Facing the Mikvah
Written Summer 2003
I had a baby naming when I was just a couple months old.
I went to preschool at Temple Beth Am. Since the start of public school, I
have attended religious school on Sundays. Though I grew up Jewish, I wasn’t
actually Jewish until June 17, 2003.
My family has moved six times. With each new town there
has been a new temple to join, whether it be a reform temple or a conservative
one. For whatever reason, none of the conservative temples questioned my Jewishness.
In the reform temples it didn’t matter.
There is a law in Judaism which states that the religion
of a child runs through the mother. If a mother is Jewish, then her child
is Jewish, too.
My mother grew up Catholic. She married a Jewish man,
my father, and began to practice Judaism. She started to go to temple and
celebrate Jewish holidays. She dropped her Catholic doings. What she didn’t
do is officially convert. Because she didn’t convert, she is not Jewish to
the temples.
Because my mother is not Jewish, neither was I in the
eyes of orthodox and conservative Judaism. In reform Judaism, only one parent
has to be Jewish. It could be the father or it could be the mother, but either
way the child was Jewish.
In Florida, we went to a reform temple called Temple
Kol Ami and I was safe. They didn’t care. I read all the prayers that I wanted
to and my limited Hebrew could allow. I lead a Shabbat service with my religious
school classmates. I even started Bat Mitzvah training before we moved.
When we moved it was to Virginia and we joined the only
temple in Loudoun County, a conservative one rightfully named Loudoun Jewish
Congregation. When they learned that my mother wasn’t Jewish, they broke the
news to me that I wasn’t Jewish. My parents knew, but I hadn’t. The people
from the temple told me that there were limits to what I could do. I could
not recite certain prayers. I could not lead any of the Hebrew with my classmates
when we led a Shabbat service. I could not have a Bat Mitzvah.
It hurt. During the past year I had realized how important
Judaism was to me. Rather than passing it off as something that made me different
as my brother did, I became proud of it. I wore the Star of David around my
neck. My grandmother gave me my own Hanukkah menorah. I went to services and
enjoyed them. I felt it. I felt Jewishness. Then, to find out that the temple
didn’t consider me to be Jewish? I was mad. I was sad. Most of all, I felt
that a part of myself was missing: the religious part.
There was only one thing to do. I had to become officially
Jewish. I had to convert.
Our temple didn’t have a rabbi, so my parents and I went
to the next county, to a conservative temple in Herndon called Temple Beth
Emit. They had a rabbi. Rabbi Steve Glazier agreed to help us when we explained
the situation. To convert to Judaism is a very hard process. People cannot
convert unless they are serious about it, and children under the age of eighteen
are rarely converted. Mine was a special case, because we were just making
my Jewishness official.
To convert to Judaism is no easy task. A person has to
study hard about all things Jewish. When the time comes, that person has to
appear in front of a panel of rabbis and answer questions about Judaism to
show that they are knowledgeable. The second part of the conversion process
is the physical conversion, the mikvah. Because I had grown up “Jewishly,”
the only thing I had to face was the mikvah.
The mikvah is a small pool of water at ground level in
a temple. The water is natural, either from rain or a river or lake. It is
used for many purposes; converting is only one.
To convert, a person has to go into the mikvah, immerse
in the water three times, and say two prayers: the special conversion prayer
and the Shehecheyanu, the prayer for a new thing.
To go into the mikvah, a person cannot wear clothes.
She cannot wear a bathing suit. She cannot wear anything. She has to be naked.
I am probably one of the worst people on Earth when it
comes to being naked. I don’t like it. Clothes help me to feel safe and, well,
hidden. I will not let anyone, not even my mother, see me naked, or even
in underwear. I go so far as to change for gym in such a way that I don’t
even lift my shirt until the new one is on—and even that is done in a toilet
stall.
The mikvah was a challenge. It would not be just me in
that room, but also a mikvah attendant, “the mikvah lady.” She would see me
naked. Yes, she had seen many females before me, but she had never seen me.
The prospect of having to let another person see me naked
scared me more than anything else about converting. My fear was strong, too
strong. I had to try to overcome it. I tried different methods recommended
to me by friends-dressing while the cat was in the room, sleeping naked, etc-but
none of them worked. I wrote a journal entry expressing all thoughts on the
topic, but it did no good. My fear weakened the slighted bit, but it remained
firmly there. There was no knocking it down. I had to go to the mikvah and
try to ignore it.
July 17th came and my mother drove me to a temple in
Washington DC where they had a mikvah we could use. The rabbi met us there.
So did the mikvah lady. We were shown around, and then everyone left but
the mikvah lady and me. She gave me instructions and then she left, too.
The room with the mikvah was actually two rooms. In one
side was the mikvah and the other was a bathroom. In the bathroom I took off
everything—my clothes, my watch, my Star of David necklace—and showered quickly.
I was scared and wanted nothing more than to get it over with. I got out
of the shower, covered my body with towels, and knocked on the door to let
the mikvah lady know I was ready.
The mikvah was shaped like an L. Down one line was a
set of stairs leading into the mikvah. Around the corner was where the person
who was converting would stand. The mikvah lady would stand in the middle.
The mikvah lady explained to me what I would do. She
would turn around while I went into the water. When I was in the right place
I was to tell her so. She would watch as I went under the water, making sure
not a hair was left above the water. When I came back up she would hand me
the first prayer on a sheet of laminated paper and I would recite it. I would
dunk again, come up, and recite the second prayer. One final time and I would
be done. She turned.
Slowly I stripped off the towels and went down the steps
into the mikvah. To my surprise, the water was warm. It felt good. It came
to just below my chest and I hoped that it distorted my lower body. My chest
I covered with my crossed arms. My heart was pounding, but I felt a little
comfort in my ability to hide myself.
I told the mikvah lady I was ready and went to go under
for the first time. I curled up into the same ball that I used to use to go
underwater and scare my friends in the pool, and surfaced after a few seconds.
The mikvah lady handed me the first prayer, the special conversion prayer,
and I recited it softly, my voice shaking and stuttering at the Hebrew. My
voice echoed and I could hear the water still lapping the sides of the mikvah
from my movement. I calmed. I didn’t even notice that I had uncovered part
of my chest.
I dunked again, just as before. The mikvah lady handed
me the second prayer, the Shehecheyanu. I recited it. Ba-ruch a-ta A-do-nai,
Eh-lo-hei-nu meh-lech ha-o-lam, she-heh-cheh-ya-nu, v'ki-y'ma-nu, v'higi-anu,
la-z'man ha-zeh. I was familiar with this one, and my voice didn’t shake as
much. I went under for a final time, and it was over. I was officially Jewish.
I could do anything that any other fourteen-year-old Jewish girl could do.
I could recite the prayers. I could lead the service with everyone else.
If I wanted to, I could even have a late Bat Mitzvah.
When asked how it went, my standard response has been
that it was fine. It was much simpler than I had expected. Nothing had happened.
I wasn’t any different.
Looking back now, over a month later, I realize that
that last part is not quite true. True, I’m no different now than I was when
I took off those towels and took that first step in to the mikvah water,
but something did happen. I felt it, reciting those prayers, and I didn’t
even realize that I felt it at the time. I calmed. I relaxed. I never relax.
It was a feeling, one I had only ever experienced before during services.
What it was I don’t know. Confidence? Belief? Spirituality? I don’t know.
It was something—something special. That day itself was special. Though I
have truly been Jewish all along, no one can doubt it ever again.