What to do when...
While married to the ex, my first pregnancy ended in miscarriage. For days and days the doctors went back and forth: blighted ovum, viable, heartbeat, no heartbeat, missed abortion, D&C, mexotrethate, and on. A half or dozen so internal ultrasounds later and it was over.
Miscarrying was painful but not emotionally wrenching. There was sadness at the loss of potential but somehow I never really “felt” pregnant.
Niddah didn’t seem like such big deal. For some reason that escapes me now, the ex and I started fighting bitterly. We discussed whether or not to try again when given the go-ahead. We wondered if we should split up there and then. We’d been in counseling since a month into the marriage and there’d been little improvement.
The crisis passed, my body emptied and then righted itself. I remember immersing and wondering which way things would go. My mother and both grandmothers had a long history of reproductive problems. I questioned if I’d take after them?
I became pregnant right after mikvah night. There was this feeling almost immediately: I just knew I was pregnant. It was totally different this time. Discounting scares and bumps along the way, I was blessed with a healthy child.
At a week old, the baby ended up back in the children’s hospital. The ex and I fought and fought. He threatened to take the baby away and never let me have access to the child. Those threats continued for the remainder of the marriage.
Fast forward a year and a half. Again, right around mikvah time, we finally called it quits. We never should have married. I know that now. But then we would never have had our amazing child. No need to continue that thought.
We filed for divorce. I wondered: do I still need to immerse? I won’t be having relations but I am still married. What do I do? I did nothing. I didn’t immerse. And, when you’re racking up thousands of dollars in legal bills, being threatened by said ex, fearing that you’re going to lose your child, wondering how you’ll get through the day, praying you’re going to have enough money to make it through the month…well, mikvah becomes a little less important.
Nearly two years after it began and just over five years from the first time I went to the mikvah, I received my civil divorce. One hurdle down. No surprise, the non-religious ex had been refusing to give a get. That was the threat during the entire divorce proceeding. And trust me, that was as real a threat as fearing the loss of my child.
B”H, I got my get on a rainy Friday afternoon. I became a free woman only an hour before Shabbat. I so wanted to mark the occasion. My child, my parents, who were visiting, and I attended Kabbalat Shabbat services. That helped. But what I really wanted to do was cleanse myself of the legalities, the screaming, the fears, the sleepless nights, the threats. I wanted to go to the mikvah.
Nope. There are no “approved” rituals for personalizing divorce. Yes, there is the get process. But that was awful. There you are, a woman, alone with a group of old bearded men. The ex told everyone there that he wanted to stay married and all sorts of hooey. The ex also stuck me with the entire tab for the get. Whatever. So, what do you do when…
In a small community I couldn’t go to the mikvah. I couldn’t or wouldn’t want to be in a position of having to explain my absence. I asked the Orthodox rav who performed my wedding. I asked a close relative, a Conservative rabbi. No go. Although I’ve been attending a Conservative shul for a couple of years now, I still go back to an Orthodox rabbi for mikvah and kashrut issues. He said no, so no.
The next time I went to the mikvah was just before I remarried. I was more excited to go this time than ever before and was lucky to be accompanied a friend who also was immersing that night. OK, I know it’s supposed to be private and all…but it was tremendously special nonetheless.
Obviously a lot has gone in only a few years. The point of this rambling essay was in a sense, less about my story and more about a gray area. It’s murky if you’re not Orthodox. It’s a big question mark if you want to acknowledge a loss or a transition with mikvah. There’s not the big “kosher” stamp of approval. Sure, I could go to a lake. But legitimacy is missing. Keeping mikvah as a Conservative Jew (or Conservadox) is like hearing Zero Mostel sing about a Fiddler on the Roof.
I’ve been doing a lot of reading lately (including an unpublished master’s thesis from someone at JTS on the intentions and uses of mikvah). I made the halachic decision. I’m not sure if I made the right decision. I still wish there would have been a way to clean myself of my marriage (or its end) in those rejuvenating waters.
I leave it out there for the other learned women on this forum to continue the discussion. I hope one day using mikvah to mark life transitions (in addition to those already accepted) in modern, culturally sensitive ways will be accepted in some way, shape or form. Or maybe I just defined Conservative Judaism.
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I was thinking something similar, that women do use the mikvah at times other than for "tevilas nashim," (meaning specifically to be purified from niddah... obviously anytime a woman immerses is litterally "tevilas nashim") and erev Yom Kippur is what came to mind.
I really don't get why they would keep you out. You had just ended another relationship, you weren't seeing anyone who would know you went to mikvah and "mistakenly" have relations with you because you happened to be tahor, even though you weren't married. That's a bit ridiculous.
I think I've heard that unmarried women used to use the mikvah too, but "the Rabbis" (I'm guessing that would be Chazal times) decided it caused too many problems to have all these unmarried women running around tahor, so there was less of an aveirah ("sin") in sleeping with them. SO it's probably an outgrowth of that? But it's still hard to comprehend, since most unmarried women of childbearing age are niddah, so a random man is not going to assume or ask you if you've been to mikvah lately if you aren't his wife. (The only case in which it is any of his business, after all.)
Wow, I'm so sorry for all you've gone through - on so many levels. And so happy for you, too. My non-religious ex hedged on giving me my get, as well. My rabbi had to have a talk with the ex to get him to agree.
I with there had been another option for you for immersion. I think, for me, I would have immersed in a lake if a mikvah was prohibited to me. If I had known about all this then, of course.
it sounds as though they were objecting as a matter of social policy, but not that there is, in principle, anything wrong with going.
for ex, there's general agreement that a single woman who's having sex anyway is better off having gone to the mikva, but the orthodox mikvaot are not going to encourage this (or tolerate it if they know about it) as a matter of not wanting to give their stamp of approval to premarital sex. As the previous poster said, this sounds like a variant of that policy - with the difference being that in your case, there is no halachic benefit as with the single woman who is better off having gone to the mikva than not - it's more the personal meaning of the ritual to you.
There could be some problem with saying the bracha (though I'm not sure why there would be) but you might like going without a bracha too.
In your place, I'd just have gone to an area where they didnt recognize me, lol. Maybe this is bad advice, but if it mattered to me, and I didn't think there was a halachic problem just a social policy problem, I'd have done that.
Have you heard about Mayyim Hayyim? Obviously, the mikvah itself is only of use to women in the Boston area, and you yourself have moved on to another phase of your life...but they may prove to be an interesting and useful resource for another woman in your situation.
"the orthodox mikvaot are not going to encourage this (or tolerate it if they know about it) as a matter of not wanting to give their stamp of approval to premarital sex."
What I saw as the "official" Orthodox Rabbinic stance on this was they wanted to assume about each and every instance of premarital sex that the people involved still considered it an "aveirah" (sin) but were overcome with emotion in the heat of the moment. The preparation involved in going to the mikvah makes such a "sin" very pre-planned, and that pre-planning was what they were objecting to.
I would like to hear from an unmarried woman who goes to the mikveh becasue she's having premarital sex. I've heared "stories" over the years but never an actual example. If they really exist just what are these women thinking and how do theyy rationalize it?
I grew up in a conservative synagogue and don't think I had ever heard of a mikvah other than for conversions. As I became more observant as I got older it wasn't until I became friendly with a "young married" in the modern orthodox shul I attended at the time that I had any idea about it -myself and most of my friends at the time were single. Now, 8 years later and relatively newly married I laugh when I think of my kallah classes with my Rebbetzin and how clueless I was, particularly when I was living right near the community mikvah!
I do know that now, at the same conservative synagogue where I grew up, and where my parents still attend, they have a new assistant Rabbi (female) who is apparently very gung-ho for encouraging that community to go the mikvah. I know there are a couple of women in that community who do use the mikvah, so perhaps it is a growing population.
I think that in general there is a need for some ritual to begin and or end any life event, and what better place to look than mikvah. I know that one friend of mine marked her divorce and receival of her get specifically by uncovering her hair.
However, I can totally see the "establishment" as not allowing the mikvah to be used "that way" for fear of starting a trend or the appearance of halachic approval. I don't know what the answer is - just aware that there is major importance in marking life events.
Woman to woman, reading your post, I could feel your feelings (not proper english, but true all the same). I don't know if this would help at all, but there is a concept in Judaism, that some woman take on, to go to mikvah before or arround Yom Kippur, every year, regardless of the other reasons for mikvah. Possibly, this could be a type of healing and cleansing from such difficulties throughout the year. I know that as long as a woman is halachicly Jewish, (some, not all) a mikvah will take her. I myself escorted someone for this reason at a chabad mikvah.