Mikveh: Reclaiming an Ancient Jewish Ritual – Haviva Ner-David

Episode 84. 
This week is the Jewish holiday of Chanukah which celebrates light in the dark days of winter. It is a time of contrasts and turning. Our candles add light in the darkness as we appreciate the slow turning towards longer days. In that spirit, this conversation explores another kind of opposites and turning – immersing in the mikveh as a way for a Jew to mark a transition. 

Haviva Ner-David, an American Jew who has lived in Israel more than half her life. She is the founding rabbi of Shmaya: A Mikveh for Mind, Body, and Soul. Located in northern Israel, it is the only mikveh in Israel that allows people to immerse as they choose. Haviva talks about the biblical sources of the mikveh, her long standing passion for this ritual, and the many uses of the mikveh, reaching far beyond the monthly practice for Orthodox women after their menstrual periods. Each reason for immersing in the living waters of the mikveh marks a transition or celebrates a milestone in life.

Bio: 
Rabbi Dr. Haviva Ner-David is a rabbi, author, spiritual companion, and activist. She is the founding rabbi of Shmaya: A Mikveh for Mind, Body, and Soul, the only mikveh in Israel open to all humans to immerse as they choose. Her books include three memoirs, two novels, and a children’s book. As a spiritual companion, she works with people of all faiths. Haviva was ordained privately by an Orthodox rabbi and institutionally by the One Spirit Interfaith-Interspiritual Seminary. Haviva lives with FSHD, a form of muscular dystrophy, which has been her greatest life challenge and teacher. She and her life partner, Jacob, have seven children. Her activism takes various forms, including building Arab-Jewish partnership in the Galilee, where she lives.

Highlights:
·       Biblical sources for Mikvah
·       Shmaya, a unique Mikvah in Israel 
·       Immersion as spiritual practice and ritual process
·       Practical elements of the immersion process
·       Intentionality and Kavannah

References:
Rising Tide Open Waters Mikveh Network – https://www.mayyimhayyim.org/risingtide/

Social Media links for Haviva: 
Website – https://rabbihaviva.com/
Facebook – https://www.facebook.com/haviva.nerdavid.1
Blog on the Times of Israel – https://blogs.timesofisrael.com/author/haviva-ner-david/

Social Media links for Méli:
Website – Talking with God Project
LinkedIn – Meli Solomon
Facebook – Meli Solomon

Transcript on Buzzsprout

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Transcript

Haviva Ner-David transcript 

The Mikveh, Biblical Sources with Contemporary Uses

Méli Solomon [00:00:05]:

Hello, and welcome to Living Our Beliefs, a home for open conversations with fellow Christians, Jews and Muslims. Through personal stories and reflection, we explore how our religious traditions show up in daily life. I am your host, Meli Solomon. So glad you could join us. This podcast is part of my Talking with God Project. To learn more, check out the link in the show notes. 

Méli Solomon [00:00:45]:

This week is the Jewish holiday of Hanukkah, which celebrates light in the dark days of winter. It is a time of contrasts and turning. Our candles add light in the darkness as we appreciate the slow turning towards longer days. In that spirit, this conversation explores another kind of opposites and turning, immersing in the mikvah as a way for a Jew to mark a transition. Today's episode is number 84, and my guest is Haviva Ner David, an American Jew who has lived in Israel more than half her life. She is the founding rabbi of Shmaya: A Mikveh for Mind, Body, and Soul. Located in Northern Israel, it is the only mikvah in Israel that allows people to immerse as they choose. Haviva talks about the biblical sources of the mikveh, her longstanding passion for this ritual, and the many uses of the mikvah, reaching far beyond the monthly practice for orthodox women after their menstrual periods. Each reason for immersing in the living waters of the mikvah marks a transition or celebrates a milestone in life. And now, let's turn to our conversation.

Méli Solomon [00:02:01]:

Hello, Haviva. Welcome to my Living Our Beliefs podcast. I'm really pleased to have you on today.

Haviva Ner-David [00:02:07]:

Thank you for having me.

Méli Solomon [00:02:09]:

I just mentioned that you are Jewish, that you live in Israel, and that you run a mikveh. But before we get deeply into the mikveh business, which is really why we're here, I want to just ask you to say a bit about your background. So did you grow up Jewish and where did you grow up?

Haviva Ner-David [00:02:34]:

I grew up Jewish, modern orthodox in New York, and I moved to Israel in my twenties. And I first lived in Jerusalem, and now I live on a kibbutz in the Galilee.

Méli Solomon [00:02:48]:

So it's been quite a while without outing your age. It's been, what, half your life, more than half your life that you've been in Israel?

Haviva Ner-David [00:02:58]:

More than half. Just a little more than half. And I live on a kibbutz that is a liberal Jewish kibbutz in the north of Israel.

Méli Solomon [00:03:08]:

We're here to talk about your running a mikvah. This is quite an unusual thing. Not very many people run mikvahs. To since we have quite a varied audience here, I'd like to just start with super, super basic things. What is a mikvah?

Haviva Ner-David [00:03:23]:

A mikveh is a small pool of water. It's water that's supposed to be close to the source, so it's not tap water. Our water actually is rainwater that is collected on the roof, and then it comes into the mikvah. It's a ritual bath, a ritual pool of water.

Méli Solomon [00:03:45]:

Let's talk very briefly about the source of this bath, this ritual bath.

Haviva Ner-David [00:03:51]:

In Leviticus, there is something called ritual impurity. And it says that in order to transition out of that state of being ritually impure, one needed to wash in water. There's a verse there that also says that a a spring or a cistern of gathered water, which it's implied a cistern of gathering water, will purify. And so later in the rabbinic period, in the in the period of the Talmud, the rabbis then decided that the way that one would transition out of the state of being ritually impure to being ritually pure meant that you had to actually immerse your entire body into this thing called a mikvah. In that verse, when it says a cistern of gathered water, the word there in Hebrew for gathered water is mik mikvaim, a gathering of water, and that's where we get the term mikvah. In Leviticus, it actually doesn't say to immerse your full body in water. That term isn't used. It says to wash in water, but later development in the rabbinic period, they said that it needs to be a full body immersion.

Méli Solomon [00:05:09]:

Yeah. Thank you. Already, you've raised a really critical point that there is a source, in this case, a biblical source for the for the need. There's a problem and the solution is to wash or then to dip, and then things change. The religion and the practices are a living thing, and they change over time. I wanna ask one more question about this source issue. So you're talking about ritual impurity. What were people prevented from doing while they were impure?

Haviva Ner-David [00:05:45]:

Okay. So thank you for asking that. Back then, the issue was worshiping in the temple or in the tabernacle back in biblical times. People could not then go worship in the temple if they were in this state of ritual impurity. But because we don't have a temple anymore, so that issue of ritual impurity is not relevant anymore. That does not mean that people stopped immersing in mikvah. It's developed over time, which is what what you were pointing out. So there is one kind of ritual impurity, which is ritual impurity from bleeding from the uterus.

Haviva Ner-David [00:06:24]:

That kind of ritual impurity continued on because that is the one kind of ritual impurity that had another ramification, which was that you could not have sexual intercourse when you were in that state of ritual impurity. So that practice of women immersing after bleeding from the uterus continued on to this day. At the same time, men mostly were continuing to immerse for what we would call, like, spiritual reasons, especially in the Kabbalistic and Hasidic worlds. Men would be immersing sometimes daily, sometimes weekly before the Sabbath, sometimes once a year before the high holidays. I know my father did that. He would go once a year before the high holidays. That's pretty common. Also, this is important to note too for conversion.

Haviva Ner-David [00:07:18]:

When someone converts into Judaism, the final ritual that they do after studying for a period of time is they immerse in the mikvah. That developed also in the rabbinic period in the Talmud because there was no ceremony for conversion. And so the rabbi is asking that in the Talmud, they say, what should we do? And they answer, oh, let's let's use, immersion, ritual immersion. What has developed over time now in the past 20 years is this idea of anyone who'd want to use Mikvah for spiritual purposes to do that.

Méli Solomon [00:07:57]:

What I'm hearing is that the biblical source spoke of an impurity that prevented you from from going to the temple and giving your sacrifices. That's a very physical activity. I'm unsure whether that was a spiritual experience. This is now a new question for me. What I then hear has changed is that at some point, I thought it was older than 25 years or so, that this more spiritual orientation developed. Am I understanding you correctly?

Haviva Ner-David [00:08:35]:

So, actually, I I would say it was always a spiritual experience. In the bible, there's this other source for Mikvah too, which is the creation story. Right at the beginning of Genesis, in the first verses, you find the word Mikvah too. There's the creation story that begins with water. It says that everything was is the term in the in Hebrew. And the way I understand that is everything was kind of, like, mixed together, and there was water, there was darkness, there was divine spirit, and there was an abyss. And then God starts separating in that story, and God puts a firmament that says between the upper waters and the lower waters. And then God tells the waters that are below the firmament, the lower waters, to collect into a pool.

Haviva Ner-David [00:09:31]:

And that word, like I mentioned before, that is used there too. God says to the waters, gather yourselves into pools. You should gather to one place, so and then to see the the dry land. The way I understand that that story is that the world, the universe went from a place of unity, where everything was kind of like I I picture it like a divine womb. Then there's the separation, like a birth of a human. You know, there's separation from the womb. And that story, the creation story is all about going from a place of unity to a place of separation. And so the way I understand this spiritually is that you could say that God left us humans this gift of the water, which gives us this experience of kind of going back into the womb to this place of unity and calm, you know, because we live in this world of separation.

Haviva Ner-David [00:10:32]:

There's a term in, in Kabbalah of Tikkun Olam, repairing the world. Repairing it is like all the brokenness in the world to repair it. And so the idea of mikvah is going back into that place of unity and wholeness, and it's a chance also to tap into your own wholeness that you were born with when you came into this world from a place of unity to this place of separation. So mikveh is an opportunity to reexperience that feeling of unity that existed before you were born into this world, that existed before the world was born into separation. So that's the kind of more spiritual idea behind mikvah. As I said, it's something it's a practice that continued throughout this time. And when I say, though, that in the past 25 years, what I mean is anyone being able to do this.

Méli Solomon [00:11:31]:

Okay. So I'm now hearing several different, you know, very interesting ideas, and I'm I imagine they all connect. This whole business of wholeness and returning to wholeness, I have I have never heard that around the mikvah. So this is an interesting new idea. But we've also talked about ritual impurity and becoming pure again. Now I have to be honest, Haviva. I'm hearing Christians in my head saying that sounds exactly like a baptism, going into water and and being renewed. So I'm going to have to check-in with some Christians I know who follow that belief. I I don't know whether that is the same or or similar ideas. I'm not expecting you to know the answer to that.

Haviva Ner-David [00:12:16]:

Well, I do know that baptism comes from Mikvah. That is exactly what it comes from.

Méli Solomon [00:12:22]:

Okay.

Haviva Ner-David [00:12:24]:

When Jesus immersed in the in the Jordan River, that's what he was doing. He was doing Mikvah, and that's what John the Baptist was doing. He would be at the at the water, and he would immerse people for mikvah. And then Jesus comes out and then had his, revelation. So that's what it was. It was mikvah.

Méli Solomon [00:12:45]:

Okay. Great. Alright. So, already, we've answered that question. Thank you for that. Really, the mikvah let's talk practicalities here for a minute. Generally speaking, mikvahs are kind of cubic spaces. Right? They're not like when you go to swim laps at your local pool.

Méli Solomon [00:13:04]:

They're cubes that one person goes into. They have some amount of living water, maybe a lot. I've heard that it there has to be at least some living water, rainwater, generally. Given this this note you say about the Christians taking that that practice on is then one could have a mikveh experience out in a lake, right, or in a river Yes. Or in a sea. Right?

Haviva Ner-David [00:13:32]:

Yeah. So the sea, a lake, and a spring, those are all mikvahs. Those are different examples of mikvah, and they're kosher mikvahs. You can do a conversion in one of those, you know, completely absolutely. And the cistern of gather rainwater is just sometimes more convenient one because you can build walls around it and heat the water. So it's sometimes just more comfortable.

Méli Solomon [00:13:55]:

Well yeah. And you have the privacy.

Haviva Ner-David [00:13:57]:

Exactly.

Méli Solomon [00:13:58]:

So we have these different reasons. We have these different events, a conversion before high holy days for orthodox women 7 days after their menstrual period ends, and then they can return to having intimate relations with their husbands. Am I missing 1?

Haviva Ner-David [00:14:19]:

Well, as I said, it's often used before the high holidays. It's used when someone's writing a, a Torah scroll. Also, before they would write the names of God in the Torah scroll, they would also go to Mikvah. And this kind of revolution of mikvah that's happened over the past 25 years, what happened was the women would be going after they bleed from the uterus, which could be after birth. It could be after a menstrual cycle. And those mikvahs were very circumscribed. They are still. There'd be somebody, a woman sitting at a front desk.

Haviva Ner-David [00:14:54]:

You come in and she would ask you questions, and she would also come into the room with you and watch when you go under. There's just a lot of rules around it, and that's because the rabbi saw that kind of immersion as a required immersion. There were issues also around there still are of the men trying to control the women around this because if, let's say, if the woman doesn't immerse at the right time or she just doesn't immerse in what's considered the right way, you know, then the man who would then be having sexual intercourse with her would be sinning. So a lot of rules around when you immerse, how you immerse. Also, women who aren't married aren't supposed to immerse in those spaces because that might be encouraging them to have sexual intercourse if they're not married. So there's a lot of rules around that. And then there'd be men Mikvah as well. There are, Where the men can come and just immerse when they want, how they want.

Haviva Ner-David [00:15:59]:

Nobody asks them any questions. So the idea in this new Mikvah movement, the rising tide Mikvah network, what I call also the reclaiming and reframing Mikvah movement. The idea is that anyone can come and do this. So women, in other words, women can also come to immerse for spiritual reasons. And I do tons of Mikvah ceremonies with men and women for all kinds of transition ceremonies in their lives or healing ceremonies or ceremonies when they wanna just get spiritually centered or something's happened in their life that they wanna mark. It's it's become this ritual that can be used in all these different kinds of ways. And there are mikvahs around the world, but mostly in in the United States that do this as well. And that's the rising tide mikvah network.

Haviva Ner-David [00:16:52]:

And, that's the idea of reclaiming. It's like reclaiming this beautiful ritual that we have in our tradition that was, in some ways, let go and in other ways, become too with too many rules in around it, too much control around it, and really bringing it back to the people, bringing it back to the person who's immersing and putting it in their hands to use as they would like to use it. So it's really it's an amazing work that I feel very privileged to be able to do.

Méli Solomon [00:17:27]:

What does it mean for you? This is clearly meaningful for you. This is not just, oh, I have a job. There's something deeper. So can you say a little about what it means for you? Why is it meaningful for you to do this work with people?

Haviva Ner-David [00:17:46]:

So, yes, it's definitely a passion of mine. I actually founded this mikvah, and I had a dream of opening a mikvah like this in Israel. It is the only one of its kind in Israel, actually. There are many mikvahs, and they're all run by the the chief rabbinate of Israel, the Orthodox chief rabbinate of Israel. This is the only one that's not. I originally came to it when I was living in the United States, and I applied for a job to run a Mikvah in Washington DC that was in a conservative synagogue, and it was used just for conversions and for brides. And the rabbi there had said to me, here's the keys to the mikveh. I was 20, I think, 22 years old, something like that.

Haviva Ner-David [00:18:27]:

And he said, okay. You know, you you run it. Back then even, this was more than 30 years ago, and I just had this idea to start doing other kinds of ceremonies. I had a friend who survived breast cancer, and we did a ceremony for her In the Mecca, I had a friend who got divorced, and I did a ceremony for her. My oldest daughter was born. She's 31. So this was 31 years ago. And I was looking for some kind of embodied ritual to do with her because if I had had a boy, I would have done circumcision, and so I wanted something embodied.

Haviva Ner-David [00:19:00]:

And I had done conversions of babies before, and so I knew how to dunk a baby in the water, and we did a a mikvah immersion ceremony for her. So this was something I started to do way back then in the United States, and then I had this dream of opening a mikvah that would be like that. They didn't exist. I mean, even in the United States then, they didn't exist. It was just something I was doing. And then I moved to Israel, and I had this dream of opening a mikveh like this. I wrote my doctorate on mikveh. It was just it's definitely a passion.

Haviva Ner-David [00:19:30]:

And then when I moved to this kibbutz, there was an old mikveh there that was not being used very much, and I raised some money to renovate it a bit and just started telling people you can come and use the mikvah for this purpose. And it's taken off. You know, I've I've done so many ceremonies, and I never get tired of it. Each each person who comes as a whole world. I sit with them and I hear their stories and we create ceremonies. And I have really the honor of officiating. And, and groups come and I talk about Mikvah, explain Mikvah, groups, even groups who are not Jewish come. I've had many clergy groups. That's also how I know about the baptism, especially of, Christian clergy. And I explained mikvah, and they go into the mikvah. It's amazing. It's amazing amazing work.

Méli Solomon [00:20:23]:

Can a non-Jew go in actually into the water of your mikvah?

Haviva Ner-David [00:20:28]:

Yes. Absolutely. A non-Jew can go into the water. It's not allowed in other mikvahs really for political reasons, but the waters themselves, what I like to say all the time is, like, an ocean is the first mikveh that ever existed, and an ocean is a kosher mikveh. So anything that can happen in an ocean can also happen in a institutional mikvah, and that's my barometer. You know, that's how I can tell what's okay and what's not okay. So many people who are not Jewish go into the ocean, you know, every day, and it doesn't do anything to the to the waters. That's one reason why I love Mikvah also, which is because I'm someone who does like to say yes.

Haviva Ner-David [00:21:15]:

You know, I'm not someone who who likes to say no. And, at the mikvah, really, everything goes. I mean, it's just a pool of water. Yeah. And that's that's one reason why it suits me as well, as well as the fact that I very much like 1 on 1 interactions, as a rabbi more than I do working in with community. I like working 1 on 1 with individuals, and this is probably the most intimate ritual that we have.

Méli Solomon [00:21:48]:

So this business of the Mikvah is really like a mini ocean, and whatever happens in the ocean can happen in in the Mikvah. I I hear that from you, and yet what I'm also hearing and what I know generally is that there are all these rules and regs certainly within the orthodox community. And I went to the Mikvah when I converted in a way I so that I could join a conservative synagogue. I understood that it was really important for the ritual, for the religious meaning aspect of it, that it be circumscribed that not just anybody can go in. But I'm hearing something quite different from you, and I'm wondering about your feelings about the whole purity aspect of this event?

Haviva Ner-David [00:22:44]:

The way I understand ritual purity and impurity in the bible is that all the forms of ritual impurity are somehow connected with death. And so you come in contact with death in some kind of way, and you need to retreat from the community. And then in order to return to the community and to life again, you needed to come in contact with water. It says washing water, but now it's understood as immersing your whole body in water. It was kind of a, a ritual to to prepare yourself for death. You would come in contact with death. You would have these kind of smaller deaths throughout your life. And then at the end, you know, eventually, you would you would die, and that would be like your final transition.

Haviva Ner-David [00:23:30]:

That's the way I understand ritual purity and impurity. Now you asked about this, how it's all circumscribed. It's not connected to ritual impurity today anymore because as I said, we don't have the the temple. The way it's circumscribed around women specifically is around sexuality and this fear of men sinning because the women are not doing it correctly. And so that's all the rules around that. Around, conversion, like in Israel, the the chief rabbinet only allows the conversions that they're that they do to happen at their mikvahs. And that's one reason why our mikvah is very important because it's the only one where people who are converting through the conservative movement, the reform movement, anyone who's not, you know, through the chief fravnett, they can come and do those conversions at at our mikvah. And we do a lot of those. And it's and it's wonderful. So a lot of the rules around that are trying to control who comes into the Jewish people. And I think a lot of the rules around mikvah are political and not really about the essence of what the actual ritual is about.

Méli Solomon [00:24:43]:

Yeah. Interesting. So there's a very strong spiritual and ritual aspect of this. There are on a practical level, there are prayers that are said. So let's talk for a minute just about the practicalities of of your mikvah. Does it operate the way traditional mikvahs do where a person enters, they disrobe, they shower, they remove all jewelry and nail polish, then they are checked by the person who's who's guiding, and then they walk down a few steps into the pool of water. Does it work that way in your mikvah?

Haviva Ner-David [00:25:31]:

So our mikvah is unique in that we don't have a what we call in Hebrew, it's a balanit, but the woman who sits at the desk, you know, and then would watch you go under. We have a key that's kept in a little box next to the door. Someone calls and makes an appointment, and I ask them, would you like someone to be there with you? Would you like someone to create a ceremony with you? Would you like to come on your own and just take the key and go in? Would you like to bring someone with you? So that's how that works. Very often, people who are regular immersers, they just like to come and take the key and go in and do it on their own. Mostly people getting married and doing it for a first time or maybe for their only time do like to have accompaniments and somebody to hold space for them and to explain about mikvah, do a sharing circle maybe with people who come, and I do a lot of that. And then a lot of people would have a special occasion that they want to mark, and we'll meet before often on Zoom. And I'll use my skills as a spiritual companion, and I'll sit and I'll hold space and I'll listen. And then I create a ceremony for them.

Haviva Ner-David [00:26:50]:

The way the ceremonies usually work is there's usually something that you say when you're standing on the top of the 7 steps. There's usually 7 steps going into a mikveh, the 7 days of creation. When you're standing on the top, you would say some kind of intention and then go in down the 7 steps into the mikveh. And before each dunk, before each immersion, you would say some kind of Kavannah. Kavannah is the holy intention. Kavannah is what it's all about because you could go into the ocean and have a swim as you said, you know, and that wouldn't be mikvah. The idea is this Kavannah, this holy intention. So you go down.

Haviva Ner-David [00:27:27]:

Before your first immersion, you would say some kind of Kavannah, some kind of holy intention for that immersion. And then dunk your entire body, including your head, under the water and pick up your feet so you and you wouldn't be touching the sides because you want to be kind of like a fetus in the womb. And then you would come up, and you would say some kind of a blessing. Sometimes their ceremonies will have 7 immersions. Sometimes they'll have 3. Usually in a conversion, it's 3, and you'll say there's a specific blessing that you're supposed to say. The first one is a blessing on on the immersion. The second is the Sheheheyanu, which is thanking God for bringing me to this to this moment.

Haviva Ner-David [00:28:11]:

And the third thing you would say is Shema Israel Adonai Eloheinu Adonai echad. So that's your typical conversion ceremony. But other ceremonies could have however many immersions you would want, and then, you come out of the water and you might say another something. You might, you know, have music. People might throw candy at you. All kinds of things.

Méli Solomon [00:28:34]:

Wow. Fascinating. So are you saying that people might throw things at you into the pool of water or after you come out of the water?

Haviva Ner-David [00:28:43]:

Right. Usually, it's go and you, you know, you could take a shower. You could not. Some people like to leave the make the water on them when and they just put on their clothes. You come out of the dressing room, and then you might be showered with the candy. I once had a bride who there it was the custom of their community or I don't remember exactly what or their family to actually throw candy into the mikveh, but it was in wrappers, so it was okay. And then we we got it out. Right.

Haviva Ner-David [00:29:12]:

Not only do you take off your jewelry, I mean, the whole idea is you go in completely nude. You know, you go into the water without anything, without any clothing. Sometimes something comes up like nail polish you mentioned where, like, a bride will feel anxious and she'll come and say, you know, I'm coming to the Mecca tomorrow, and I just had my nails done for the wedding. What should I do? And the truth is it's actually fine for you to have anything on your body that you do not feel is extraneous on your body. So if she had this manicure specifically for the wedding and she wants it on her nails, then it's totally fine. I have a nose ring, and, you know, I wear it all the time. I never take it off, Or your wedding ring if you never take it off. Things like that that you never take off that you consider kind of, like, part of your body, you also don't have to take off.

Haviva Ner-David [00:30:06]:

So there's a lot of, you know, some misinformation, and I did a lot of study of this. I spent a whole year studying the halakhot, the Jewish legal rules around mikvah, and I wrote my doctrine on it. So I feel very confident being able to to be lenient about some things.

Méli Solomon [00:30:24]:

Yeah. Interesting. Those are some different ideas that I had had and that I understood around when I went to the Mikvah. Is that a difference between what the orthodox are doing and your mikvah, or is it really even a misunderstanding about what the orthodox are doing? And I don't expect you to speak on behalf of the orthodox, but you used to be orthodox. So

Haviva Ner-David [00:30:51]:

There are a lot of mikvahot, that's the Hebrew word mikvahot, the plural, where they will tell you things. They'll send somebody home, you know, if they have, like, cornrows in their hair. I don't know. All kinds of things. You know? They'll they'll say, no. You can't immerse in the mikvah. I studied these laws in an orthodox context, and my teachers explained. You know? And we studied the sources and everything, and we saw that actually, you know, you would say to the person, like, does this feel like something that's part of you? Does it feel like something extraneous? That's the way you you really should do it, but that's not what's always done.

Haviva Ner-David [00:31:25]:

Often, people prefer to be strict. It's just easier sometimes to be to be strict to say no. And sometimes it's harder to say yes. But if you actually understand the meaning behind things and the the reasons behind them, then you can feel more confident saying saying yes.

Méli Solomon [00:31:45]:

Right. Fair enough. And what I'm also hearing in this, you know, general conversation with you, Haviva, is that many orthodox are really concerned about it not being done properly, which then has a knock on effect on the husbands. You obviously are taking a a really different approach, and I I completely understand. And I and I recognize the the knowledge that you have. There's there's no question about that.

Haviva Ner-David [00:32:17]:

It's it's also important to to point out that it depends also what kind of immersion you're doing. So if the immersion you're doing is really just for your own spiritual purposes, like, if you're coming to mark your your graduation, your ordination, whatever, then you don't really don't have to be strict because this person's immersion is not required in any way. It's just something they're doing for their own personal spiritual experience. You can't do anything to the waters. You know? Like, nothing can make the mikvah not kosher. Somebody goes in and they go in and they don't put their whole head under the water, you know, or something. It doesn't change the mikveh anyway. The mikveh will still be a kosher mikveh.

Haviva Ner-David [00:32:59]:

So there are cases where you might wanna be more strict. When a rabbi sends someone to me that they studied with and they want them to convert and I'm doing just the mikveh part of it, I feel more responsible because I am then doing this for that rabbi. And I might ask them, like, how strict do you want me to be about their whole head going under, you know, like, sometimes somebody comes and they're very afraid of the water, All different kinds of things. You know? So I might ask that rabbi, how strict do you want me to be? Because I'm just their messenger. You know? There is. But I do know that when it's somebody coming just for their purposes, then I might say to them, listen. Do you want me to be in the room with I don't require that I be in the room when someone is immersing. I will ask them, and that's very important to me because there are people who have been very traumatized by having somebody in the in the room with them.

Haviva Ner-David [00:33:51]:

Even women who have converted and male rabbis were in the room, they might wear, like, a white some kind of a a robe, but that's something that's very loose so the water can go under, but then can go into the robe, but then it could still you know, it's white and it's water and, all kinds of things, happen. And so I've always I'm very, very careful to say, do you want me in the room with you? Do you not want me in the room with you? Do you want me to stand really far back so that I'm still holding space for you, but I can't see anything? You know? It's very, very important to respect people's, privacy and and for them to own the ritual that they're doing so to give them as many options and choices because it's really for them, not for me.

Méli Solomon [00:34:34]:

Yeah. I can imagine how how there could be all kinds of concerns and lingering trauma that could be reignited if it's not done with care, and you clearly do it with great care, which is wonderful and a blessing to the people who come to your mikvah and who go through the ceremony with you. The variety of uses and the variety of of reasons and experiences is, I think, something I want to just highlight is you know, just to put a pin in that because as we've mentioned earlier in the conversation, Haviva, there are misunderstandings about the mikvah, and it does have this quite narrow, and I think fairly mysterious use and purpose and meaning in in the general population. So I'm so glad that we've been able to unpack really quite a lot about the unique situation you have in Israel. But I realize now just in closing, which is a funny time to ask, but does somebody need to be a member of your kibbutz to use the mikvah?

Haviva Ner-David [00:35:44]:

No. People come from all over the country and all over the world to use our mikvah. And people can reach me, you know, by email, and then we can meet on Zoom and make a ceremony, and then they can come whenever they're visiting, and that's how it works. I get a lot of of that.

Méli Solomon [00:36:02]:

Okay. So open for business. Wonderful. Before we end our conversation, is there anything else, some short thing that you would like to add that we didn't get to?

Haviva Ner-David [00:36:13]:

Yeah. Actually, I wanted to to emphasize that the way that I see that we're using mikveh today in this more, open liberal way that actually, it is very much in tune with with the original intention of Mikvah when I talked about it being, like a preparation for the final transition to for death. In using Mikvah today for all these different kinds of life transitions, I feel like it's really actually bringing back the original use of mikveh, which was so much a part of people's daily lives back in the time when there was a temple. That is actually reviving the original intention of mikveh, of this way of marking all these different transitions until you get to this final transition. And life is all about transitions and being on the journey to the final transition.

Méli Solomon [00:37:08]:

Okay. Thank you for that additional note. I appreciate that. So this has been a wonderful conversation, Haviva. Thank you so much for coming on my Living Our Beliefs podcast. I really appreciate it. Have a good evening.

Haviva Ner-David [00:37:23]:

Thank you.

Méli Solomon [00:37:27]:

Thank you for listening. This podcast is an outgrowth of my Talking with God Project. If you'd like to learn more about that project, a link to the website is in the show notes. Thanks so much for tuning in. Till next time. Bye bye.