The Skeptic and the Rabbi by Judy Gruen

Author:Judy Gruen
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: She Writes Press
Published: 2017-03-18T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter 11

DECISION TIME

1986–1987

JEFF FREQUENTLY SAID THAT HE UNDERSTOOD and accepted my need to progress at my own pace. In reality, he had a short list of non-negotiable issues related to Jewish observance. If we married and moved into this community, he wanted us to observe Shabbos and kashrut at the same level as Rabbi Lapin defined their observances. I was ready to take on those two and made a mental note to stop in for the eggplant parmesan at one of my favorite non-kosher restaurants a few more times before I had to say arrivaderci, Maria.

The third non-negotiable on the list was much tougher: strictly following the laws of taharat hamishpacha, or “family purity.” When I learned what those laws were about, I was not happy. These laws mandate that from the beginning of a woman’s menstrual period and for seven days afterward until she immerses in the mikveh (a ritual bath), married couples do not touch one another, not even holding hands. I mean gornisht, nada, zip. After the woman’s immersion in the mikveh, she is considered to be in a state of newness and spiritual purity, and only then does the couple resume their physical intimacy. A weeklong “timeout” made sense to me, as I thought about the old adage, “familiarity breeds contempt.” But a minimum of twelve days? That sounded extreme. It sounded Orthodox.

I protested, “You see? The Torah considers women to be ‘dirtied’ by our menses. Otherwise, why would we need to go to a ritual bath? That’s so offensive and wrong,” I complained.

“Not true,” Jeff said. “The Torah considers sex between married couples to be sacred. It encourages it and celebrates it, but with appropriate boundaries. Like everything else, it needs a framework to help a couple keep their relationship on a high level. Women immerse in the mikveh to cleanse a ‘spiritual impurity.’ That’s not a slam against women. This is about something more subtle and sensitive. The egg that was not fertilized that month represents the loss of a potential human life. Blood represents the absence of purity in the same way that darkness represents an absence of light.”

Naturally, Jeff had been reading about all this from well-known books I had seen on the bookshelves in many PJC homes, including Waters of Eden by Aryeh Kaplan and The Secret of Jewish Femininity by Tehilla Abramov. Not having read any of this material or discussed it with anyone truly knowledgeable, I was armed only with the myths and prejudice against the practice of mikveh I had heard growing up. Listening to Jeff, I was reminded of the slogan I had once seen on a T-shirt that said, “You can’t have a battle of wits with someone who is unarmed.”

“Besides,” Jeff said, “men have spiritual impurities, too, and go to the mikveh. All converts go as part of their conversion ceremony. And when the Temple stood in Jerusalem thousands of years ago, the kohen gadol (high priest) immersed in a mikveh before performing the Temple service.

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