Simchat Torah Suggestions

Now that we're through kvetching about our Yom Kippur experiences, we can start analyzing Simchat Torah.

Simchat Torah is a difficult holiday for Orthodox women. It seems like the men are having the fun, while the women are sitting around waiting, watching, and mostly talking. I don't mind sitting separately the rest of the year, when I am actually praying. But an hour and a half is too long to watch dancing, if you can call it that. My husband pointed out that the teenagers in the shul either went elsewhere or stood talking outside.

Our synagogue cut the hakafot (seven rounds of singing and dancing with the Torah scrolls) short in the morning. This worked out well, although the rabbi didn't get to give his annual class. Maybe he could switch it to the evening.

They moved two Torah scrolls close to the mechitza (partition), so that the mothers could see and hear their under bar-mitzvah age sons reading. I missed that last year.

Modern Orthodox Singles writes about her experience, and Isramom has a roundup of blog posts on the subject. Be sure to look at Ilana-Davita's post, and the comments.

Id like to hear more creative solutions for this annual problem.

Apology from the Israel Tourism Ministry

I just received this comment about the Jerusalem tourism clip:

hi,
My name is Michal, and I promote the video clip on behalf of the Israeli Ministry of tourism.
I was the one who contacted mominisrael and asked her to embed the clip here.
I have brought your remarks, and others like yours to the attention of the ministry, and they decided to change the clip to have a more appropriate end.
A new version will be ready later on this week, and I will keep you posted when it goes on youtube.
Thank you for your time and attention,
and whoever found this to be insulting - please accept our apology. that was not the meaning of the clip.
Michal | Homepage | 09.16.08 - 9:13 am | #

And who says bloggers don't have influence?

More comments on the video, by Chayyei Sarah and friends.

Updated: Links on Tzniut, Parenting

A new carnival called Parents Helping Parents is being hosted at Modern Parent.

Don't have time for the soccer game or to explain the facts of life? Help is available. "You worry about yourselves, we'll worry about your kids."Kidsourcing. (Hebrew)
Hat tip: Gila
Update: This morning, when you click on the video a message appears:

Parenting Services for Rent? Not in our school. Kidsourcing is a fictitious company. You will soon be directed to another site.

I gather that the whole thing is a clever ad campaign for Adler parenting classes, sponsored by Clalit Health Fund (Histadrut). I was wondering, because it seemed too slick to have been produced by amateurs. After viewing the ad you can go back and watch the spoof.

Modesty Blasé laments, "For the first time in Jewish history, mothers are encouraging their daughters to underachieve. They shouldn't be too pretty, too smart or too competent for fear of scaring the boys away." Smart and competent I can believe. But since when has beauty ever been a problem for Jewish girls? If she means that tzniut dress codes detract from women's beauty, that's nothing new. Read her post and tell us what you think.

How to Become a Patient Parent. Hat tip: Esther's sidebar

Links on tzniut, teenage maturity, nursing in public

Coming soon to this blog, bli neder: (Mis)adventures in International Travel.

In the meantime:

Have you ever felt untzniusdik when wearing a stunning Shabbat or Yom Tov outfit on the street? Wolfish Musings and Parsha Blog have the solution.

Follow-up (Hebrew) to the Modiin Azrieli Mall "nursing in public" fiasco. The management changed its policy and claims to be reeducating staff on the subject. I don't know why the article mentions that the mother making the complaint was religious. Hat tip: Nursing in the Negev.

Can you spot a nursing mother in this picture?

Lion of Zion refers to my post on the jailed teenagers, in the context of early marriage among Jews. He writes, "As an aside, I would like to know where all the Israeli/Jewish human rights advocates were while the (minor) settlerettes sat in jail." I believe that Yitzchak Kadman, Israel's best-known child advocate, did speak out on the subject at the time.

Things I might be posting about, if I felt like blogging

Our cooperative summer camp adventure continues. Based on past experience (read: lots of fighting), we split the boys and girls. We have five boys aged 5-8, with two 12- and 13-year-olds serving as counselors. I hosted them last Friday while my 12-year-old A ran the whole program. The girls' group consists of 4 preschoolers and 7 elementary-school-age girls. They exempted me from hosting the girls, since my 14-year-old (DiI) helps out several days a week. The other two days she has a regular babysitting job for two little boys who adore her. I have been getting positive feedback from the mothers about my kids. I needed it.

Some of the camp mothers live about a mile away, but my four-year-old walks back and forth with a minimum of complaint. When we met to make up a schedule, we asked not to give out junk food. Some mothers complained, "What will we give them if not Bamba?" We suggested melon. The children bring sandwiches; surely that's enough food for four hours. The junk-food rule hasn't been strictly enforced, but who can say what would have happened otherwise.

A disadvantage of segregating by sex is that activities tend to fall along gender lines. Yesterday the boys made models of an army camp and the girls baked cookies with red jelly. Today both groups went to the zoo and my junior counselors stayed up till all hours preparing games and crafts.

We are leaving on our annual trip to the US next week; camp may or may not be active when we return. My 4yo loved our visit last year, but now she doesn't want to miss camp. She said I should go without her and bring back special (flavored) yogurt, a treat we rarely buy. I'm taking her, DiI, and my 7-year-old.

Last night we went to a memorial service for a convert to Judaism who had made aliyah and died eight months later after collapsing in the street from a blood clot. The body sat for a month while her fate was decided; eventually her mother insisted on a Christian burial in the US. I had only spoken to her once on the phone, but we wanted to show support, and we met a family from Maale Adumim who had been exceptionally close to her. The family described how every Shabbat between her death and burial, mysterious things happened in their house: Crockery fell off shelves, and candles fell down, for no apparent reason.

I met with two bloggers in one day. I sat with RivkA for a Coffee and Chemo date, and while in Jerusalem I hopped over to Leora's hotel to say hello. We have several mutual friends and I am sure I have met her, but it was my first time seeing her adorable children. By then I was already anxious to get home, because the bus in the morning had taken me three hours. When we were renting our first apartment in Israel, I asked my husband how far we would be from the bus to Jerusalem and he said five minutes. He must have misheard me. It's a twenty-minute ride, and the inter-city bus took forever to arrive. It was too crowded so I waited a short time for the next one. Then we ran into traffic, and the bus to the hospital also took ages. Then I ran around the hospital looking for RivkA, because the oncology ward told me she was in the ER. I eventually found her back in oncology. Even though she was having a long, hard day she was in good spirits and we had fun catching up. She even came up with some shidduch suggestions.

Speaking of sponja: One evening I noticed a puddle, which turned out to be coming from under my neighbors' door. The neighbors are out of the country and their army-aged son was in Jerusalem, but a neighbor had a key so after turning off the water and closing off the source of the leak, we used several squeejees to sweep all of the water into the shower drain--in our apartment. It was a family effort. Their water purifier had cracked open, but the neighbor was still sure it must be the ozeret's fault. The son told me that the only damage was to their rug. If this had happened in the middle of the night, we might have been the ones with the serious damage.

We are going to a bar mitzvah for Shabbat, and staying in my single brother-in-law's apartment. When I heard his voicemail message asking to tell him some good news, I informed him of our upcoming visit. He took it in stride, or at least he had recovered by the time he called us back. Two of the kids chose not to go, but my oldest son feels close enough to the family to drag himself away from yeshiva for two weeks in a row.

My seven-year-old inserted our rechargeable camera battery backwards. It slid in easily, but wouldn't come out. The repairman removed it without taking the whole thing apart, after giving me a lecture about letting my kid play with it. I didn't tell him about the movie that could only have been filmed from a few inches outside of my sixth-story window; my seven-year-old was three or four at the time. Instead I told him that it wasn't nice to lecture customers. He didn't charge and even advised me on how to fix a different problem with the camera.

Friday links on women in Orthodoxy

First we have Josh Waxman of Parshablog with My Thoughts on Megirot I and II.

Then there's the story of dancers forced to cover up for the Jerusalem bridge dedication ceremony. The girls, aged 6 to 13, were told to wear hats and long skirts; see this report for before and after pictures. Some parents respond here. According to this update in the JP, the organizers chose the black ski caps to make a point.

Finally, the army has been giving some teenage girls trouble about an automatic religious exemption. I wonder if any haredi girls have been hassled.

Ten lessons for our daughters

My older sister, a long-time fan of this blog, sent me some suggestions for raising Orthodox girls (but they could apply to anyone) and challenged me to add a few of my own. Hers are marked with an asterisk.

1. *Be educated and self-confident enough to know that you can support yourself if necessary.
2. *If someone tells you that you are no good, *they* are no good for you.
3. *Stay away from leaders/teachers who tell you that the rules apply to you but not to them, especially in the realms of money, sex, and abuse/violence.
4. Don't be alone in a room with a man. Rabbis and teachers also need to observe laws of yichud.
5. Don't be afraid to ask questions, and to ask for help.
6. *Develop skills to talk about problems that are "too embarrassing to talk about."
   
7. *Work actively to establish a set of friends, family, therapist, rabbi, blog, whatever -- where you can talk safely about those problems.
8. When you think you have "no choice," you're probably wrong.
9. Learn, and know how to look things up for yourself.
   
10. You don't have to be like everyone else. God made us all different for a reason.

Do you wish you belonged to the "other" group?

Lily left a comment on a recent post suggesting that "working mothers" and "stay-at-home" mothers often wish they were in the opposite category. I know I occasionally fantasize about picking up a briefcase and closing the door behind me each morning, leaving someone else to deal with the mess and the tantrums. I imagine how much more people would respect me, if I had a prestigious job.

I am leaving my family behind in a few minutes, as I am on my way to a two-day conference. My husband took off from work.

What about you? (I guess this question is mainly for mothers, but all input is welcome.) Do you think about what life would be like had you chosen a different work/home balance? Either now, or in the past?

Haveil Havalim, the Jewish and Israeli Blog Carnival, is up over at Frume Sarah. Check it out.

"Your daughter is smart, but you don't have to worry"

Our friends recently met their 15-year-old daughter's teacher at the semi-annual parent-teacher conference. The daughter attends a religious Zionist girls' high school, whose matriculation scores regularly rank it among the top three schools in the country.

The teacher told them, "Your daughter is smart, but you don't have to worry. She's not so smart that she'll have a problem getting a shidduch."

This is wrong on so many levels. The teacher is employed by a school, yet she places a low value on women's intelligence, and by extension, education for girls. She assumes that most men feel the same way. And my friends are not looking for a son-in-law for their ninth-grader.

The teacher's statement reflects another common attitude toward intelligence that has nothing to do with sexism: It's just not good for children to be too smart. So when coming across a highly intelligent child some people feel they must minimize that trait, or make a comment about the child's social skills. It's as if they hope to prevent the negative consequences of being so smart, which include not finding anyone to marry and becoming a maladjusted adult.

Two Pesach links

First, Abacaxi Mamao gets a little nervous:

I went to the hardware store in search of an inexpensive pot for boiling water. My sister owns only fleishig [meat, or meaty if you're a Brit] pots for Pesach, and my aunt, the coffee devotee, needed something in which to boil water that would then be used to make coffee to which milk would be added. Hence, my quest.

The clerk at the hardware store questioned my desire to purchase "the cheapest pot you've got," so I (stupidly?) explained that I just needed it for Passover and it didn't need to be anything fancy, just something that would boil water.

"Oh, Passover," he said. "Where are you going to get the blood?"

Read the rest of the post to find out what happens.

And check out Lion of Zion, as he documents the once widespread practice of comparing bitter herbs to bitter women-- at the Pesach seder.

He captions the picture above as follows:

The wife holds a double-edged sword, alluding to Proverbs (4:5): "But her end is bitter as wormwood, sharp as a two-edged sword."


Hag sameach and Shabbat Shalom.

More on hyper-tzniut: Shawl-wearer spotted in Borough Park

This post is available at my new location, AMotherInIsrael.com.

A golden mind, a golden heart, a golden tongue

Riveting. Moving. Inspiring. Such is the documentary A Lonely Man of Faith produced by Ethan Isenberg. The golden mind, heart, and tongue belonged to Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveichik, known to his students simply as the Rav.

The highlights of the film for me:

• The early influence of the Rav's mother. The film emphasized her love of secular knowledge and only hinted at her real contribution -- the emotional warmth the Rav's strict father could not provide.
• The Rav's emphasis on higher learning for women, by insisting on teaching the first Talmud class for women at Stern College. Maimonides, the Boston day school he founded, had mixed classes through high school because the Rav feared that separate classes would lead to inferior education for girls.
• His support of the State of Israel, secular education, and cooperation with the non-Orthodox (on issues affecting the entire community), causing a rift between modern Orthodoxy and the Yeshiva world that has not been repaired.
  
• The Rav's combination of a love of learning, personal integrity, and an emphasis on ethics and morality including business ethics. He believed that the goal of learning Torah and doing mitzvot is to lift us to a higher moral level. Too often they are seen as the ends in themselves.
  
• The discussion of faith that he brought into modern-day consciousness. He was disturbed by those who asked, "What can religion do for me?" instead of "What does God want from me?"
  
• His unique and well-trained mind--head and shoulders above any other -- combined with unusual sensitivity, oratorical genius, and levelheadedness -- placed him, arguably, as the savior of the precarious American Orthodoxy that existed when he arrived in the 1930's.
• The Rav's personal and professional challenges.
• The unfortunate lack of a successor, or even a clear legacy, because every decision occurred in a specific context that cannot be reproduced.

I only mention a small portion of the vast material that the producers managed to include in an hour and a half. Even though it ignored or glossed over many negatives, A Lonely Man of Faith made me proud to call myself modern Orthodox and a religious Zionist.

Keren Interview VII: Ann: Soon men will insist on capes and veils for their wives

In this Hebrew article from Maariv, Neshot Hare'alah (Women of the Veil), Sherry Makover-Balikov interviews Rabbanit Bruria Keren and some of her followers.

Earlier summaries/excerpts: I, II, III, IV, V, VI
To view all posts on the subject at once click the label hyper-tzniut.

The Maariv reporter interviewed Dudi Zilbershlag, editor of the haredi newspaper Bakehila and head of the charitable organization "Meir Panim." He said that after their son Meir z"l died, Zilbershlag's wife considered switching to a scarf from a wig. At the time their rebbe disapproved, saying it would only call more attention to her. She made the switch later, after other haredim did so in light of the Indian wig scandal [when haredi rabbis prohibited them because they might have been used in idol worship].

According to Zilbershlag, ". . . being extremely tzanua cannot prevent men from having evil thoughts about a woman . . . the opposite may be true. But this is a far cry from insulting someone who dresses that way from pure intentions."

The rabbanit's followers don't see themselves as a cult. After all, each one wears a different number of layers, making them different from other types of chasidim. "Each woman and her own [level of] tzniut." [This last statement contradicts everything else in the article. Clearly Keren and her followers believe everyone should wear veils, shawls, capes, and several additional layers of clothes. The style or exact number of layers is beside the point.]

"To say that the Rabbanit is a kind of guru . . . is a sin," says Ann, a convert who became . . . her disciple. "The Rabbanit paved the way, and most of us take on ourselves customs and continue alone. We do meet at her home, not because of leadership, but out of friendship. 'Everyone goes to consult with someone wiser than himself' [but do they consult with anyone besides Rabbanit Keren?]."

Ann continues:

"The rabbanit doesn't talk because of all of the bad things that can come from it such as slander, gossip, joking, and flattery; therefore she took silence upon herself. It also allows her to control anger. She taught us not to speak to men, pass them objects, sit next to them on the bus, nor to ride in a taxi with a male driver. Not to be too colorful. Once I said to the rabbanit that the colors blue and black distance women from tzniut. So the rabbanit said that she wants to come close to Hashem, not to other women."

The reporter asks Anne about the next level.

"The next level is for men to insist on capes and veils from their wives. That it will come from them, not from us. That in a few more years the haredi public will discover the sweetness of the layers of clothes and the modesty behind the veil. There have been stories of licentiousness, of adultery, may God have mercy. Women wore tight clothes and the men's eyes popped out. The rabbanit Bruria believes that very soon a man will come to his wife and ask her not to go out without her body and face covered."

"We are already seeing the beginning. I myself prayed for many years until my husband agreed to my wearing three capes. Afterward he wasn't ready for me to cover my face with a veil. We had a big fight and came close to getting a get (religious divorce). But I went to R. Bruria, and got strength from her. I prayed more, until my husband accepted the cape and veil, even the shawl. One day I weakened; my evil inclination told me to stop making myself a laughingstock and that I could be modest in a scarf, blouse and skirt. So I decided to go out like that. I put on a vest, a nice skirt, and some makeup. And small, delicate earrings. I went to the bedroom and stood in front of my husband. I asked him, "How do I look?" And he said "Immodesty! Immodesty!" and didn't move until I put on the cape and covered my face.

That is the end of the article. Feel free to link on your own blog using the label hyper-tzniut.

Stay tuned for more of my own thoughts.

Keren Interview VI: Maya--I don't go into a store if men are inside

In this Hebrew article from Maariv, Neshot Hare'alah (Women of the Veil), Sherry Makover-Balikov interviews Rabbanit Bruria Keren and some of her followers.
Part I, Part II, Part III, Part IV, Part V, Part VII

To see all posts on the subject click on the label hyper-tzniut.

Continued:
Makover-Balikov writes that Keren's followers might have expected sympathy from the haredi community [well, maybe, if they wouldn't refer to wigs as licentious]. Rav Shmuel Eliyahu, the chief rabbi of Safed, says. "I have seen a few in Safed, and I think they are crazy. Their extremism causes different type of distortion. Extremism is not healthy. There is no commandment to cover the face with a veil and to wear dozens of layers of clothes. This I say as a rabbi."

She quotes a haredi woman, N., who says that she and others from her haredi community reject the hyper-tzniut trend because they are afraid. Ten years ago no one put tights on girls under twelve. Then a few began to dress that way, even at the height of the summer. Now all haredi girls over two must do so or face rejection from the community.

The next interview is with Maya. Maya became observant eight years ago after finishing a degree in criminology and Jewish philosophy. She is married to a Breslov Hasid and has four children. Her home is covered with pictures and writings of R. Nachman. From the article:

She met R. Keren five years ago. She was also influenced by the book "Olamot Shel Tohar," Worlds of Purity, by R. Uri Sofer, where she learned about women who covered their faces and bodies because of tzniut.

"At first I wore only three skirts and a cape. Then I read that Rabbanit Kanievsky, a well-known figure in the haredi community, covered the upper part of her hand (shoresh kaf hayad) with cloth. I looked at the place my fingers began, and saw that it was indeed very feminine. So I cut off the ends of some socks and wore them on my hand, to cover the part up to my fingers. At first I wore them only outside, because they bothered me at home. Gradually I also began to wear them at home, and now I sleep in them as well as in a high neckline. When one receives light, one receives holiness."

"The more a woman covers her exterior, the more room there is for her interior. I come from the secular world, and I know how much women are involved in attracting men with their beauty and exterior. If a woman would know what goes on in a man's head when he sees her in the street, hears her voice, or accidentally brushes against her, she would go underground in shame. When I go out completely covered, I feel like a princess. Even though I don't cover my face--I feel that that is too great a light. But I wear several layers of shawls and sell them too. I sew them from delicate fabrics. Light colors, pretty and non-threatening, because it's important to my husband that I go modestly, but still look nice.

"About two years ago I began to wear scarves tied in front. This was hard, I felt like a 'Yemenite grandmother.' The Rabbanit taught us that the only knot that covers all of the hair is in front. If you tie it in back, there will always be hairs that stick out; even if the head is shaved, the roots of the hair will show. The scarf tied in front also covers the back of the neck, because that is a very feminine part of a woman."

"I see many haredi women who walk around at home in a robe and even wear them outside, may God have mercy. With [these women] everything is reversed. The husband sees them in a robe, but when they go to the dentist, they look their best. Also at home, a robe is tight and revealing, even transparent sometimes. A woman needs to wake up in the morning to the service of God, to run a house of joy, to wrap herself in wide clothes, not transparent ones, and not to sin in a robe. In the book "Worlds of Purity," there are pictures of righteous women wearing a shawl and tents [use of plural is not my typo]. And not one [of the pictured women] causes the community to sin with a wig.

Maya wears so many layers so that the contour of her body won't be visible on a windy day. She wears them at home should a man come to the door, and to accustom the family to modesty. The shawl blurs the contour of her shoulders, and it feels like a tallit (prayer shawl). She has a less opaque, airier one for the house.

Her husband is happy with the "great heavenly merit."

"By us a woman gets her husband used to the idea gradually; first a short shawl and then a long cape. The Rabbanit Bruria says that if a woman dresses modestly and her husband gets angry, it's her own fault. She must pray to Hashem to remove the objection. Husbands aren't always right. Sometimes they are worried about society, about what the people in the synagogue will say. Hashem help them if they care more about what people will say, and prefer a woman who is attractive but immodest."

"The children were born into it and my son brings me a shawl when we are on our way out. When a man passes I lower my head. If there are men in the makolet, I won't go in. If a man comes to buy from me I "guard my eyes" and don't look at him. I look at the floor. Yesterday I went by a haredi man who saw me and lowered his head. I said to my son, 'The daughters of Israel are the daughters of the king, it's not seemly for people to look at them. They aren't like a rotten tomato that every passerby can see what's inside and what isn't.' "

In general she gets a positive reaction, but some people make fun of her or criticize her, or tell her she looks like a goy (non-Jew).

The most important part of her day is when she secludes herself and "speaks to Hashem." She goes to R. Keren weekly to get a "dose of fear of Heaven."

Rabbanit Keren is from the Lithuanian, Ashkenazi stream of Judaism. The Rabbanit loves children. She is oblivious to her physical surroundings and the cares of this world. She hardly goes out, but people help her because she "looks like a tent." She sees by looking down. "We all admire her and are all good friends. Some of use are connected to R. Nahman of Breslov and are searching for the truth. When she speaks at a convention for return [to Jewish practice] she calls us to come. Because when one sees many women in capes and veils, it's empowering."

Maya's house is bare and the reporter asks her if that's intentional. Maya responds "My possessions are above, in the world to come."

The last installment is an interview with a follower who is also a convert. To be continued.

Reform convention offers separate services

First the liberal movements discovered the mikveh. Now the Reform movement is thinking of implementing its own version of yet another politically incorrect Orthodox practice.

The recent biennial convention of the Union for Reform Judaism offered a men-only prayer service.

The rationale:

"Within the Reform movement we've confused gender stratification with gender differentiation," said Barden, a major proponent of the separate-but-equal approach. "We need to reverse the disaffiliation of men without setting the egalitarian clock back 30 years." Women are more religiously active in most faiths in this country, and have been for a century. But the gender gap in Jewish life, particularly in the liberal movements, has grown greater in recent years.

I recommend the whole article:

Reform Try Separating Sexes in Order to Woo Men Back

Burkas--The new fashion

More pictures and commentary are available at A Mother in Israel.
New blog posts can be found at A Mother in Israel.

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The Non-Denominational Mikveh

An anonymous reader sent me a link to an article containing an interview with the founder of the non-denominational mikveh in Boston called “Mayim Hayyim.”

"For a lot of people, the mikveh's been associated with a lot of negatives -- the second-class status of women, the denigration of women's bodies," says the play's co-author, Anita Diamant. Premiering in 2005, the play was created as a means of fundraising for Mayyim Hayyim, a state-of-the-art nondenominational mikveh opened in 2004 in the largely Jewish community of Newton, Mass., near Boston. Diamant, best known as the author of "The Red Tent," founded that mikveh, which has spawned a movement for alternative ritual baths nationwide, including one that is planned to open in 2010 in Los Angeles.

It’s interesting to me that self-described liberal Jews have decided to rally around what is generally considered one of most misogynistic, archaic, politically incorrect mitzvot and one of the first to be dropped by Reform Judaism, and dressed it up into something empowering to women and even friendly to homosexuals.

My anonymous reader (AR, not to be confused with my commenter Regular Anonymous or RA) pointed out that the article is full of problematic statements or implications.

AR objects to the depiction of a mikveh lady as stern: I got married in Israel so have not had too many opportunities to use a mikveh in America, but have never heard of a mikveh lady there as a "stern supervisor." Where are these women going? Or is this all 3-generations-old hearsay?

When I lived in the US, the mikveh lady would examine me very carefully. She used to tell me monthly that I did a much better job with my nails than women who had been married a lot longer. (I've always wanted to put that on my blog. Thanks for giving me the opportunity. I still haven't figured out what's so special about the way I cut my nails.) Here, the balanit just rattles off a list (Hair? Navel? Contact lenses? Temporary fillings?) and takes a quick glance at my nails before ushering me into the water. But I’ll never get used to having my towel tossed onto my head when I say the bracha (blessing). They didn’t do that in America.

Half the women at your Israeli neighborhood mikveh would never be identified as observant if you saw them on the street. One woman told me that she chose that mikveh because they don't make a fuss about her long nails. (You are supposed to cut your nails in preparation for the mikvah, but there can be exceptions.)

RA continues: The "only mikveh in the Boston area open to non-Orthodox Jews...was not built to welcome people to Judaism". Excuse me? Then what was it for? Taharat Hamishpacha?!

My first thought is that Diamant must be referring to people who are undergoing a non-Orthodox conversion. Presumably every mikveh is open to anyone who wants to use it, except for non-Jews and men (at least at the same time; in a traditonal mikveh men only immerse during the day). If a lesbian woman wanted to use the Orthodox mikveh, would anyone stop her? If she is talking about conversions, I find her complaint that the mikveh “was only available to them on Mondays from 9-11 a.m.” baffling. How many converts do they have in Boston anyway? Does she expect people to convert without making an appointment? She’s upset that they have to take off a day of work?

A check of Mayyim Hayyim's website indicates a bit of overcompensation in this area; it's open seven to eight hours five days a week and two additional hours in the evenings. This is despite having only three to four immersions per day (3800 over three years, according to the article). In contrast, at least 20-30 women pass through my local mikveh each evening.

My second thought is, well, I don’t have a second thought. Non-Orthodox women shouldn't need a separate mikveh. But I can see how some mikveh attendants might give some women a hard time. Or maybe the issue is that non-Orthodox women want to immerse during the day, something that Orthodox women, except for brides, generally don't do.

Here's why AR thinks the mikveh has been reclaimed:

I think mikveh is attracting attention because it is post-feminist, that is, there is no competition from men. Unlike shul, or school, and even though they have immersions for men, too, it is a very clear to everyone that this is mostly for and about the women and their uniquely female experiences (menstruation, birth, lo aleinu breast cancer...), although I am not sure the subjects of the article would accept that.

And she asks, "Wouldn't it be great if all the women who are committed to mikveh as part of ol malchut shamayim (accepting the yoke of the Torah) also thought it was the most wonderful thing? And had beautiful mikvaot to go to like the one in the picture?"

Taharat hamishpacha is a very difficult mitzvah for many women, even with stunning, rabbinate-sanctioned mikvaot like the one that recently opened around the corner from me. Maybe liberal Judaism's adoption of this mitzvah will make it easier for the ones who struggle with the concept.

What do you think?