But I took kallah classes with another (or more precisely, with his wife). So although the first couple of questions I asked after I got married were to my former rabbi, it seemed to make more sense -- for consistency's sake (ha! yes, in retrospect that's ironic) -- to switch to the kallah class rabbi. After all, there should be fewer surprises that way: I had a pretty good idea of his stance on major issues already, based on what his wife presented in class.

Unfortunately things with this rabbi did not work out (I won't get into the details of why, because some of you may know who he is). Did not work out, in fact, so spectacularly that my husband called HIS old rabbi in desperation for help. And thus we moved on to our third rabbi, with whom we stuck for years. He had a slightly different stance on many points than either of the first two, which meant I spent a little while frantically re-asking every question I could think of to make sure I was doing things consistently (ha!! again). But on the whole it was a wonderful, wonderful move and I'm more grateful to that third rabbi than I can say for bailing us out.

All was smooth sailing (except for the fact that I didn't want to send bedikah cloths to any of these people, since none of them lived in town, and thus found myself calling on whichever of 2-3 local rabbis was home, along with their varying opinions) until we realized we were dealing with infertility. We were one of the lucky couples whose rabbi told THEM he was not qualified to deal with infertility questions. He referred us to... guess who?

Rabbi Number 1.

So all of this might go part of the way to explaining why, when I called our new (yet old) rabbi to ask whether there was any leeway after a bad bedikah, he said to me "Why did you even do a bedikah that day? In my opinion you didn't need to."

I've been married for almost a decade. How can something as big as this be news to me???

Arrrggggghhh!

Ugh. My stupid period had to come at nighttime this time around, for possibly the first time since I got married. Calculating vestot is going to be a blast...

Wait, could this be possible? I have a 48-hour period blocked off in February for two successive vestot? Over a weekend, no less? Well, maybe not really, because I don't really have to keep 24 hours for both of them, but this time of year a nighttime veset is essentially the same as an all-day one.

The most ridiculous part of it is that I know I won't get my period then. Not without some drugs, anyway. Sometimes, I think halacha is just plain dumb.

Okay, so they told me, but I wasn't paying attention. Or maybe I just didn't have the information I could use to process what they told me. I was too busy getting annoyed about doing bedikot, and going to the mikvah, and covering my hair. When I was given a talk about the dangers of emotional distance during harchakot, or when my kallah teacher said, "I know you think it will be just like being shomer negiah now, but it's different when you have that intimacy and then it's taken away," I sort of acknowledged what they said but didn't really process it. How could I? I didn't have all the information. I didn't have the slightest idea what intimacy was.

Well, everything else went better than expected. My first visit to the mikvah was pleasant. Covering my hair turned out to be, while not something I'm thrilled with, not half as uncomfortable or annoying as my mind had built it up to be. I got married, and hugged my husband (husband!) for the first time in the yichud room. And partly because we had agreed we needed time to ease into things, and partly because of our comic cluelessness over how exactly to go about said things, I didn't become a niddah until we had been married for nearly a week. Despite the sheer exhaustion of sheva brachot, it was one of the best weeks of my life. In fact, when I did become a niddah, there was almost a sense of "it's about time" - like life had to become normal again, and this was the first step. I pulled the beds apart and went to shower without a second thought except, "I should probably review the harchakot again."

And then, the first night of the first niddah period of my marriage, I cried myself to sleep. At first I didn't even know why I was crying, but I couldn't hold back the tears.

My misery lasted for about four days before I started feeling normal again, but they were among the most unhappy days of my life – even though I had just gotten married a week ago, even though the week before had been one of the happiest weeks of my life. Then it got better, and I started feeling normal again. I thought maybe it was just the first time, because it was such a shock, because the method of becoming a niddah the first time is so discongruous. (Not a real word, I know, but it’s the best word I can come up with.) About a month later I became a niddah again, and for the first day and a half everything was fine. We were visiting my family, and I was distracted. The misery didn’t start until the car ride home.

I am now a niddah for the third time in my life, and even worse than the pain (crying myself to sleep, check; being ridiculously emotional about other things in my life, check) is the thought of going through this periodically for the next 30 years or so. I can’t do it. I’ve been through a lot in my life, and I think I’m a strong person; but all those problems, no matter how insoluble they seemed, were at least understood. This time, I have no idea what’s happening to me. Why do I feel this way? It’s not like my husband pays less attention to me when I’m a niddah; in fact, he spends a lot of time trying to make me feel better even though he has no understanding of what I’m going through. (And how could he, when even I don’t know what’s going on with me?) I feel like I miss him, but he’s right here.

I need help. I need help in understanding what I feel and how, and – if possible – finding ways to make this less intense, to make me feel better. I know from talking to my friends that there are some women who find niddah nothing more than a mild annoyance, but I know from reading this site that there women who find it as hard as I do (and thank goodness for this site, by the way). So it is here that I turn for help. Does anyone have any wisdom to offer me? Advice? Suggestions? Anything? Please?

- Jamie

Jamie is a recently-married woman in her late 20s. She is Orthodox, and fully committed even if not fully convinced.

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.

Life has been a little hectic lately, but I was able to take the time to attend the Nishmat’s Women’s Health and Halacha Day this past Sunday. Sorry Persephone, but I opted for a semi-coherent post today rather than an incoherent one yesterday.

The day opened with an address by Dr. Deena Zimmerman which served as an overview of the various ways in which women’s health issues and halacha intersect, specifically highlighting the areas in which yoatzot can be most useful. The backbone of her lecture was sample questions from the “Ask the Yoetzet” website, some that have been posted on the site and some that have not been. She presented the issues in a kind of chronological order, from the kallah to menopause and from hymenectomy to hysterectomy. She emphasized that much of the frustration experienced by who observe Taharat ha-Mishpacha comes from a lack of education and unnecessary stringency. In her view the yoetzet serves an educational role, helping women in sometimes complicated situations to elucidate the issues in order to know what to ask. Most interesting were the things she has learned as a yoetzet that she would occasionally interject. One thing she was said is that she was astounded by the number of women who have admitted to her that they have slipped up and had sex while in niddah. To her there is sound reason for harchakot. I was amazed at the number of women who practice niddah based on misinformation.

After lunch the program broke up into four sessions. I chose the one on “Intimacy and the Married Couple” since I have never attended any type of lecture on the subject (though in light of the recent discussion on this site I would have loved to weigh in on what was said at the “Infertility and Orthodoxy” session.) Bracha Rutner, a paid yoetzet at Riverdale Jewish Center, went through various sources showing Judaism’s positive attitude toward sex and sexuality. She went further to show how Judaism views not as a means of receiving pleasure, but rather as a way of giving to your spouse. When this is done, sex is a balance of the physical, emotional, and spiritual, and of the highest level. The second half of this speech was given by Esther Feuer, a bubby-type woman who is an OB/GYN Nurse practitioner and sex therapist in Brooklyn. She went through female sexual dysfunction, showing that painful intercourse is never normal, and should be examined for either medical or psychological causes. She really was wonderful, and it is nice to know that there are people like her out there, helping even the most right wing among us.

I was not able to stay for the next round of sessions, so I apologize that the recap is incomplete.

Looking back, I’m glad I attended. While a lot of the information was not new to me, and there wasn’t so much by way of discussion because of time constraints, I’m happy I was able to support a conference on this topic. Walking away, I felt good to know that something that is so central to my life is like that for other women too, and that open dialogue on the subject will only serve to better the lives of observant women. So let’s do that, okay?

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 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.

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 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.

The first time I was to visit a mikvah, I had to journey four hours from my home town to the city where the closest ritualarium was. I travelled with the woman who had taught me and was to supervise me.

During the second part of the trip, on the ferry, I mentioned to her what a close relationship I had with my uterus. I explained to her that at moments of great transformation in my life previously, I had been known to spontaneously start my period. She looked at me intensely and I saw her start to grok what I was really saying. "You'll tell me if that happens, won't you?"
I agreed.

It was the deepest darkest December. Almost like we were travelling in secret.

I had read Rabbi Aryeh Kaplan's Waters of Eden, Rivka Slonim's Total Immersion and spoken to married friends, converts and the like so I could better prepare myself for the experience. Be present with it and open up. Now here we were on a big, loud street in a big, loud city behind the biggest synagogue I had ever seen.

My best girlfriend met me there and we hung out in the car while the mikvah lady made things all ready. I had my feet up on the dash and it was only then that I saw the polish on my toes.

I panicked. Oh no! I have to go inside in a couple of minutes and I have chatzitzah on me! Where's a Safeway?!? I didn't know my way around in this city, so I relied on my girlfriend to direct me to the nearest store with nail polish remover.

After racing away and racing back, I clumsily rubbed & scraped at my toe nails to remove all trace of the offending laquer. Just as I was satisfied it was all gone, we were waved through the door to the mikvah.

Only once I was inside, after using the toilet -- I was so nervous -- and reshowering, did I look through the drawers in the preparation room for floss (I had forgotten that, too) and discovered the complimentary nail polish remover.

I felt a bit sheepish, but oh, well. I didn't want to keep anyone waiting anyway.

I approached the pool with the mikvah lady and my friend. I was awestruck. I felt like I was staring right down infinity.

The attendant asked if I'd just "checked" myself, concerned that the high stress of a lifecycle event might alter my cycle as I had warned her. Nothing had changed. There was no blood and had not been for over two weeks.

I cannot acurrately express the full experience of being enveloped by the mayim chayim.

After I had completed the number of immersions I had been instructed to and recited the blessing, the attendant smiled broadly, danced and began to sing to me:
"Draw water in joy
from the living well
draw water in joy
from the living well
mayim chayim
water of life
shalom."
I just wish I had been allowed to wear my contacts!
:)

So, that's how I became tahor for the first time.

Each month it seems my husband and I take our level of observance of t'h one more step. Since my husband didn't take any classes, and relies on my knowledge, I'm constantly having to remind him of the "rules." Like not passing me things directly. And that gets tedious month after month to have to constantly remind him. And the touching thing. We decided initially that we were not going to have separate beds, mainly because we couldn't afford it, we don't have the room, and nobody deserves to sleep on our crappy futon for two weeks. So we'd just be really careful and sleep on our sides of the bed, and oops - if we're both sleeping on the same sheet, well, so be it.

But now that's also becoming tedious, because I have to constantly remind him that he's got to keep to his side of the bed, and no, it's not okay if your toes accidently brush mine. Okay, not tedious, more like erotic, and that's definitely not good. The weird thing is, these little touches aren't erotic to him. Aren't men the ones who are supposed to be weak and need all these fences for their protection? I thought continuing to share our bed was going to become difficult for him, and that would eventually force us into a two bed situation, but nope. He's quite happy with the status quo. I also thought he'd be happy if I gave up t'h all together, but it turns out that he actually likes it. Just the Torah-mandated 7 days and mikvah part, though. Ironically, it's all the other rules which prevent non-sexual contact, like hand-holding, that he doesn't like. And passing the salt, please.

But this month, we seem to be working harder on remembering not to pass things to each other. Or maybe we're just more aware that we do pass things to each other, when we shouldn't. Or maybe it's just bothering me more that we're not so machmir [strict adherence] with the "fences." Or maybe I'm just plain bothered.

So I've started to review my checklist and notes to make sure it goes as smoothly as possible.

I've been waiting for this for many years. These next days will probably feel like they are dragging on forever.. I just hope I don't forget anything.

Hashem, I am here...

I have a very long cycle. Like I average a 38 day cycle. And I have spent most of the last four years either pregnant or nursing clean, so I have not been in Niddah often.

As a result I have difficulty with the calendar and need a review every 6 months or so. And I have difficulty with the harchokos. I was married for a number of years before I got pregnant, so there I was with my (average) 38 day cycle, and I'm telling you by the time I got my period each month, I couldn't remember from one cycle to the next what the halachas were.

Frequently the following is heard in my house:

"Oops, I wasn't supposed to pass you that."

"Um, what do I need to put on the table between us? A vase? Oh, right, I forgot."

"Wait, I can't sit on your bed when you're home, but I can sit on your bed when you're not home?"

"I left your plate of food on the counter - and no, it's not because I'm angry, I just can't serve you."

"Can you please get me a glass of water, oh scratch that."

It can get frustrating especially with small kids and ESPECIALLY on a holiday like Purim. I wish that there was an easier way, but I can see now that the harchokos are there for a reason, and that absence (from touch) is making my heart grow fonder. Erev Purim I could have REALLY used a hug from my husband. And because he couldn't give me one made me want one all the more so.

A long cycle also screws up the calendar. I recall once having 10 haflagos that I was carrying over every month. It got to the point that every month I put my haflagos on the calendar in a different colored pencil, just so I could keep track of which haflagos were from this cycle and which were being carried over from a previous cycle. I just had a highly irregular cycle and didn't pass all those haflagos until I got pregnant. And with that many haflagos I would get my period and not pass the haflagos and still have to seperate. I once was supposed to go to the mikvah on a Wednesday which was Tisha B'Av. So it was pushed off to the next day. But I had a carry-over haflago from the previous cycle that thursday. So I called the Rov and he told me I had to push it off to the next day. Which put me on Friday night. And I asked the Rov? I push it off onto Shabbos? I thought we can't push things off onto shabbos (i.e. a late bris). And he told me nope, I should go on Friday night.

So now that I'm getting my period, and not getting pregnant (see my previous entry for details), I have to start all over again with the caledar and the halachos. I see it's time to call my kallah teacher for a refresher course. I once heard that it's good to have a review at least once a year. And I can't agree more. When I was pregnant with my last child I took a review course and discovered that I had been counting one of my onahs wrong. Oy, yo, yo, was I upset. But at least I wasn't counting my five and seven wrong. That would have been far, far worse.

Anyway, my point behind all this is to encourage people to feel good and relaxed and not embarassed, CHV'S, about taking refresher courses. They help everyone out.

So, I've been sick on and off for a while (I have fibromyalgia but that's a whole other issue), and this current bout of sickness causes me to cough almost uncontrollably for 20-30 minutes at a stretch. Say I've finally fallen asleep on the couch for a short nap after working two jobs, kallah class, and attempting to finalize this wedding. After about 10 minutes of sleep let's say I start coughing uncontrollably for at least 10 minutes. Now, let's imagine df (ignoring negiah issues) comes over and puts a warm hand on my (clothed, about 4 layers, it's winter still in NYC) back and gently rubs in an attempt to stop the coughing. It works quickly and well enough for me to down some cough syrup and fall back to a somewhat restful short nap before I head home.

Oh, minor detail, I'm niddah at this time.

How bad is that? I'm most obviously not the sexiest thing on the planet as I'm spluttering and coughing and oozing from every direction possible. It wasn't a life or death situation (actually excessive coughing does amazing things for the abs)... Neither of us thought about it. It wasn't until a day or so later later that I said "hmm.. I niddah, we probably shouldn't have done that". To which he agreed and we said oh well and we moved on.

Later we spoke more about it and both agreed that this was the best course of action for that point in time. It could've been a kitten curled up on my back for all I cared.. I just wanted my body to calm down enough to try to stop the coughing. That it was his hand, yes, I would be absurd to say it didn't mean anything, but at that point in time, quite honestly it didn't. In the future will we follow this same course of action? I can't say as I really don't know.

But I feel still a bit weird about it. I can't really say why or in which direction I feel weird.

Rabban Gamliel would say: Accept upon yourself a teacher; and remove yourself from uncertainty; and do not give an excess when tithing by estimating [instead of measuring]. -- Pirkei Avos 1:16

Ok, I can probably rattle that off in Hebrew better and the English doesn't do it justice, but tonight it finally sunk in. Why am I emphasising I can say the Hebrew? (Am I showing off?) No, I didn't fully understand the meaning of it.

So, what am I saying?

I have read many books, seforim on T"H. I thought I knew what colours were bad, what colours were ok, how and when to do a Hefsek Tahara, dealing with stains, etc. Overall I thought I knew a lot, maybe not all, I'm not that conceited, but really, I did pass a Beis Din [rabbinic court] examination for my conversion, right? So what else did I need to be taught? Why was I spending over 2 hours each week stuck in a classroom late at night in a very inconvient location? I didn't need to learn anything else.

I am wrong.

Tonight, it sunk in for the first time that I'm probably doing my Hefsek Tahara a whole day later than needed only because I'm soo concerned about the colour! Colours that are bad: Black and red. Colours to not worry about: white, and all it's shades. Colours to ask a shailah: All others, including browns, pinks, oranges, and yes (according to the Talmud) green and blue. (eew!)

Anyway, tonight I really learned my lesson that it is important to have a Rov (or Rebbetzin at the very least) and of course a friend.. i.e. (in my interpretation) you shouldn't be scared to ask that shailah [question] or go to the class. And by learning properly the halachos you don't estimate and figure in either direction (strict or lenient), because just as one should give tzeddekah [charity] of at least a certain amount (discussion as to what that amount is should be posted elsewhere) one should also not give in excess so as not to need tzeddekah themselves. (Though I must say that one who receives tzeddekah should give tzeddekah themselves, again not a discussion for here, but I do need to get it out).

I'm not saying this for everyone, but this is how I feel it now.

In a comment on my previous post, From Beneath said that she thinks her husband could have benefitted from some form of T"H class. I know several men who took "chatan classes" before getting married. I don't know much about these classes, though, and I am curious. How common are they? How long have they been around? How do they compare to kallah classes in terms of duration and subject matter? Anyone?

In my previous post, I mentioned that when I began to learn about T”H, I didn’t know where to turn for guidance. I did ultimately find someone: a recently married female Conservative rabbi who was willing to sit down with me, talk through some of the issues, and study some of the sources. Our concerns were not quite the same (she was still deciding whether to commit to mikveh use at all), but it was immensely helpful to have someone to talk to who was at least in the same philosophical universe as me when it came to T”H.

If only opportunities for this sort of learning and discussion were more available in the non-Orthodox world, I might have been better prepared for T”H before I got married. Comments on Tall Latte’s post, What I wish I would have learned in a Kallah Class, emphasized the lack of halachic consensus in the progressive movements, but I think that problem is surmountable. The key is to empower couples to make their own decisions regarding T”H, rather than simply offering practical instruction.

An ideal course of this nature would have the following components:

1. An overview of halachic source material, tracing the development of the laws from the Torah through the Gemara, and culminating with practical proposals by non-Orthodox rabbis. The Talmudic portion of the overview would have to be very selective, and should be geared toward giving students a sense for the halachic process. This portion of the course may as well be co-ed.

2. Theoretical discussion of the biblical and rabbinic conceptions of tum’ah and taharah (“purity” and “impurity”) in general and T”H in particular, preferably with reference to some of the contemporary scholarship on the subject. Relevant literature by progressive Jewish thinkers should also be discussed. This portion of the course may also be co-ed.

3. A non-dogmatic introduction to common T”H practices, on roughly the level of detail offered in the FAQ’s at the Nishmat site. Students should be informed of resources that can help them learn more about specific practices on their own. Teachers must realize that in order to be comfortable using what in most cases will be Orthodox-run mikvaot, women must be able to understand their surroundings, and this entails familiarity with even those practices that they may not personally adopt.

4. Practical guidelines for using the local mikveh. In order to maintain a reasonable comfort level, women must know exactly what to expect.

5. An opportunity for both men and women to discuss practical, philosophical, and emotional concerns relating to T”H in a non-co-ed setting.

As long as no such class exists, non-Orthodox women interested in T”H are left to either (a) take an Orthodox class, (b) try to learn as much as possible on their own, or (c) abandon the practice altogether. For those who choose (b) as I did, here is a list of recommended reading material:

Biale, Rachel. Women and Jewish Law: An Exploration of Women’s Issues in Halakhic Sources. New York: Schocken, 1984, chs. 5 and 6.
(A clear presentation of halachic source material in translation, along with Biale’s analysis.)

Cohen, Shaye. “Menstruants and the Sacred in Judaism and Christianity.” In Women’s History and Ancient History, ed. Sarah B. Pomeroy. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1991.
(An excellent overview of the development of the laws of T”H. Cohen argues that the laws are not fundamentally misogynistic, though they have been used to misogynistic ends during certain periods of Jewish history.)

Greenberg, Blu. On Women & Judaism: A View From Tradition. JPS, 1981, pp. 105-123.
(A defense of T”H by an Orthodox feminist, with a few suggestions for modifying the theory and practice of T”H. Appropriate for those who tend toward the traditional end of Conservative Judaism as well as those who practice a liberal form of Orthodoxy.)

Grossman, Susan. “Feminism, Midrash, and Mikveh.” In Conservative Judaism, Winter 1992, pp. 7-17.
(A practical and theoretical rethinking of T”H from a liberal Conservative perspective. IMO, this article is also appropriate for Reform and Reconstructionist women thinking of bringing mikveh use into their lives.)

Hauptman, Judith. Rereading the Rabbis: A Woman’s Voice. Westview Press, 1998, pp. 147-176.
(An insightful, provocative analysis of the rabbinic sources on Niddah.)

Wasserfall, Rahel R. (ed). Women and Water: Menstruation in Jewish Life and Law.
(Essays by scholars in various disciplines on the ways in which T”H has been understood in diaspora Judaism.)

Feedback and additional recommendations are more than welcome.

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...

NOTE: I composed this post before reading about Tall Latte's strikingly similar experience. Next time: thoughts on chatan and kallah classes for non-Orthodox couples.

You might call it a sign of the times.

I was raised in a Modern Orthodox home (perhaps more “modern” than “Orthodox”). My mother tells me that she never visited a mikveh. I no longer consider myself Orthodox, yet I visit the mikveh every month.

There was never any question in my mind that I would observe the laws of Taharat Ha-mishpachah (T”H) in some form. My husband and I both attended Modern Orthodox day schools, and, although they left us skeptical of Orthodoxy in many respects, they also left us with a certain respect for the halachic system. It seemed hypocritical to observe so many of the “public” aspects of halacha (Shabbat, kashrut, etc.) while rejecting the “private” aspects.

There were decisions to be made, however – decisions that my husband insisted upon leaving up to me. Certain Conservative authorities permit a lenient approach to T”H, allowing couples to share a bed during niddah and maintain a (non-sexual) physical relationship, and allowing women to use the mikveh one day after menstruation rather than seven. I could see the logic behind this position (and I had no intention of discontinuing my physical relationship with fiancé after getting married), but I was uneasy with the idea of eliminating the “seven clean days.” Stringency or not, the “clean days” have been part of Jewish observance for millennia, and cannot (I thought) be abrogated without reasonable justification. At the very least, I wanted to know that my practice was in keeping with the standard of an observant community. This was a problem, since T”H is such a private matter. One doesn’t know how many couples observe the laws in any given way.

A related decision that I faced was whether or not to take a “kallah class.” As far as I know, all such classes are taught by Orthodox women, and I was uncomfortable with the idea of learning halachah l’ma’aseh (“practical law”) from a real live person and then failing to observe it. If I took lessons, I would have to commit to traditional practice.

As my wedding day approached, I decided that I was not prepared to make that commitment. Unfortunately, I made my decision without grasping the complexity of the laws and customs that surround T”H, and without being aware of the nuts-and-bolts issues that accompany visits to the mikveh. Entering the building was like landing in a foreign country. A woman in a sheitl escorted me into a preparation room, where I encountered two rather distressing signs. One sign warned of the importance of consulting a rav regarding ambiguous “colors.” The other was a list of instructions, including a few unexpected ones, such as “remove all hair that is usually removed,” and “clean genitals and anus – also internally.” After 45 minutes of obsessive-compulsive preparation, I asked to be escorted to the mikveh, only to realize that I did not know when to say the blessing, and was suddenly uncertain of the words. (Having removed my contact lenses, I did not realize that the blessing was written on the wall.) I left without paying, because I did not realize that there was a fee.

After this first visit, I was naturally inclined to do a bit of research. Like most research, it made me only more cognizant of my ignorance. I began to realize that there were many more decisions to be made than I had thought. Would I do a hefsek taharah? Would I observe vestot? If I found ambiguous “colors” on my underwear or bedikah cloth, would I show them to a rabbi? If so, who? Then there were the minor issues: Bath or shower? How many dunks? Should I worry about the color of my underwear? How low should I file my nails? It was all a bit overwhelming, and I didn’t know where to turn for guidance. More than halachic guidance, I wished that I could talk to someone with experience, someone who had made decisions similar to mine and had ultimately found a practice with which she was comfortable.

I would have been thrilled if this blog had existed at that time. Now that it does, I hope that my presence can provide an opportunity for those with a less traditional approach to halacha to ask questions and share thoughts on the practical and philosophical issues that T”H raises. I am also looking forward to hearing from women who don’t approach these matters the way I do. Because T”H normally applies only after marriage, we all experience the laws as new and strange at some point, and that experience is prolonged by the aura of secrecy that surrounds the practice. Many thanks to the woman who started this blog, for giving us a chance to clear some of that secrecy away.

There's so much to do, but I don't see how it will be more different or difficult for me to learn than keeping kosher, shabbos, learning Hebrew .. but it will. Even though by and large this is for me it's not -just- me... I need to include my chosson [husband].. and that's where the difficulty begins.

He's not yet fully shomer mitzvot and except for being completely shomer negiah I am. He did have a modern orthodox yeshivah education, then an ivy league university (where we met)... he grumbled over my instituting more kashrut in his life, but he's now doing it on his own .. he grumbles still over being shomer shabbos (it's about 3 years now), so I haven't pushed him too hard to be home on time .. if he gets really restless over shabbos afternoon (I won't mention shul attendance) .. I don't complain too loudly if he turns on his computer as he promised me he wouldn't do any online shopping or sign onto work. It's progress and it doesn't completely affect me if he isn't shomer shabbat (yet).

HOWEVER T"H is proving to be a very difficult concept for him as he knows very little about the subject and it's existence and he's having a rough time. B"H [baruch hashem, thank g-d] our classes are taught by really wonderful couple.. and I see it helping him. I've spoken to him about this since I first learned of it many years (ok, 3.5) ago. But he likes his double bed and has said that he didn't see a problem with us sharing it. Last class they went over (among many other things) beds .. i still haven't had a good chance to talk with him about that class becuase I'm curious how it's explained to the men. Hopefully it's sinking in. I have this horrid feeling at the moment that I'll be the one spending 2 weeks on the couch ...

I am lucky .. he does know that it's important to me, 5 things are: shabbos, kashrut, negiah, tznius, and tzeddekah. So he said he's willing to give it a go (at the moment only if he can keep his mattress)

Next posts (soon, bli neder [without a vow]) I'll talk about my thoughts on my kallah class and how I feel about group/individual ... and my complete confusion as to why many don't know anything about this until they take their kallah class!

Some may call me your run-of-the-mill Orthodox girl. Minutiae have always been a way of life for me, and once I got old enough to be curious about the volumes on the far left corner of my father’s book shelves, I saw T’’M as just another set of laws to add to the list, along with waiting six hours between eating meat and dairy and not ripping toilet paper on Shabbos. Little did I know that T’’M would single-handedly become the most challenging and most rewarding aspect of my religious observance.

When I got engaged five years ago, I did what any girl with my upbringing does and looked for a “kallah class”. Hours were spent among my friends debating the relative merits of the various options: One-on-one with a Rebbetzin? You get personal attention. A large class? Somebody is bound to ask the embarrassing questions you would rather not ask. Perhaps the kallah teacher who does individual lessons but allows you to bring friends is the best choice?

In the end I found myself in a room with 20 other girls just like me and for twelve weeks the teacher told us the most intimate details of her married life. I was only nineteen, and for the first time I felt like an adult. T’’M almost seemed fun.

And then I got married.

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.