For 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?