Healing Waters
This is the second in an ongoing series of posts documenting a bride’s experience visiting the mikvah before her wedding day. Hadassah Sabo-Milner is an observant Jew, and a thirty-something mother of four who writes honestly about her experience of visiting the mikvah before her second trip down the aisle:
The mikvah is a necessary part of a religious married woman’s life. I must admit to loving the whole idea of ritual purification, of being spiritually cleansed so that I can “be” with my spouse on all different levels – physically, emotionally, and spiritually. When I was married the first time I enjoyed taking the time to prepare for immersion, not just physically, but mentally. I also enjoyed the “me time” I was able to snag that one night a month––to go to the mikvah and prepare there without any of my kids banging on the bathroom door.
Now that I have returned to the state of holy matrimony, it is once again incumbent on me to use the mikvah. I now bring a different mindset to the whole thing. Marriage takes on a different meaning once you have experienced the pain of divorce. Some people never recover enough to be able to trust again; I was so worried that I would be one of them. But once my new husband entered my life, enabling me to once again trust, he inspired me to be both a better person and a better Jewess.
When I prepared for the mikvah before my wedding it was a true celebration – not only was I cleansing my body and soul in preparation for my marriage, but I also was renewing my sacred bond with the One Above, washing away the anguish, the sadness and the raw pain of the years that intervened between my last immersion and this one. I was always taught that the waters of the mikvah aren’t there to wash away dirt–for we are physically clean before we enter it–but that they are there to wash away spiritual impurity.
The water awaited me, its surface like a sheet of ice, belying the warmth in the room. I had spent the last hour in mental and physical preparation for this moment. My face and body were scrubbed clean, my long hair combed and knot free. I was without makeup, and had shed my expensive tailored clothing–my personal truth revealed in my near-nakedness.
I knew that the next day I would bring myself to the chuppah, to pledge my undying love and devotion to the man of my dreams. This step was one of many to be completed before the wedding, but it was the most important one to me.
The attendant handed me a prayer that brides have said since time immemorial. As I recited it, I felt their bond, their sisterhood; I felt their arms around me, their wishes for a life of happiness and joy, love, and laughter.
It was time for me to immerse. The attendant turned away so that I could modestly remove my robe and descend the steps into the sacred waters. I allowed my mind to slip into a contemplative mode, and I felt the cool water lap against my shins as I slowly descended into the depths. Once I was in the water up to my neck the attendant turned to me, keeping her eyes on my face, wanting to spare me any feelings of embarrassment.
She nodded to me, silently communicating that it was time to start the immersion. All that I had learned in my kallah classes came flooding back to me. I briefly panicked that I wouldn’t perform the mitzvah correctly, even though I had performed it so many times before. Calm suddenly descended, and I felt my body suffused with confidence and otherworldly light. My soul, my very old soul that was at Mount Sinai, steered me in the right direction, as it has always done before.
I moved my body forward, diving gracefully into the water. The water rose up to close over my head as I quickly caught my breath. I remembered not to tense my body but to allow every part of me to be caressed by the blessed waters, to allow this water to cleanse and purify my spirit, to ready me for the journey of a thousand lifetimes.
I surfaced and recited the blessing – I heard my sisters around the world answer “Amen.” I immersed two more times, each time feeling layers and layers of doubt and uncertainty lift from me. As I entered into the elevated state of purity, I felt cleansed from my past transgressions and energized to fill the future with everything that is good and just in the world.
I floated out of the ritual bath on the wings of angels who the next day accompanied me to the chuppah, to the start of my new beginning.
Read more of Hadassah Sabo-Milner’s writing at her personal blog In The Pink.
1 comment
What a beautiful way of detailing such an emotional experience. It’s given me a lot to look forward to!
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