First-Person Stories

The Jewish community on the "Left Bank" is relatively young and this is our first mikvah ever.

My experience of going to the mikvah has waxed and waned, much like the phases of the moon.

One never knows the twists and turns that life can bring—the chance meetings that turn into lifelong friendships and opportunities beyond measure.

Just as a woman prepares herself carefully to immerse in a mikvah, I, too, prepare myself. I consciously clear my mind, stepping into a place that is completely outside of “me.”

On the appointed evening, the Rebbetzin turned up in front of my house with the rabbi idling the van in the driver’s seat.

When I turned on the water, the pipes made a loud, unwelcoming noise, and a brown-looking liquid burst out of the faucet.

Nothing, not the Herodian palaces nor the Roman bathhouses at Masada, the 1,300-foot-high mesa arising from the Judean Desert near the Dead Sea, the last refuge of the zealots fleeing the destruction of Jerusalem, moved me as much as the lonely ritual bath at Masada.

Before I’d ever visited a mikvah, I had a lot of misconceptions about this key Jewish commandment. The whole idea seemed like a relic from another era.

If you look through a G‑dly lens, you can see the absolute beauty and divine brilliance of the human menstrual cycle.

As she began her descent down the ladders, the ice-cold air hit her. It was dark and freezing before she even reached the water.

For several days Limor sits, silent and thoughtful, in the Chabad House. Once in a while she asks about this or that, but most of the time she sits, mute, observing the joyous youths around her with a bleak countenance. Her husband sits at her side, frowning and serious. We never hear him speak.

I had been there before on the tour, but this was different. It was late at night, and I was about to partake in an ancient ritual considered one of the three most important mitzvahs for Jewish women.

Again and again I lose awareness of myself and then regain it; a cycle of life, death, and birth is repeating over and over. It is just the water and I. Or is it? If I am losing myself in the water, is there just water? There is clarity in the simplicity of the oneness. There is only good...

I would never have expected that I would meet a sister in Beijing, but that’s exactly what happened.

"Mommy has to go to the ladies' club. She will only be there a little bit. We have to wait here because we are not ladies." Even at three, I shared his trait of quick-thinking and responded, "You are not a lady, but I am! You call me your 'little lady' all the time!" He smiled and laughed at both my wit and my innocence...

I reasoned that our ancestors fought long and hard (in fact, we – the descendents – are still fighting) to be able to perform this deep and spiritual ritual, so why shouldn't I at least give it a try?

I find myself praying and talking to Him like never before, finding the great relief of putting all my fears in His hands. I want the birth of this baby to highlight my journey to know myself and G‑d's presence in me...

My tears mixed with the waters of the Mikvah, enveloping me in a warmth and love I had never experienced before. I knew I had come to the right place, at the right time, for myself, my family, and for G-d.

Truth be told, I wasn't convinced. I couldn't relate to abstinence, I didn't understand the association of menstruation and impurity. I approached the experience like an anthropologist...

I did not have a monthly cycle, would never experience what I had been hearing about – the excitement, anticipation and spiritual renewal that other women had the opportunity to have. What, I asked myself, was the point?

I keep promising to try to focus on some of the benefits of this particularly feminine growth experience of menopause. And I’m not succeeding. So, I do what I always do when I go through a lifecycle moment...

My parents had treated us to this dream vacation in Aruba. We had everything – but a mikvah. My husband was incredulous – no, astonished – when I told him that I would turn the Caribbean into a mikvah...

The year is the same, the days are the same, but the months are different. It is a time quite individual—created by G‑d especially for me . . .

I stood in my fluffy terry robe and toss-away slippers, waiting. I looked at myself in the mirror and thought, "What's a nice Reform girl doing in a place like this?"

As the week before my wedding approached and three generations of women prepared to use the mikvah, I called a local mikvah to reserve three separate rooms. “Yes, three,” I repeated into the phone.

It felt strange to be ringing Mrs. Markovic's doorbell in broad daylight…