Young Women Immerse Their Minds in Ritual Baths
Jenny Hazan
For Chabad.edu
University of Washington student Shira Rand-Lakritz never thought that once she got married, she’d be the type to use a mikvah regularly.
“I grew up really entrenched in the Conservative movement,” says Rand-Lakritz, 20, who moved from Kfar Veradim, Israel, to Seattle a year ago to study dance and psychology at the university. “The mikvah was not something that I knew much about, or ever pictured as a part of my life.”
That changed, however, when Rand-Lakritz went on an educational tour of a mikvah – a religiously-mandated pool of water that is meant to ritually purify a married woman after the completion of her monthly cycle – hosted by the campus Chabad House.
“I went mostly out of curiosity,” she relates. “But it turned out to be a really enlightening experience. The whole idea of cleansing yourself on a monthly basis, not just your physical body, but also your soul, is really compelling to me. I fell in love with the idea.”
Rand-Lakritz is one of many young Jewish college students across the United States learning about the mikvah and Judaism’s family purity laws, which dictate times of separation between husband and wife revolving around the menstrual cycle. Serving as instructors have been the on-campus shluchos, or the female Chabad-Lubavitch emissaries who with their husbands staff dozens of Chabad student centers in North America and beyond.
Although the Chabad Chasidic movement, based in the Crown Heights section of Brooklyn, N.Y., has yet to universalize a formal program, several campus Chabad Houses have begun to offer mikvah tours and educational programs to Jewish female students over the last few years.
Chaya Estrin at the University of Washington, for instance, began the “Brunch ‘n Mikvah” tour-and-talk program for students last year.
“The program was more successful than I anticipated it would be,” says Estrin, who took five students to a newly built mikvah in Seattle for a tour, followed by a meal and discussion about the purity laws. “I really wanted the girls to see what a mikvah is like, so that when they do get married, they will know about this beautiful mitzvah.”
Estrin anticipates enrollment in the program will more than double this year: “I didn’t realize that it would have such a great impact on the students,” she says.
At Washington University in St. Louis, Chana Novack reports a similar response to her mikvah program, which is geared primarily to seniors in serious relationships.
“Many seniors are at a point where they are about to embark on their lives in the greater world, and this program might be their last opportunity to gain exposure to this very special Jewish tradition, one that they should consider including in their decision to get married,” explains Novack, who for each of the past four years has been instructing around 10 students.
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Novack says the purity laws are full of surprises.
“People are surprised to discover that the mikvah is as mainstream as it is; they are surprised to learn how important it is in a Jewish context; and most of all, they are surprised to realize that they can actually imagine themselves doing it,” she says. “Before they come, it’s this curious, foreign thing, and by the time they leave, it is something that they are considering to do in the future.”
The proof is in the pool.
“At first I thought I wouldn’t want to go near it, but now I definitely would like to try using the mikvah when I get married,” says Rand-Lakritz.