Once a month, after nightfall, my wife keeps a secret appointment. Neither
our neighbors, our friends, nor our children know where she goes, although our
children sometimes wonder why she returns an hour or so later with her hair wet.
Usually, my wife drives herself, but sometimes I drive her there. When I do, I
never park and wait for her, it would be improper for a man to sit in the car
outside. I leave and return a half-hour later to pick her up.
Once a month, my wife goes to the mikvah. In this way, she and I
observe one of the most ancient and most misunderstood traditions in Judaism.
For a week and a half before mikvah night, we avoid marital relations. We can
relate as friends, partners and confidants, but not as lovers. On
mikvah night we come back together as sexual parners.
My wife and I are not Orthodox Jews. In fact, we are Conservative Jews of a
liberal bent. We pray in a synagogue where women participate equally with men,
we intend to give our daughter the same Jewish education as our son and look
forward to her reading from the Torah someday. Nevertheless, in our marital
life, we have chosen to observe the ancient laws of mikvah, known
euphemistically as Taharat Hamishpacha, "Family Purity".
On mikvah night my wife carefully bathes, washes her hair, removes
all makeup, trims her nails, takes off her jewelry and prepares for the
immersion. She prefers to do her preparations at home, although many women do
them at the mikvah building. When she immerses herself in the
mikvah, nothing must come between the water and her body.
The mikvah itself is in a modest building that contains a room for
bathing and changing and a waiting room with several hair dryers. The
mikvah (ritual bath) itself looks like a Jacuzzi at a health club.
Regular tap water is piped in, but underneath the pool there is a connection to
water that has been gathered naturally either froma spring or a cistern
containing rainwater. Such naturally gathered water meets the religious
requirement that a mikvah contain mayim chayim, "living
waters".
Some Jews are surprised that our city contains a mikvah.
Actually, every major Jewish population center and many minor centers have a
mikvah. It is used for conversions of men and women, by brides before
their wedding night, by some Orthodox men before Shabbat and Festivals,
and by some observant families who immerse their new dishes. Yet the most
important purpose of the mikvah is to enable married women to observe
the traditional laws of Family Purity.
On any one night, a variety of women will be at the mikvah. Most
are Orthodox. Many keep their heads covered in public with a scarf, hat or wig.
Some are definitely not Orthodox. Often there are women in jeans.
The mikvah attendant observes each woman as she immerses herself and
as she says the traditional blessing and immerses herself twice more. The
attendant's job is to ensure that the immersion is total, so that even the hair
goes under water.
My wife has noticed that the mikvah attendant plays another role for
many of these women. She is like a psychologist with whom they can share family
problems and discuss community matters. They know she will never tell, for
secrecy, modesty and discretion are absolute requirements of the job.
My wife and I have found a number of reasons for observing the laws of mikvah
- philosophical, symbolic, feminist and traditional.
These laws make a philosophical statement about sexual relations that needs to
be made today. Our society wavers between ascetic and hedonistic views of sex.
The ascetic view ties sex to sin and is embarrassed by sex. The hedonistic view,
reacting to this, sees pleasure as the ideal, condoning any activity between
consenting adults. Judaism rejects both these extremes. It teaches that sex is G-d's gift to humans and is therefore holy.
It is noteworthy that when one is tamei, ritually impure, one must
avoid two holy experiences: entering the Holy Temple and having marital
relations. Holiness is achieved by separation and self-discipline. Family purity
laws teach us that sexual relations are neither a weakness to be tolerated nor a
pleasure to be indulged, but a holy activity and a way of serving G-d.
The symbolic meaning of the mikvah was pointed out in a beautiful essay by
Rachel Adler in The Jewish Catalog. A woman's monthly period is a nexus
point between life and death. It is a brush with death; a potential child will
not be born. The mikvah is a sign of life; the waters are called living
waters. The potential begins anew for a baby to be born.
My wife and I felt this most strongly when we struggled with infertility.
Each monthly period became a time of mourning and sadness. (It is interesting to
note that Judaism outlaws sexual relations during mourning) On the other hand,
the mikvah night became a time of hope, perhaps a child would be
conceived this month. The mikvah lady would say goodbye to my wife with
the words: "see you in nine months."
A rediscovery of the laws of the mikvah can be seen as part of the
feminist agenda. It is one of three classical women's mitzvot. (The
other two are lighting the Shabbat candles and separating some dough from the
challah - in the days of the Holy Temple, this portion was given to the
priests, today it is burned in the oven). Many women are searching for ways to
actively express their Judaism. Here is a classical mitzvah for women
directly tied to the cycle of their bodies.
The laws also make a statement about the relationship of a man and a woman. A
couple is not permitted to treat each other as sexual objects. During part of
the month, sex becomes off-limits, and there must be other ways for husband and
wife to relate to one another.
While we may not understand the reasons, we observe them because we are Jews
who want to maintain the traditions of our people. Sometimes those traditions
are a struggle. Yet, I have found that the traditions that cause the greatest
struggle can become the most precious to us.
The laws of mikvah as described in the Torah, refer to a time when
Jewish worship involved offering sacrifices. The rules are part of a group of
laws dealing with the concepts of tahor and tamei. These terms
are usually mistranslated as "clean" and "unclean", giving the false impression
that they refer to something physical. Actually, tahor means in a state
of ritual purity, permitting one to enter the Holy Temple; tamei means
ritually impure and unable to enter the Holy Temple.
Both men and wome could become either tahor or tamei.
Ritual impurity could be caused by contact with a dead body or with various
animals, by some skin diseases, and by either "natural" or "unnatural" flows
from the body. The result of being tamei was to be separated from
certain holy activities such as worship in the Holy Temple. Immersion in a
mikvah was one way of becoming tahor. That these laws were
integral to living Judaism in Temple times is dramatically shown by the kosher
(properly built) mikvaot archaeologists have found at Masada, near the
Temple Mount, and at other sites from those days. Yet with the destruction of
the Second Temple, most of the laws fell by the wayside.
However, one law has remained part of Jewish practice until this day. The
Torah teaches, "Do not come near a woman when she is tamei with her
menstrual flow to uncover her nakedness". (Leviticus 18:19) The period of being
tamei from a menstrual period lasted seven days (Leviticus 15:19). Such
a woman is called a niddah. In the second century C.E., Rabbi Meir
attemted to give an explanation for this law. "Why did the Torah teach that a
woman was in a period of niddah for seven days?...So that she will be
beloved by her husband as on the day she entered the chupah (wedding
canopy) (Babylonian Talmud Niddah 31b). For my wife and myself there is some
truth to this teaching; mikvah night has become a kind of monthly
second honeymoon.
Many Jews can understand the possible benefit of a one-week separation each
month, beginning with the woman's menstrual period. What makes the laws of
Family Purity so difficult for modern Jews are two religious restrictions
developed by the rabbis in the Talmudic period and observed by most Orthodox
Jews today.
The first concern of the rabbis was the possibility of confusion in counting
the days. There is another Torah law that states: "If a woman has a discharge of
blood for many days, not at the time of her period...when she becomes clean, she
shall count seven days" (Leviticus 15:25-28). The rabbis were concerned that a
woman might confuse such an "unnatural" flow of blood with her regular menstrual
period and fail to count these seven "clean" days. They therefore ruled that in
every case a woman must wait a full seven clean days before going to the
mikvah. This served to nearly double the time of separation. (The
rabbis ruled that one had to count a minimum of five days for menstruation
before starting to count the seven clean days, adding up to a minimum separation
of 12 days).
Because these laws are so strict, so private and so easy to misunderstand, it
is no wonder that they fell out of practice among the overwhelming majority of
Jews. The miracle is that so many Jews have continued to maintain them. Today,
more communities are building mikvaot and the mikvaot are
fancier than ever, perhaps reflecting the greater affluence of the Jewish
community.
In a suburb of a major Jewish metropolitan area, a group of observant Jews
recently wanted to build a mikvah. Another group of Jews tried to go to
court to block the building. They claimed, among other things, that a
mikvah in their neighborhood would cause traffic jams and other
disruptions.
Would it were true! Nobody expects the great majority of Jews to return to
using the mikvah. Yet a small group of Jewish men and women of all
levels of observance are beginning to look seriously at these laws. Perhaps
their observance can make sex more holy, perhaps it can strengthen marriages,
perhaps it can be a path back to tradition. For these reasons alone, the laws of
Family Purity deserve a second look by all serious Jews.