Pay Up: or pull outIsraeli mikvah attendants—the women who supervise dunks into the ritual baths to make sure they’re kosher—haven’t been paid in five months, so Kolech, an Orthodox feminist organization, is working to organize a mikvah boycott until ladies of the bath get paid. Without dunking in the mikvah after her period, a woman isn’t supposed to have sexual relations with her husband, so the boycott would effectively deprive Orthodox couples of intimacy until the issue is worked out.

On the Kolech website (Hebrew) Batia Kahana-Dror writes: "Let's drive them crazy, all those who wait restlessly for the night that their woman goes to the mikvah. All those who make up the majority in the religious councils, the Treasury, the Religious Services Ministry and the Knesset, the rabbis and the leaders. Stop. No more sex."

Kahana-Dror is echoing an ancient theme of women withholding sex for the good of their communities. Here are some examples:

• Lysistrata: First and foremost, we have Aristophanes’ play Lysistrata, in which the women of Athens decide to withhold sex from their husbands until peace is declared—a strategy that proves entirely effective. In that vein, The Lysistrata Project began staging readings of the play in 2002. They sponsor events and encourage activism to seek inventive solutions to violence and economic crises, specifically the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

• The Strike of Crossed Legs: In 2006 in Pereira, Colombia, dozens of women took part in the "Strike of Crossed Legs." When gang members weren't handing in their guns, their wives and girlfriends organized and decided to stage a sex strike. They came up with a strike anthem rap song that included the lyrics: "As women we are worth a lot. We don't want to fall for violent men because with them we lose too much."

• Water for Sex: In Sirt, Turkey, women staged a month long sex strike, protesting the lack of accessible running water in their village. After the existing water supply system broke and the women were forced to walk miles and wait in lines for hours to get water for their homes, they came up with the idea of withholding sex from their husbands until the water supply problem was fixed. After what CNN called "frantic lobbying on the part of Sirt's male population" a governmental official was convinced to pipe water into the town.
  

• Lysistrata with a Twist: Bolivian prostitutes went on a hunger strike when the bars and strip joints where they worked were shut down in 2007. In addition to taking over the local AIDS clinic and refusing to eat, the sex workers threatened to parade around naked. A spokesperson said that if the town of El Alto wanted to do away with prostitution, "then the government should give us a hand and take care of our children, and afterward provide us with jobs."

On January 24th, Rabbi Yona Metzger, the Chief Ashkenazi rabbi in Israel, issued a prohibition against unmarried women immersing themselves in mikvahs. Rabbi Metzger's decree was in response to the recent condoning of premarital sex by various other rabbis and halachic authorities, who believe that the act is halachically tolerable on the condition that women immerse themselves in the mikvah. Metzger, on the other hand, doesn’t want there to be any way for people to circumvent a rabbinic restriction against premarital sex. Among other commands, he instructed mikvah attendants—commonly known as mikvah ladies—to prevent single women from taking the ritual bath.

Rabbi Metzger’s prohibition came at a coincidental time for me: Just a few days earlier, I had used the mikvah for the first time—as an unmarried woman.

I grew up in a religious community where the idea of going to the mikvah in order to make premarital sex kosher was absolutely taboo. Barring conversion, a girl would first step into the mikvah on her wedding day, and from then on she’d dunk one week after every period. Premarital sex was out of the question, so there was never any discussion about whether going to the mikvah would make it less problematic. I figured I’d see the inside of a mikvah just before I saw the underside of a chuppa, and for a long time that arrangement seemed fine to me.

Does A Trip to the Mikvah: make everything all right?Then I met Ben. He was sweet, smart, funny, and attractive, and we had a kind of chemistry that I wouldn’t have believed existed if I hadn’t experienced it myself. When we first slept together I didn’t worry or wonder about the halachic implications. Having sex with him felt like surfacing after being under water for too long.

Though our life paths diverged, and a move I made left little hope for a committed relationship, we've done our best to see each other as often as possible. In the three years since meeting we've had sporadic trysts whenever we could manage to be in the same country at the same time. Then, this past December, everything changed: Ben announced that he was moving to New York for work. Suddenly we were venturing into the land of real relationships. He began talking about introducing me to his parents and spending the holidays with my family, and I found myself feeling simultaneously excited and terrified. As we began to plan our first weekend together as residents of the same country, I couldn’t stop thinking about going to the mikvah. I had recently met a number of girls who went despite the fact that they weren’t married, and I’d done some research about the rules against premarital sex. As far as I could tell, going to the mikvah nullified the main halachic problem with sex between Ben and me.

That said, I really didn't want to go. It’s not that I find the mikvah to be gross, insulting, or misogynistic. Refraining from sex while I have my period makes perfect sense to me, and I like that the mikvah schedule enforces an ebb and flow to the sexual aspect of a relationship. It seems like a sensible way of keeping things exciting in the bedroom—I just couldn’t see past a number of logistical nightmares. What if, for example, the mikvah lady asked about my husband? What if I ran into someone I knew at the mikvah, and they outed me as a single girl? Finally, the idea of standing naked in front of some Orthodox woman was horrifying. Though I’ve always been fairly religious, I don’t exactly look the part, what with pink highlights in my hair, black nail polish, and a pierced nipple. I couldn’t imagine how a mikvah lady would respond to my body, and found myself worrying obsessively that I would be called fat.

Single girl, single girl, going where she please: Married girl, married girl, a baby on her knees. Despite my hesitation, my excuses seemed more and more feeble as the weekend approached. I could go to a mikvah in a different neighborhood so that I wouldn’t be recognized, and I would just have to fib to the mikvah lady if the topic of husbands came up. A mikvah lady’s only real job was to make sure that my hair was completely submerged when I dunked. My marital status, I told myself, was none of her business. Besides, not going to the mikvah after obsessing about it all week would just be lame.

The night before Ben and I had plans to meet up, I found myself standing outside the West Side Mikvah. I was buzzed in and shown to a nice bathroom, where I washed my hair, cleaned inside my bellybutton, and tried to remove every spec of the mascara I’d put on that morning. The bathroom had a laminated list of instructions that reminded me to take off all of my jewelry and nail polish, so I spent twenty minutes attacking my recent manicure and pedicure with nail polish remover wipes, and then gingerly removed my nipple ring. The mikvah provided a nice Frette robe, and I gave myself a once over in the floor-to-ceiling mirror before pressing the button on the wall to summon the mikvah lady.

When she knocked on the door, I steeled myself for what I imagined would be an imposing old lady in a big hat. To my surprise, I was greeted by a girl who couldn’t have been much older than me, wearing a casual long dress, and no hat or wig. She walked me down the hallway to the mikvah itself, and I stammered that I was a ba’al teshuva, new to religious life, and so it was my first time at the mikvah and I might need instructions. She smiled at me and touched a piece of pink hair.

“Does it come off?” she asked, raising her eyebrows.

I expected her expression to be judgmental or rude, but when I told her that it didn’t, she nodded and moved on without another comment. She asked to see my hands and I held them out, expecting quick approval because I had spent so much time trying to get rid of the black nail polish. Instead, she shook her head and produced a handful of Q-tips, which she dipped in acetone and used to get in the crevices of my nails. I stood there for almost ten more minutes while she worked on my hands, feeling panic creep into my chest. She was sweet, and we chatted politely, but I began to shake, suddenly wondering if this was really the right thing to do. I was sure she was going to call me out on my non-marital status at any second.

“Next time,” the mikvah lady said gently, “if you take your nail polish off a few days before mikvah day this won’t be so hard.”

When she said ‘mikvah day’ she smiled to herself, and I stole a glance at her own fingernails—it looked like she had just removed some red polish. I guessed mikvah day was approaching for her, too, and felt my nerves peak and then fall.

My toenails weren’t satisfactory either, but after another five minutes of intensive Q-tip work my feet and hands were approved. I held my breath while the mikvah lady checked to make sure there were no hairs on my back, and then I stepped down into the water, momentarily shocked by how warm it was. I had studied up on exactly what the procedures were, but standing naked in the water my mind went blank, and I had to ask for directions. The mikvah lady instructed me to stand just below her and dunk once, making sure that the water touched my entire body.

As I surfaced she sang out, “Ka-sher!”

I said the blessing, and then dunked twice more.

“Ka-sher!” she called, and then again: “Ka-sher!”

She held the robe up in front of her so that she couldn’t see me while I came out of the mikvah, and as I tied the belt around my waist she said, “Mazel tov! May you have much hatzlachah. You and your husband and your family!”

I cringed at the mention of my husband, but said "thank you" and offered a weak smile in response. She led me back to the bathroom where I’d left my clothes and wished me well again.

When I was finally alone I got dressed quickly and then exited through the lobby, where a woman took my twenty-dollar fee and said, “You know, we have hair dryers you can use if you want.” I shook my head and hurried out.

On the subway home I couldn’t stop thinking about the way the mikvah lady said ‘mikvah day,’ and about the soft smiles I had exchanged nervously with women in the waiting room. I didn’t feel spiritually cleansed or particularly close to God, but I did feel a strange connection to the other women in the mikvah. There was something quiet and nice about women coming together to help each other prepare for intimacy, even when it involved Q-tips and nail polish remover and cleaning my belly button.

During my weekend with Ben I kept thinking back to the way I had been so closely examined. Though it had made me uncomfortable and anxious, it also seemed appropriate to make myself completely vulnerable—literally naked—in front of God in preparation for being vulnerable and naked with my boyfriend.

The simple fact is that Ben and I would have had sex that weekend whether or not I went to the mikvah. According to halacha, the punishment should have been karet: being cut off from the community, and probably premature death. Ben and I had previously transgressed the rule against premarital sex, so maybe we were already screwed (no pun intended) but by going to the mikvah I was changing our pattern. Instead of ignoring halacha altogether, I was doing my best to reconcile it with my actions. I recognize that it isn’t the ideal scenario, but I bet it’s a pretty common one, and I’m not sure what would have been gained—by anyone—if the mikvah lady had refused to let me in, or if I hadn’t gone at all.

Most people don’t wait for permission to have sex. If they want to do it badly enough it happens, regardless of religious law, societal expectations, or even the input of the Chief Ashkenazi Rabbi of Israel. No one in the religious world is encouraging couples to have premarital sex outright, or promising that a dunk in the mikvah will automatically purify a relationship, but a few rabbis and scholars have pointed out that if a woman goes to the mikvah, the couple’s sex life is no longer illegal by Jewish law. If anything, the recent publicity and discussion around this issue may have inspired some women to take on a new mitzvah, and a handful of relationships may well have become less halachically problematic.

Rabbi Metzger's concerns are valid, but his reaction is naive. A prohibition might stop some women from going to the mikvah, but it won’t stop couples from engaging in premarital sex.

This week on FaithHacker we're excited to welcome guest blogger Getzel Davis.  Getzel is, among other things, an environmental rock star, a former ADAMAH fellow, and pretty much the nicest guy I know.  To start things off I sent him some tough questions, and to no one's surprised, he totally rocked them. -TF

What kind of work are you doing now, and how does it fit into your spiritual journey?

I work for the Teva Learning Center as a Jewish environmental educator. Every week I get a new batch of 6th grade day school students to try to inspire. We go off into the woods every day and practice feeling radical amazement in nature. After a week of group bonding and ecology lessons, I get to sit down with each child and school to help them brainstorm ways to make the world a healthier and happier place.

What's your favorite spiritual practice? Why?

My favorite spiritual practice at the moment is mikvah. It sounds a hokey, but time I get out of a mikvah, I physically feel spiritually cleansed (even if I am covered in muck from the lake). This year, to prepare for Yom Kippur, I dunked forty-nine times for the forty nine levels of spiritual impurity that people of capable of. When I got out, it felt like I was already at Neilah, the last service of Yom Kippur, when we are finally forgiven of our sins. I went through all the motions of Yom Kippur already knowing that I had been forgiven. It was incredibly powerful.

What's a Jewish ritual that really doesn't speak to you? Why?

Stoning gay people. I can’t imagine a compassionate G!d really wanted us to stone two consenting adults who love each other.

What's your favorite Jewish text to study and why?

My favorite text is the Mei Hashiloach by the Izbitzer Rebbe. Despite the fact that the Izbitzer was a leader of a chassidic ultra-orthodox Jews, half of his discourses are about the flawed nature of Jewish law. His radical theology allows for certain people at certain times to do perform acts contrary to normative Jewish law. This book is a great tool for anyone struggling personally with questions of halachic obligation.

What's a social justice issue that's really important to you and why?

I believe that the greatest issue facing humanity is global warming. Rising oceans and desertification of the land scare the shit of me. The solutions are not going to be easy things like recycling or buying hybrid cars (although both are great). The only way humanity will be able to avoid an incredibly ominous future is by radically changing how we consume things. We need to start holding producers responsible not only for the safety of a product while we own it, but also the impacts of its creation what happens to it after it has been thrown “away.”

Continue reading...

• Madonna and Guy Ritchie's Purim Get-Up 2007Madonna isn't Esther. At least, according to the Catholics who think her hubby needs a nice paddling on the behind. [Tittle-Tattle]
• Mikvahs will soon replace all the spas in New York CIty, Austin, Telluride, and all the other places In Style magazine informs me rich people go to escape their little lives. [BeliefNet]
• "Four Brothers" meet "Three Mothers." [Courier News]
• Hmm...I wonder how Su Fei is celebrating Purim in China. [Tennessean.Com]
• "Not Jewish Or Gay"=good luck getting a laugh or nominated for an Oscar. [Playbill News]
• Purim in Tijuana. We're serious. [NC Times.Com]

My conversion ceremony took place on St. Valentine's Day. Appropriate, I know. My final farewell to Catholicism and helloooo Judaism. I wonder if I can find that on a candy heart.

I should warn you that this article contains full frontal male nudity. But please, control yourself; there will be no soft-lit oohs and aahs, no writhing in ecstasy—just a man stripped down, and alone, at his most naked before God and his living waters. I'm going to take the plunge into the mikvah.

Wearing a kippah for two weeks, I felt like a complete impostor. I was still the same rascal who, as a teenager, had laughed at the ultra-Orthodox in their heavy wool coats during the heat of summer. I needed a real, deep, cleansing change, something to mark the spiritual divide between irreverent punk and father-to-be. I hoped the plunge would be like a nullifying act of a New Year's resolution, wiping the slate clean and allowing me to start over fresh.

Even More Important than the Synagogue: An ancient mikvah in JerusalemI am extremely chauvinistic about my Jewishness; no one has the right to decide whether I am, or am not, a good Jew. I write fiction about Israel and the Jewish experience where I delve into spiritual and political issues. But when it comes to ritual, I refuse to follow by rote. Am I ignoring the ancient rules of Judaism because I'm too busy watching American Idol? Have I honestly looked at the wisdom of my fathers and found it unworthy?

I knew religious Jewish women go to the mikvah, or ritual bath, to cleanse themselves after their periods (or for childbirth, conversion, or other major life changes). But I was only vaguely aware that the bath could purify men, too.

The tradition of ritual cleansing goes back thousands of years to its roots at the River Jordan. Historically speaking, mikvah was the most important cornerstone of any Jewish community, more important even than a synagogue, since according to some Jewish customs, men are expected to visit the mikvah every day. Others call for men to immerse themselves weekly, before the Sabbath. A bridegroom visits the mikvah the day of his wedding, and in some communities men must immerse themselves the evening after a nocturnal emission.

But the ritual of mikvah is also a symbol of personal transformation. And that’s what I wanted: a physical exercise that would bypass my judgmental brain and enter directly into my soul.

I imagined the experience to be a sort of shadowy hazing ritual with bearded rabbis chanting incantations as I sank into a murky pool. But all I wanted was a spiritual dip into a clean pool, where I could offer myself honestly to the water, my body in vulnerable repose, prepared for the metamorphosis into a more perfect Jew. In the end, I tried both approaches, murky and clean.

Beth Pinchas. in Brookline, MA, is the only exclusively male mikvah in the Boston area. Seat of the renowned Hasidic Bostoner Rebbe, Beth Pinchas is part of the New England Chassidic Center and caters to the pious adherents of all 613 of God's commandments. Following the biblical injunction for men to ritually immerse before the Sabbath, I visited early one Friday.

No Asbestos Here: The Perfect Jew likes his ritual bath cleanI felt like I had stepped into another century as I trudged, towel and soap in tow, through the mutterings of morning prayers. In my sweatpants and T-shirt, I couldn't have stood out more from the men praying in their black suits and hats, but they looked right through me as if the material world I represented was nothing more than a gust of wind.

Tucked away in the basement, the mikvah room was damp and dingy, equipped with two dripping, moldy shower stalls and a small greenish pool beneath jaundiced fluorescent lights. A sign announced that for the sake of good health, no asbestos was being used on the premises. The room was heavy with the stink of chlorine, so I dunked quickly, mumbled an approximation of a prayer and got the hell out of there. I felt neither spiritually nor physically clean after my perfunctory dunking, and I rushed home to take a hot, soapy shower, wondering why anybody would ever want to submit to such a ritual.

On the opposite end of the mikvah spectrum is the Mayyim Hayyim (Living Waters) mikvah. Founded by Anita Diamant, best-selling author of The Red Tent and The Last Days of Dogtown, the mikvah is a renovated Victorian home full of sunlight and tranquil earth tones, more a day spa than a bathhouse. Mayyim Hayyim is sort of a new age-y counterbalance to rigid Jewish orthodoxy; it’s not directly affiliated with any synagogue or particular movement within Judaism, and it caters to a diverse clientele.

HDTV: How freaking soothing is this?Aliza Kline, Executive Director of Mayyim Hayyim, met me in the bright reception area before a wide-screen high-definition television murmuring with the meditative rolling of the sea. "Mikvah has been shrouded in mystery for centuries," she began. "Our goal is to open up the ritual and make it less exclusive."

Mikvah immersion is presently going through a revival among non-Orthodox Jews. "A lot of people want to acknowledge change with Jewish ritual,” Kline explained. “For people who have not found fulfillment in studying Torah but are hungry for something meaningful and powerful and rich, this can really meet a need. And you don't have to speak a lick of Hebrew, or know the weekly Torah portion; you don't have to wear a kippah."

Perfect, I thought. Sign me up.

I arrived early the day of my immersion to shower, clean my nails and my ears, brush and floss my teeth, blow my nose, empty my bladder, and remove my wedding ring and glasses. I was to be as naked as the day I was born, without anything on my body marking rank or status.

But I also needed to prepare my spirit. The medieval Jewish philosopher Maimonides wrote, "If a man immerses himself, but without special intention, it is as though he had not immersed himself at all." As I stood naked before the mirror in the preparation room, my penis bearing silent witness like a bearded sage, I thought about the transition that immersion in the mikvah would help me mark that day: the shift from incorrigible slacker to (hopefully) responsible father.

Awwwww Yeah: The sexy mikvah at Mayyim HayyimWith its soft ambient lighting, heated tile floors, and shimmering waters, the bath could have been a hot tub at a luxury hotel; in such a setting one would not have been surprised to see a bottle of Cristal lounging expectedly in a bucket of ice, Al Green's "Lets Stay Together," playing softly in the background.

I unwrapped myself from a pure white sheet and descended the seven steps into the pool. The water was warm, almost viscous. I was reminded of Kline's words equating the mikvah with the womb, how for a brief moment in a floating state, not interacting with life, not breathing, you are surrounded by God. I dunked under the water and pulled my knees to my chest, trying not to touch the walls or floor while keeping my head submerged.

As required, I recited the short blessing for immersing provided beside the pool. I sank down again, felt the waters soft against my body, and thought of my son in utero. At that moment, I was experiencing some facsimile of everything he knew of this world. I bobbed to the surface again, and recited another prayer, this time the shehechiyanu.

Dunking a third time, I recalled a midrash about how unborn babies hold the answers to every mystery in the universe, and I wanted to stay there just a little longer to learn some secret that was just beyond my grasp, a secret my unborn son now knew and would soon forget forever. Then I remembered Kline's caveat that the mikvah is also "like a little taste of death—and then rebirth." And I released my breath and popped to the surface for the last time and recited the prayer again, wondering whether I had left a shell of the old me sinking slowly to the bottom of the pool.

Driving home, warm in the afterglow, I knew that something had shifted in me —not a sea change tsunami of the soul, but something more subtle, like a minute hand moving one click closer to the hour. I hadn’t changed one bit at Beth Pinchas; I was too distracted by the chlorine, the mold, and my lurid surroundings. In the bath at Mayyim Hayyim, though, the silence had allowed my subconcious to crack open, just a little. I relate best to the world through my fiction, so maybe it was no surprise that what crept though was the idea for my next short story.

So maybe I’m a bad feminist, but all the problems with the Mikvah that Laurel wrote about yesterday—they never really bothered me.

The Mikvah: Not big enough for twoThat’s not to say I’ve always been Ms. Mikvah. At the Orthodox high school I went to the girls were told repeatedly about how wonderful it feels to go to the Mikvah, but I didn’t buy it. Dunking in acid rain while your husband waited in the station wagon parked in the McDonald’s lot next door? So not sexy. Plus, two whole weeks without sex? Wasn’t the whole point of being married that you had a built-in person to make out with? And getting naked in front of some frum old lady who you’d probably run into in the grocery store? Gross!

In theory, of course, I could see how delayed gratification might enhance one’s bedroom activities, but at seventeen I wasn’t interested in theoretically good sex. I was interested in having a boyfriend, period. Maybe not being able to be with him sometimes would be cool, but that was pretty low on my list of concerns.

And then I got a boyfriend. And I dated, and fell in love twice and had my heart broken twice. And every time I found myself in a relationship I had this weird duplicitous thing going on. I couldn’t wait to be alone with my boyfriend. And then, not too long after, I couldn’t wait to be alone. Being part of a couple was exhausting and annoying.

Even unrequited love, especially unrequited love, made me crave privacy. I wanted mental space. I once heard someone say to his girlfriend, “I think about you all the time, but I don’t have to think.” I always thought that sounded so romantic, but after months of grief and anger I wanted to be able to think without a man lurking in the background. Eventually I felt myself surfacing from heartbreak, and when I wrote a letter to my friends about my recovery I found myself using mikvah-ish language. I felt like I was finally emerging from grief, alone, and cleansed.

It was while I was still grappling with my broken heart, living in Iowa City, that I started learning once a week with the Chabad rebbetzin. When I moved to Nashville she sent me a little gift: a book called Total Immersion about going to the Mikvah. This seemed like a rather blatant hint. I read the book anyway, despite feeling like I was being shoved towards the chuppah, because I am genuinely interested in what the Mikvah is about.

And yeah, parts of it were cheesy, and it was very preachy, but here was a collection of 47 essays about going to the Mikvah, and none of the essays were about anyone’s husband. Each essay was personal appreciation for privacy with self in the preparation for the act, and privacy with God in the act itself.

I still haven’t been to the Mikvah, but I see the appeal of it now. Even just a few seconds to be alone with God, and then the rush that comes with the gasping breath for air… Sounds pretty great, actually.

Anime Period Ghosts: Okay, this is just sillyFor years I’ve had a love/hate relationship with the idea of the mikvah, the ritual bath women are required to take after menstruating (and after childbirth too).  The concept that women are unclean and must be purified seems like crap to me, but I dig the idea of ritualizing cleanliness, and I LOVE taking a bath.

And then today I discover that we should all be going to the mikvah more often.  Not just women, but men too.  Before holidays and Shabbat, and before getting married.  Some Jewish men go to the mikvah every time they have a nocturnal emission (Yeah, right!)  Some people have even started using it as part of the in-vitro process.

I’ve only been one time myself, and that was for my conversion, many years ago.  But since then I’ve known women I respected, Jewish feminists, smart ladies, who went regularly to the mikvah, and today I’m trying to rethink what it means to be purified.

See, here’s the thing—I’ve menstruated, and I’ve had a kid, and the truth is that both of those things ARE unclean. Bloody and sticky and stinky at times too.  I do not want to play in my menstrual blood, or smear it on things, or cook with it.  After a couple of weeks of bleeding from your crotch, you SHOULD take a bath. 

But saying this makes me realize that it isn’t the idea of impurity that bugs me as a woman.  I think people DO get dirty (literally and figuratively) and they SHOULD be purified. 

My issues stem from being told what to do, especially by men.

I wonder (and I’m just playing devil’s advocate here) if this isn’t the overarching problem with a feminist response to Jewish observance. Judaism LOVES to tell you what to do, and Judaism has been largely written and structured by dead white men.

Feminism hates being told what to do by dead white men. Period (no pun intended). 

So now I’m wondering how many of you have been to the mikvah, and what your gut response is to the idea of going? If you were going to keep kosher and observe the Sabbath, would you also go and get purified?