I was born under the sign of Cancer, like a wonderful song the Indigo Girls sing. As a water sign, I’ve always loved being near bodies of water and feeling their caress and witnessing their soothing lullaby. My mother lives above Lake Champlain and the gentle (or not-so-gentle in the fierce Winter winds) lapping waves offer a constant reminder of the ebbs and flows of being alive. Sometimes we move inwards and other times we drift away from ourselves, trusting that we find our way back to our center again.
While I have swum in many bodies of water and felt the presence of a deeper meaning behind dips in rivers and lakes and tubs and even my small shower, I haven’t ever attended a formal mikvah. A mikvah is a Jewish ritual bath, constructed according to certain dimensions and always filled with “living waters” such as collected rainwater. (Bodies of water like an ocean or spring are also naturally considered to be mikvahs.)
I have felt drawn to the mikvah, yet also have held back. I remember wanting to visit one in college, Mayyim Hayyim, but never actually making it there. I remember wanting to immerse in a mikvah before I got married and before I gave birth. Yet again, I struggled to find one in Vermont and wondered if I really needed to be observed by an attendant, as the ritual typically requires.
Moreover, my resistance to the patriarchal rules of the mikvah kept me from immersing myself. Traditionally, the mikvah was originally intended for married women. As Rabbi Elyse M. Goldstein has written, “To take back the water means to open the mikvah up to women not attached to men.” Jewish law prescribes that women immerse themselves in the waters of a mikvah following menstruation to become ritually “pure” and are then permitted to resume sexual activity, most likely to reproduce again.
I also couldn’t help but feel concerned and wonder, what if I was bleeding when I wanted to go to the mikvah? What if I felt as though I was already spiritually clean and I didn’t need to cleanse my body? Menstruation is already a ritual for cleaning my body, for discarding tissue.
As I approach midlife, my hesitation on experiencing traditional mikvah has softened. While I still don’t feel the need to adopt the strictures of the traditional mikvah, I can begin to celebrate how a mikvah can be a tool for rebirth and community and as a way to mark changes. Like all patriarchal and misogynist traditions, we can find more inclusive ways to celebrate. Just as I place an orange on the Seder plate every Passover, a modern ritual that represents inclusion for women and members of the LGBTQIA+community, a mikvah can be a place of healing, not of oppression. I have rediscovered that I can use ancient rituals to soothe and uplift.
As a fresh coat of snow covered Vermont recently, I found a gentle way to celebrate my own mikvah. It wasn’t anything out of the ordinary, just a bath. But what made it different was my intention. I celebrated my own mikvah by choosing to immerse myself into a warm bath while holding a commitment to honoring my whole self and a wish for emerging whole and strong and present.
A mikveh is a safe place and it seems harder than ever to feel safe as Jews. I hope that we can use a mikveh as a space to find healing and hope. I hope we can bring our own intention to each mikveh and use the cleansing waters as a place for re-awakening and for reminding us ourselves of the Jewish value of finding joy!
I can trust that Jewish ritual and wisdom can support me. I don’t need to visit a traditional mikvah to find a sacred experience (although I’d still like to actually visit Mayyim Hayyim!) I can trust that Jewish rituals can be adopted to support us as we change and grow throughout our lives.
As I have celebrated the same holidays again and again, I can remind myself that while Judaism offers the rituals and holidays, we ourselves have to bring meaning to it. We have to find the particular resonance. Perhaps your next shower or bath can become a holy one; you simply have to invite that in.
May we all find new ways of honoring ancient rituals to find more balance, strength, and wholeness.
At The Well uplifts many approaches to Jewish practice. Our community draws on ancient Jewish wisdom, sometimes adapting longstanding practices to more deeply support the well-being of women and nonbinary people. See this article’s sources below. We believe Torah (sacred teachings) are always unfolding to help answer the needs of the present moment.
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Molly Ritvo is a writer living in Vermont. She holds a BA from Tufts University and an MFA in Creative Writing from Emerson College, and her writing has been published in Upstreet Literary Magazine, Elephant Journal, Mother.ly and more. She can often be found running after her 4-year-old daughter and enjoying Vermont’s beauty. Learn more about Molly at mollyritvo.com.
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