Being Shomer Negiah

We have discussed this subject on the blog many times, but Chaviva just posted on her blog the most amazing personal account of her acceptance of this mitzvah –it is well worth a read. Modesty, Shomer Negiah and Me.

Awesome Mikvah Video

To learn more about mikvah please click here. To learn more about Mikvah Chana – click here.

Friday Night Mikvah

I think going to mikvah on a Friday night (or a Yom Tov night) has to be the most difficult night to go. Especially if you have young children. Especially if you have older children. Whether it is right or wrong (and we have had this discussion a time or two) we don’t really want our children knowing when we are going to mikvah, when we are Niddah, when we are not. It just is not modest and not something to share with children.

On Friday night the time to dunk is usually around the time the men start to daven maariv in shul. When one has little kids, and needs to go, from what I have learned, it is incumbent on the husband to stay home from shul and watch his children while his wife performs this mitzvah. It’s easy when the children are small to tell them mommy has to go help a friend. But what do you tell them when they are teens and they notice that their father is not in shul and won’t buy the “friend” story? Or they come home from shul and they notice that mommy isn’t there?

I have heard a time or two that many women push off mikvah if it falls on Friday night. They will just go Saturday night instead. This bothers me so much. Yes it’s annoying to have to make arrangements to go on a Friday night, but the annoyance is far outweighed by the joy of being able to reunite with one’s husband – and on Shabbat too, a double mitzvah.

So, help me help other women – what works for you for Friday night mikvah? How do you manage to get it done without the children being any the wiser? What about if you are staying at friends for Shabbat, or if you have a simcha, or company staying with you? How have you managed it then? Do you think it’s fair to the husband to push off mikvah for a night, just for convenience sake?

Edited to Add (thanks MG) – what do you do when the mikvah is not within walking distance?

(inspired by IR)

My Mikvah, My Mitzvah

(Inspired in part by this article)

I am a married orthodox Jewish woman. I adhere to the laws of Taharat Hamishpacha – family purity. As a married orthodox Jewish woman, I am trusted by God and my husband to observe these laws in the ways I have been taught, the same laws that were taught to my mother and her mother and her mother etc.

I do not have to answer to anyone or prove my observance of this mitzvah. My husband trusts me to go to the mikvah at the appointed time, he trusts that I am performing the mitzvah correctly and wouldn’t dream of going through a pre-Mikvah checklist with me. (oh, I have heard of such situations, believe me). He knows my cycle, he knows when I am counting, he keeps track – it’s in his interest to do so – but never would he question my timing or my preparation.

This mitzvah is given to us women, it is our mitzvah. This is something so deep and personal, we generally do not share the intimate details of our observance of this mitzvah with even our closest friends.

So – by that token, if God trusts me to perform this mitzvah to the best of my ability, and my husband trusts me, why on earth would I allow anyone to tell me I am not doing it properly? Why on earth would someone else feel that they were able to judge my preparations or my acceptability to be toiveled?

If a woman has correctly calculated when she needs to go and immerse in order to be ritually purified, and she prepares for her immersion according to the way she has been taught, why can the balanit / mikvah lady decide that she hasn’t done a good enough job? How can she assume that the woman’s preparations are not up to the right standards? Is her word not good enough? Who gives the balanit that power?

My balanit checks my nails and for loose hairs on my back. I am ok with that. If I wanted her to check me more, she would. If I wanted her to check me less, she’d be ok with that too. She is awesome.

How dare anyone tell a woman she has too much dry skin on her elbows, or that her long nails render her tevilah invalid? How dare anyone forbid another woman from immersing because she cannot prove she is Jewish? (I cannot prove I am Jewish on mikvah night!! Who walks around with their ketubah?!) How dare a balanit walk away from the mikvah room, after refusing to watch a tevilah, due to her doubts as to whether the woman has prepared appropriately?

As far as I am aware balaniot are volunteers. They are not paid for their service. And the majority of them are awesome and giving people. They are there to help, not hinder. It’s the few that we hear of, like those in the disputed Ramat Beit Shemesh mikvah, that make this whole mikvah experience a nerve wracking experience for some.

Mikvah is a mitzvah that I enjoy performing. I have written before of the peace it brings me, the deep spiritual cleansing I feel after having immersed. The joy of being able to reunite with my husband on all levels. I would hate for my mikvah experience to take away from that.

Taharat Hamishpacha is not an easy mitzvah to keep. Without going into too much detail here it involves certain bodily awareness and counting of a specific number of days – you have to make sure you are immersing on the right night. In the not too distant past there were places where it involved a lot of co-ordination in order to get to a mikvah – hours away, in a far off town, sometimes at great risk. It’s indeed much easier to not bother with it. But we do, as we are religious Jews who have taken this mitzvah upon ourselves. If we are prepared to go toivel, we need to be welcomed. We need to be encouraged to continue to keep this mitzvah. We need to be able to make the most of our potentially deeply spiritual experience – not be worried that our tevilah will not be valid.

The more I blog about the subject of mikvah the more stories I hear of negative experiences. It breaks my heart. This is a mitzvah I do with my entire body and with my soul – there is no other mitzvah I can think of that encompasses that. There is no other mitzvah that brings me such profound spiritual fulfillment. We need to stand firm and embrace our mitzvah and not let anyone cheapen it or take away from its spiritual value.

Mikvah Survey

How much does your local mikvah charge you?

Have you ever tipped the balanit / mikvah lady? How much? (I never heard of tipping the balanit until I read something about it this week. Kinda shocked!)

Between 1 to 5 (1 being awful and 5 being great) rate your average mikvah experience.

Have anything extra to add?

Mikvah Question

I have been using the mikvah for the last 16 years (whoa, am I really that old??) apart from the few years when I was divorced. I thought I knew all there was to know. The more I read the more I find out there are customs I never heard of. Yesterday we talked about the knife under the pillow. Today I ask a different question. Apparently there is a custom that from the moment a woman immerses in the mikvah, after she comes out, until she has 3 items of clothing on, she is not to say a word other than the bracha (blessing) for the immersion. Is this a known custom? On what is it based? My mikvah lady is a chatterbox, and the conversation only stops when I am dunking, and I would think she would know about this inyan (matter).

Anyone?

No Mikvah for You!

OK, I am really angry. This has been going around my head for days on end. My friend Shorty is an awesome person. She started becoming more and more observant and is invested into her Judaism. Read her personal story here. Shorty wants to learn all she can about the best way to embrace her religion.

When Shorty was not on her religious path she married a truly wonderful man. He is totally sweet and so good to her. He isn’t Jewish. At that point in her life marrying Jewish was not on her radar. By her own admission she lived very much of an assimilated life. Life-threatening surgery started her religious gears churning, and she has been on the path to more Jewish knowledge ever since.

Shorty’s husband is extremely supportive of her quest for Jewish enlightenment. He is her number one cheerleader and takes pride in her.

Recently Shorty started attending a class locally, with other Jewish women, about the laws of family purity – Taharat HaMishpacha. Traditionally, during menstruation and for a week after a woman is not physical with her husband, she immerses in the mikvah, and they can re-consummate their physical relationship. It truly is something special in a marriage and when this mitzvah is performed properly it brings added benefits to the marriage.

Shorty was told that because her husband isn’t Jewish, she really shouldn’t bother with the whole thing. It’s like saying a bracha (blessing) on non-kosher food. It’s wrong.

If she is told not to bother with this mitzvah, why should she bother with any of the others? Do they also not count because she is intermarried? Should she not bother keeping kosher because her husband isn’t Jewish? Should she not say brachot on kosher food because her husband isn’t Jewish? If she gets into the practice of keeping the laws of family purity, and immerses in a mikvah – how can that be wrong? Is it not the woman’s mitzvah to keep? The husbands do not have anything at all to do with the keeping of this mitzvah except to not touch their wives when forbidden to. Shorty’s husband is more than willing to respect her observance of these laws. Shouldn’t we be encouraging people to keep more mitzvot, not push them away because “you’re intermarried, you couldn’t possibly keep this mitzvah properly”. If she does decide that she wants to go to the mikvah – would she be turned away? Is a mikvah attendant within her rights to do so? I think not. Even if the mikvah lady knows that a woman is not married, or married to a non-Jew, she has no right to refuse to observe an immersion.

I can think of plenty of Jewish husbands who don’t care if their wives use the mikvah or not, plenty of Jewish wives who don’t practice Taharat Hamishpacha properly because it isn’t important to them. Here is a Jewess willing to take on this mitzvah, which is HUGE, and she is being told not to bother. There is something wrong here.

Maybe one day Shorty’s husband will decide to convert. We don’t know the future. Pushing them away from keeping this mitzvah is not the way to keep a person interested in pursuing their religious ideals. Is it fair for a rabbi to tell someone NOT to keep a mitzvah? Is it moral?

Granted I do not know the halacha behind this issue, but in my book any discouragement of a Jewish person from keeping a mitzvah is just wrong.

Please chime in with your thoughts.

Appropriate?

My buddy @MarkSoFla emailed me this link yesterday, knowing how interested I am in everything to do with mikvah. It is a clip of a Lubavitch woman explaining on the Tyra Banks show the importance of family purity, mikvah, and how we ascertain the right time to go.

This link appears to be going viral. I have since received it from a number of sources, and seen people put it up on their facebook.

While I think she did a great job with her explanation, I am wondering if the Tyra Banks show was an appropriate venue for explaining this mitzvah that goes so much deeper than you can explain in a short sound bite.

If you notice, here on my blog, there are some things I do not delve into the details about. Most of what she talked about is so private and personal, and for one not schooled in these matters, well, they could perhaps jump to conclusions about various aspects of the practice of the mitzvah. The last thing I want is some random person asking me about internal checks.

Now, I understand Chabad has a way of presenting mitzvoth to the world in a way that makes them accessible to all. Judaism is welcoming, we are not hiding anything that we do…But I think this was going too far.

What do you think?

Kallah Classes – Did They Help?

After a lively discussion yesterday with members of the Twitter JewCrew about Mikvah, Taharat HaMishpacha and its personal significance, I was asked if the Kallah Classes I had taken before my recent marriage made a difference in how I saw the mitzvah of Mikvah and how I view the mitzvah of Taharat HaMishpacha. My answer was way too long to be squeezed into 140 characters, so I promised to blog it.

Firstly from Kallah Magazine – “What are Kallah classes? Kallah classes are given one on one or in a small group to teach Jewish brides the laws of Taharas Hamishpacha (Family Purity) including laws concerning preparation for and immersion in the mikvah, laws of Niddah, Jewish views on topics concerning intimacy and Shalom Bayis.”

(Men are also supposed to learn the laws with a revered Rabbi).

Secondly, let’s define Niddah – A woman is said to be a Niddah when she is menstruating, or has menstruated without yet completing the associated ritual requirements. Childbirth also renders a woman Niddah.

My first go around with kallah classes was when I was 20 and getting married for the first time. From what I remember from that long ago the one on one class was more of an instruction manual, how to go the mikvah and when, when you can touch your husband, when you can’t. I do not remember being given any hashkafah (religious philosophy) at all about the significance of the mitzvah. It was a how-to class. Nothing more.

This time around, even though initially I resisted the request by the rabbi to take classes again, it was a different story. I told the rabbi that I had been married for 12 years, been to the mikvah over 100 times, knew the laws inside and out, what more could I possibly learn. How wrong I was! Yes I knew the basics, but I needed the hashkafah big time!

It was precisely the fact that we didn’t have to dwell on the minutiae of the laws for too long because of my familiarity with them, that we were able to focus on the spirituality of the mitzvah, of the holiness of the marital bond. I was able to take my experiences from my first marriage, learn from them and use that toward strengthening my experience with this marriage.

It helped that my teacher is an awesome woman. A woman who has been married to her husband for well over 20 years, someone whose face glowed every time she talked about him. I wanted that. I wanted to still love my husband and talk about him like that 20 years from now. Teach me, I said, teach me to still look at him the same way after all that time.

There were many things that we discussed that are not appropriate for me to air in this public forum, but I will say that our talks opened my eyes and gave me a perspective that I cherish now, and will cherish forever.

Let me just give one example. We talked about the importance of the Harchakot. What are the Harchakot? Distancing behaviours observed when a women is Niddah and forbidden sexually to her husband. In my view I had thought these practices ridiculous. Why would passing a plate directly to my husband turn him on? Or fixing his collar? Holding his hand as we walk down the street – where is the harm in that? It isn’t sexual. Why are we punishing the woman for having her period?

The way this awesome teacher explained it to me that it isn’t about forbidding all these things because the woman is “impure”. It is about keeping these things special for a time when the couple can be together in all ways. Its purpose is to prevent simple touches from being mundane and boring. The purpose is to make every physical interaction between the couple very special.

Put it this way. You kiss your husband goodbye every morning when he goes to work. And every evening when he comes home. Every day it’s the same. After a while the feeling isn’t special any more. When you haven’t kissed him in 12 days, trust me, that goodbye kiss in the morning is more powerful than anything.

The minimum amount of time that a woman is Niddah / spiritually impure is usually 12 days. After those 12 days she goes to the mikvah to immerse herself and purify her body and soul. It is not about being dirty and getting clean, as in fact a woman has to be squeaky clean before she immerses. It’s about washing away the previous month, and being renewed for a new month.

When a couple has not been together sexually in that time, the anticipation of mikvah night is huge. A husband will be told by his wife when she plans on immersing. It’s a reunion that is so beautiful and so precious and so right and so very private. It would not be that way if there had been no physical separation for a certain period of time. It’s like a honeymoon all over again.

It isn’t easy. No one will lie to you and say that it is. No one will tell you that you are not allowed to spend time alone together either. You just have to be aware of your limits. We are all human, and we hopefully want to be with our spouses in every possible way – but the rewards of observing these laws are huge. Marriage is about intimacy which isn’t just sex. It’s about being in the moment with someone you love. It’s about sharing your personal physical and emotional space. The Niddah period gives a couple time to work on their emotional connection.

To be honest with you all, I learned about a whole different side of marriage with my Kallah teacher. She taught me how to appreciate the Harchakot, and how to make the most of my marriage in many ways. I doubt that I would have been able to learn all of that if her own marital bliss had not been evident and if I would not have felt comfortable discussing all aspects of a marriage with her. Maybe because I was previously married I had a level of comfort speaking about these things.

Taharat HaMishpacha, Niddah, Mikvah – many young people think it is all about sex. It is not. The purpose of these mitzvoth are to enhance one’s marriage and to keep that marital bond strong and sacred.

Dip n Dunk

Mikvah is a necessary part of the religious married woman’s life. I must admit to loving the whole idea of ritual purification, of being spiritually cleansed so that I can “be” with my spouse on different levels – physical, emotional and spiritual (and be able to hand him his darn supper plate ;-)).  When I was married previously I enjoyed taking the time to prepare for immersion, not just physically, but mentally. I also enjoyed the me-time I was able to snag that one night a month, to go to mikvah and get prepared there without any little people hammering on the bathroom door. (try taking a relaxing bath when the kids are yelling and running up and down and there are sounds emanating from the playroom that sound vaguely dangerous in nature……..)

 

Now that I am returning to the state of holy matrimony (yay!) it will once again be incumbent on me to use the mikvah. I am so looking forward to it. Now I bring a whole different mindset to the whole thing. Marriage takes on a different meaning once you have experienced the pain of divorce. Some people never recover enough to be able to trust again. I was so worried that I would be one of them. But KoD entered my life, THANK G-D, and enabled me to believe that I could trust again, he inspires me more than I ever thought possible to be a better person and a better Jewess. (Have I told you lately how awesome he is? <insert goofy grin here>)

 

So when I prepare for mikvah before my wedding it will be a true celebration – not only will I be cleansing my body and soul in preparation for my marriage to KoD, I will be renewing my sacred bond with the One Above, washing away the anguish and the sadness and the raw pain of the years that intervened between my last dunk and this one. I was always taught that the water of the mikvah isn’t there to wash away dirt, for we are physically clean before we enter it, but that it is there to wash away spiritual impurity. Water has tremendous healing qualities – I look forward to the sense of peace my immersion will bring me before my wedding. (read more about my mikvah experience here .)

 

Now the question is how do I get that sense of peace now, while I am planning the wedding??