Confessions of a Mikvah Lady
Okay. So this is not something you really talk about. Kind of a private thing. That’s what we’re all told. When you get married, they tell you that this is something private and you don’t share because it has to do with your sex life, which is no one’s business. Then you get this mikvah lady training and they tell you not to talk because people aren’t allowed to know when you’re going to the mikvah to help someone out. It has to do with someone else’s sex life, which is no one’s business. Except for mine, because I know everyone’s sex life, which is kind of funny when you think about it.
I am a guardian of secrets. I know the most sacred things about a woman’s life. What her body is doing inside. When she is going to sleep with her husband. When she’s holding the gift of life and when she loses the ability to hold that gift. I know more about wives than most of their husbands do. I know about women because I’ve seen every kind.
I’ve seen the woman in jeans and a t-shirt who walks in off the street. I’ve seen the Chassidic woman with the shaved head. I’ve seen young brides and old women who are going to the mikvah for the last time. Because, when you come here, it doesn’t matter what clothes you’re wearing. No one can tell where you came from because, once you’re here, you’re the same. You’re naked. Without any pretense. Without any secrets.
I have seen everything underneath a woman’s clothing. I have seen cesarean scars and stretch marks from the places that proudly bore life. I have seen women with cancer removing tubes and catheters so they could be naked. I have seen young, new bodies and women whose veins are scarred and destroyed from dialysis. Every so often, I see bruises and hateful welts and I want to cry for the beautiful woman who is going back to a husband who does not love her body the way that he should.
When you are here, you cannot hide anything. You cannot hide the signs that prove the mortality of the human body or the marks that show what sort of cruelty people can show towards one another. You are pure, unburdened, standing naked before G-d.
Sometimes new brides come with their mothers. Do I have to take this off? Can I please leave this on? They’ve never been naked before. No honey. It all has to come off. When you stand before G-d, you stand without covering. They cross their arms over their breasts because they’ve never been fully exposed. It’s too terrifying to stand there without the protections that they’ve always had. Come on honey. It’s all got to come off.
And it does. They stand on the edge of that pool without anything to cling to except themselves. Nothing to hide behind. This is your body. This is the body that G-d crafted for you because He wanted you to love it. To worship Him with it. Step into the water. Feel it surround you and wash away every part of you that isn’t real.
You can see it when they walk in. Whether it’s an old lady or a young woman. They feel it. They feel it reaching out for them.
I remember reading once that a soul is like a drop of water that has been separated from its ocean. It spends its life seeking to return to the wholeness of that sea. And when it finds it, it is as though it drop never left. It reabsorbs seamlessly, without effort.
Women’s bodies are droplets of an ocean. The ocean of every woman that came before you, all the way back to the first moment that Eve opened her eyes and knew that she was a creation, not of earth, but of flesh and G-d’s love. Every woman who ever lived is there. Every woman who beheld creation in birth or nursed the wounds after losing life. Every woman who danced at the Red sea to Miriam’s song and every woman who dipped their bodies in the icy waters of a Siberian stream because there was no other place where they could share their bodies with their Creator. Every dream that any woman ever had for herself or those who came after her. They are all there in that ocean. They are there in that small, tiled pool. And they reach out for you. They reach out to touch the wrinkles and scars on your skin, to seep into the openings of your body. I am you. I am your past. I am your present. I am your future. I know your sufferings and your joys. I know the secrets of your body that you will never share. I know every part of you because I touch every part of you, even the soul that you hide away so carefully. I know you because I was you a long, long time ago. Tell me your secrets. Tell me about the places you have been, the pleasures you have known, the moments when people hurt you or when illness ravaged you. It doesn’t matter. You’re not alone. I am here, even when others are not. I will surround you. I will protect you. I will block out the world. When you are here, I will hold you and you will hold me.
I always look at their faces when they come out dripping from that ocean. Did they feel it? Did they hear the voices? Did they feel the touch of ghostly fingers against their skin? I’ve always tried to identify the gesture that shows that they felt it. The Mona Lisa smile, the calm in their eyes, the relaxed posture of their bodies. I have never found it, that secret sign that indicates knowledge. I just know somehow, as they walk past me, with the smell of chlorine quickly evaporating from their bodies. I know that they felt it because I felt them. Somewhere, somehow, that small droplet that is me touched that ocean and felt the presence of another droplet coming home.
