Chavi Goes to the Mikvah!

Sometimes, you just have to take your camera with you to the mikvah.


Have questions about what it means to tovel or what exactly you do when you go to the kelim mikvah? Let me know. I'll try to answer!

A Mikvah Miracle?

I'm pretty sure HaShem reads this blog.

No, I'm serious. I've always had these sort of weird moments where I'll wonder about something and *poof* it'll show up on the next page of what I'm reading or I'll be frustrated about something at shul only to find out that the text I'm reading is focused on that very frustration in the next chapter. It's like HaShem is willing me to understand the things I don't and to cope with the things that frustrate me. Of course, it doesn't happen often enough, nor does it happen with the major questions and frustrations in life, but beggars can't be choosers.

I wrote a blog post back in December called The Mikvah is Lost On Me, and it's one of my most oft-read posts these days. A lot of people gave me a lot of great advice, and I took a lot of it into account during my next trip to the mikvah. The thing of it is ... is that it was probably the best mikvah experience as a married woman that I had and have had.

I was frustrated with the rush, the time curiosity, the mundane nature of the preparations, and the quick fly-by of the actual mikvah dip itself.

And then I went to the mikvah, after airing my frustrations, and the entire experience was heavenly. I paced myself, went through a set routine, but with emphasis on each aspect of preparation. And when the mikvah attendant came, she was the friendliest and most kind attendant I've had. She kept insisting that I take my time, all the time I needed, that there was no rush, and that if I had any questions or needed anything to just ask. We got to the mikvah and she again assured me that it was okay for me to take my time. So I counted the steps as I entered the pool, and when I was in, I took my time with each dip, thinking about all of our mothers, the great women of Jewish memory. I counted the steps as I came up, I put on the robe, reentered my room, and for the first time I felt relaxed, not rushed or unfulfilled.

It just felt right. I knew in that instance that HaShem read my blog post. You probably think I'm nuts, but seriously, what are the chances to land a mikvah lady that attuned to my greatest frustrations with mikvah-going? Okay. Maybe the mikvah folks are plugged in to my blog and brace for when I come in.

Or maybe, just maybe it was a fluke. Maybe it won't happen again, and maybe I just got lucky. Maybe I was looking for that rekindling experience, one that would set everything right again.

Either way, it gave me a little bit of hope that the mikvah and I were going to be okay after all.

A Kohen and a Chicken Walk Into a Bar ...

The interweb is giving me a huge shout-out today. I'm all glowing and delighted, what can I say. For your viewing pleasure, check out these two items and let me know what you think!

• The first thing? The Chicken in a Bag returns! This time, an article in The Jewish Week that quotes this here blog in Instant Kosher Chicken. My only beef (har har) with the chicken article? It cites me as a "recent" convert. I suppose in one sense that's true: I completed my Orthodox conversion a little over a year ago. But in another sense, I've been doing Judaism in some form since 2003, having converted Reform in 2006. I realize that to some that doesn't count, but, you know, even more than a year later I don't feel "recent." ~ At any rate, others in our 'hood have tried this and were pretty pleased with it. I'd say my kosher microwave chicken ambassadorship has been successful!

• And then there's The Huffington Post piece by the lovely Shira Hirschman Weiss: The Kohein's Conundrum. Some have asked me about my quote in the piece and referring to the problems my daughters and granddaughters will have when it comes to not even considering marrying a kohen, and it stems from something I read in one of my halacha books a while back, and it was referenced however fleetingly in my blog post Three Years and a Day. I really need to write a more comprehensive post on this, and if I can find the book and source, I'll sock it to you. 

Stay tuned, also, for an OU piece on Project Frumway that should appear some time this month and will also feature the blog here. Does this mean I've hit it big time? Who knows. I just know the exposure puts me in a happy place. 

Next Up: A mikvah follow-up to The Mikvah is Lost On Me (seriously, HaShem must read my blog) and a fashion post on my duds for the 17th Annual NJOP Dinner at the New York Hilton last night, as well as a post about my studies and thoughts on Jewish and Hebrew education today. 

The Mikvah is Lost on Me

NOTE: Please feel free to leave a comment anonymously. I know this is a very personal topic for ladies!

The mikvah: a strange, sometimes spa-like, place where there are mikvah ladies, cleaning ladies, and a pool of water that you hope is clean and lacking floating hairs. The ritual bath, required of women after their niddah period (i.e., days of menstruation + 7), is a part of the lives of many Jewish women, from the secular up to the most religious. Men, too, use the mikvah, but the command to go to the mikvah and "tovel" is one for women, which really binds the greater community of Jewish women the world over. We go, we clean, we dip, dip, dip, we leave, we return to our spouses, and we resume the duties of, well, let's say physical interaction.

I've been waiting to blog about my mikvah experiences, simply because I thought if I posted too soon after marriage y'all would be able to plot my entire life, and that, well, would defeat the purposes of modesty. So here I am, many months post-marriage, and many times mikvah'd. Of course, I attended the mikvah three times prior to my wedding day. One for my Reform conversion in 2006, another for my Orthodox conversion in January 2010, and again the day before my wedding. So, even before that third dip, I was a mikvah pro.

What I wasn't a pro at, however, was the evident truth that the act of toveling would lose that charm, that feeling of floating, of weightless abandon in the presence of G-d. Like living next to the Eiffel Tower. It loses its historic charm when you see it every five seconds, right?

I've been to the mikvah quite a bit where I live. I've never had the same mikvah lady, and they all vary -- in looks, in mannerisms, in friendliness, in chatter. I'm a "say something to me" kind of mikvah-goer. Several times it's been this mechanical ritual without any sense of comfort or ease, but rather more of a factory-style approach. Rush, rush, rush. I've had the awkward experiences (including my pre-wedding dip) where the mikvah attendant neglected to embrace that whole "modesty" thing and removed the robe while giving me a once over, only to watch me walk into the pool (talk about creepy). I've also struggled to figure out exactly how long I'm supposed to be prepping. As in, from front door to back door -- how long is a woman in the mikvah building? To bathe or shower, to futz around while getting ready.

There is a rhyme and a reason to the way the mikvah dip itself goes, hence my comment about the creepy-tendencies of some of the attendants. You go into the mikvah room with a robe on. The attendant pulls the robe down and checks your back for loose hairs (which never made sense because they'll float off in the water anyway, like any loose hairs on your head), and then the attendant fully removes the robe, holding it up to shield the attendant from seeing you walk into the pool. Once you're in, you give the go-ahead, and do your first dip. Up, you say the blessing. Down again, the attendant yells "kosher!" And then, a third time, you dip and get a "kosher!" The attendant holds up the robe, again, and you walk up the stairs and pull it on, and then you're shuffled back to the changing room where you were. On your way out, (at least at my mikvah) there's a room of lotions and hairdryers and the like. And then? You're off homeward.

There are varying opinions about whether to bathe post-dip or whether to take the mikvah waters home with you. I used to do that, but then my very astute dermatologist and I had the following conversation:

Him: So ... you're Orthodox Jewish, right?  

Me: Yes ...

Him: So you go to mikvah, right?

Me: Um, yes ...

Him: You should bathe immediately afterward, because of the chemicals in the water. They're horrible for eczema.

Me: Oh ...

So bravo to my dermatologist!

But that's the practical. It's all simply practical. I feel like I've lost the spiritual, the emotional, the lightness that I felt during both of my conversion mikvah experiences. That clarity of knowing I'm close to something so much bigger than myself. Is it me, or have I awoken to the true nature of the mikvah as nothing more than a practical pursuit of the commandments?

Swallowed Up in the Mikvah

I just stepped out of the bathtub, after watching steam rise from my legs and feet, the air much colder than the water and the now-temperature of my body. I sat in the tub, candles oozing light, music crooning, and I tried to imagine myself back at the mikvah, standing in that warm pool of water, after taking the literal steps into a Torah-binding agreement with HaShem. I couldn’t. The experience, a true one-time experience, is best left to the memory in its warm and welcoming embrace of the wings of the shechinah. But I want to do my best to share some of it with you. It’s just who I am to tell a story.

The entire thing happened suddenly, in a swirl of phone calls, organizing, and haste. I’d anticipated at least the weekend to consider names, to call friends to be there, to let everyone know. And then, in a quick whish of winter wind, the plans were made and I was set to be at the mikvah on Friday, not today as originally planned (which, by the way, was quite surprising and sudden as it was). To describe it as a whirlwind experience would be understating the actual whirlwindedness of those 25 hours.

You see, I met with my beth din, for the second time, at 10 a.m. on Thursday. By the next day, at 11 a.m., I was sitting on a couch in the very nice waiting room of a very nice mikvah on the Upper West Side. I didn’t sleep Wednesday night, and I surely didn’t sleep Thursday night. I was tossing around names, scenarios of what we’d do if the weather got bad as it had been Thursday morning (every route into NYC was closed for a time, and by the grace of G-d all the rabbis made it in). But everything, miraculously, went like clockwork.

On Friday, I arrived at the mikvah, I spoke with the mikvah lady, I prepared, I went into the mikvah, I accepted a variety of covenantal and binding sentiments and laws upon myself, I dipped, I said a b’racha, I dipped again, I said another b’racha, and I dipped again. I ascended those literal stairs, I entered my dressing room, and I cried. I cried with a smile that I cannot even put into words. I can feel the feeling right now, the confusing smiling, laughing, crying, crying more, and smiling feeling. I stared at myself, drenched in mikvah waters, in the mirror and I could see the change. I stand firmly by the idea that my entire life I have carried within me the Jewish neshama that has shined so brightly these past six or seven years. But standing there, looking into that mirror and later listening to the rabbi bestow upon me my name as a Jewess, I felt different. But I’m getting ahead of myself. Let me back up.

In the mikvah (if you want more details about the procedure, feel free to email me, but this is just for those going through the process who might want to know what to expect), the water was warm, at a temperature that I can’t even describe. “Warm” doesn’t do it justice. Similarly, it didn’t really feel like water. It grazed my skin like a thick liquid, holding me firmly in place, pressing the heat against my chest, like I was being cradled tightly with the kind of pressure that is welcoming. I’m not a very touchy-feely kind of person. I shy away from hugs, and as a child my father couldn’t cradle me, he had to cross his legs and place me there in order for me to stop crying. But the warmth and pressure of the mikvah waters were the most comforting I’d ever felt – those waters, they cannot be replicated. I could see the rabbis reflection in the water beside me, and as he spoke I answered confidently with tears in my eyes “I Accept” with every statement he issued. And as each statement came, I shook more and more. Like tons of little shivers up and down my arms, I was shaking, almost shivering in the warm water. I was anxious, nervous, excited, and my body was processing the emotion in any way it could.

At last, I was told to dip. I grabbed my breath, and dropped into the water, floating freely, fingers apart, toes apart, my body a mess of limbs in the warmth. Through the echo of the water I heard a muffled “KOSHER!” being yelled by the rabbis as they departed the room. And the funny thing? I couldn’t find my footing afterward, I floated, my short little limbs unable to find the ground. After all, the water reached up just at my shoulders, and that was with me on my tip-toes. I was swallowed up by the water, and it was beautiful. At last I found the floor, and the mikvah lady assured me I just need to be down for a second. I guess for her, it’s nothing new. For me? I could have floated freely without air, mindlessly twisting and turning, wrestling with the shechinah in that water for eternity. I dipped two more times, after saying the b’rachot clearly, and heard the mikvah lady shout “KOSHER!” (I have to tell you, this was one of my favorite things – hearing that KOSHER! being yelled really loudly; it was empowering and affirming!)

I came out after having dressed, and cried, and laughed, and was greeted by mazel tovs from friends and the rabbis. The rabbi read a document aloud for everyone to hear, proclaiming me Chaviva Elianah bat Avraham v’Sarah, and I cried again. Chaviva is the name I chose at my Reform conversion in April 2006, it holding the same meaning as my given name, Amanda: “beloved.” Elianah I chose because I wanted something that included and named HaShem. I had very, very little time to officially decide, and I chose Elianah, meaning “G-d has answered,” because I felt as though my neshama was officially, finally, being recognized as having been at Sinai as my deep visions and memories have shown me. Thus, Chaviva Elianah bat Avraham v’Sarah was born on the 15th of Tevet 5770.

And then? Well, we’re back to where I left off.

My first thought, after everything, was this: No one, NO ONE, can deny me anything as a Jew anymore. Period. No one. I immediately thought back to my having applied to Aish HaTorah’s birthright program and being turned down, told harshly and degradingly that I wasn’t a Jew, and issued materials on conversion programs. I thought to myself, “Now, now they can’t do that to me. NO one can treat me like that!” Everyone is quick to assure me that they’ve always thought of me as a member of the tribe, and I’ve always thought of me as a member of the tribe, too. But this one thing makes it different: No one has to feel it anymore, because it’s so. It’s halakicly so! It’s so empowering, I can’t stress this enough.

After the mikvah, an outing for bagels, and wishing farewell to friends heading off on a cruise (oh, and seeing Alec Baldwin!), we headed out to prepare for Shabbos. After a flurry of calls to family and friends, and the realization that my voice was going – fast – I stopped, let my arms fall to my side, and told Tuvia that I was exhausted. I’d been running on adrenaline the past two days, not to mention the past two years, and I was ready to stop. My neshama looked at me and said, Chaviva Elianah, it’s done, it’s really done, and we need to rest now. And so I slept all of Shabbos, save for mealtime (of course). I really can’t put into words that feeling, that exhaustion that I felt (and still feel a little bit) after such an arduous journey.

And that, I suppose, is the rest of the story. I feel like I’m leaving so much out, but the memory, well, it’s so much my own. I want there to be some mystery, some mystique, some feeling that is just between me and that mikvah and HaShem.

As an aside: I’ve received emails, calls, Twitter replies, Facebook messages and comments, and so much more, from dozens and dozens of friends and strangers alike, wishing me mazel tov on my conversion. Save for one individual, the response has been nothing but welcoming and positive. This weekend, there are meals in honor of my simcha. Something else I fail to put into words is how I personally am reacting to everything, that being the mazels and the welcoming and the kind words. It is, in a word, overwhelming. Don’t get me wrong, it’s overwhelming in the most positive way, but I’m the kind of person who shies away from praise, I always have been. To put it simply, I honestly don’t know how to take a compliment. So, over the past few days, I’ve been overwhelmed by the kind things people have said to me, and I almost feel as though I am not serving people right in my responses. I say thank you, I say thank you again, I feel awkward, and I say thank you again.

Am I alone in this? This is such a big thing, and I know that I’ll experience this again when I get engaged (if?) and married and have kids and all of the other major simchas. Will I ever learn how to be properly responsive? I feel as though others think I’m being ungrateful, but the volume is hard to respond to. I love my friends, my blog friends, my Twitter friends, my Facebook friends. I think I am the most blessed and lucky person in the world right now. I’m quite good at writing, especially when it comes to experiences and emotions, but this is just something for which I can’t figure out how not to be awkward. Sigh. Just know, I love you guys. You and this blog and everything that surrounds my efforts to really light a fire under every neshama out there, those are the things that keep me going, that keep my hopes high and my fingers tapping.

Chavi's Got News!

You read that right, folks. I've got news. Big news. Huge news! I was going to post a brief video blog about it, but my voice sounds horrible, and the upload was taking far too long. So I'm going to have to give you a teaser here and hope you all come back when I actually write the full post in the coming week.

Is the anticipation killing you? Is it? I guess you could have just looked below for the news, right. But if you're still reading, come on, move along already!

On 15 Tevet 5770 (that's January 1, 2010), at a little after 11 a.m. on the Upper West Side in New York, I descended the steps of a mikvah -- a ritual pool/bath -- and accepted upon myself the yoke of Judaism and being a Jewish woman. I ascended from the pool a new person, a fresh and invigorated neshama, and met friends who were waiting for me outside. I was named, Chaviva Elianah (חביבה אליענה), said my first b'racha as a halakic Jewess and my first shehechiyanu as a Jewess. And then?

Then I went out for a delicious bagel lunch at Bagels & Co. with @susqhb, @ravtex, and @schnit. I was then lucky enough to be on a streetcorner with Alec Baldwin and some other actor whose name I can't figure out. Then Shabbos came, and I spent my first Shabbos as a card-carrying member of the club. And damn did it feel good.

I'll write more later, a lot more later. So please stay tuned. It'll include why I chose a second name, what it felt like in the mikvah, what it felt like after, and everything in between -- including the candy that sticks to your teeth. Oh, and why this was completely sudden, unexpected, and AWESOME.

Thanks for the support and kind words and encouragement over this journey. It still isn't over, of course. We're all under construction, especially this one right here.