Tomorrow Night

I am supposed to go to the mikveh tomorrow night.

The mikveh and I have never been friends; the first time I immersed, before my wedding, I noticed immediately afterwards that I had a tiny hangnail, which according to what I had recently been taught, might invalidate my immersion. Sitting outside in my car, I agonized for an hour, and then called our rabbi, who directed me to re-dunk and repeat my immersion.

Over the nearly twenty years of my marriage, my body has continued to fail to fit neatly into the laws of
taharat hamishpacha
, or family purity; imperfectly bleeding longer than the textbook five days, problematically spotting between cycles, which necessitated displays of the bloody stains to a rabbi’s knowing eyes for a ruling about my “pure” or “impure” status.I have carefully followed the laws of taharat hamishpacha, which dictate that a married couple must abstain from sexual contact during a woman’s menstrual period, and for the seven following “clean” days. Thereafter, the woman must immerse to become “pure” and sexually available. Spotting between cycles renders a woman’s status questionable, and requires a ruling from a rabbi to clarify her status. According to law and tradition, observing these laws would bring holiness to me, my husband, and our relationship.

As my period lasts a minimum of seven or eight days, and I frequently spot during the seven “clean” days, and throughout the remainder of my cycle, my husband and I must abstain from physical and sexual contact for over two weeks each month. I nearly couldn’t become pregnant with our second child because I repeatedly ovulated before immersion, when sexual intercourse was forbidden. Frequently, mid-cycle spotting prevents us from being intimate.

My supportive, patient husband and I have been fortunate to consult with wise and sympathetic rabbis, who have instructed us to rely on many leniencies, without which we would never have been able to be intimate or to conceive. Nonetheless, I have been told more times than I can count that I needed to see a doctor to evaluate if something was “wrong” with me. Instead of the rabbis accepting my explanation that my body’s behavior was simply “my normal,” they repeatedly advised me that I should endure yet another internal medical exam.

Directed. Instructed. Told. Advised. Endure.

I am over forty.  I expect that over the next decade, my cycle will become – if it is possible – even more irregular, and my struggles with taharat hamishpacha will increase before menopause blessedly releases me from my required monthly observance of these laws. The angst I felt over that first tiny hangnail was nothing compared to the exhausting, anxiety-provoking, recurring  uncertainty I have experienced upon seeing blood – yet again – on my panty liner.  Having to decide, over, and over, and over again “Am I pure? Am I impure? Can we have sex? If we don’t have sex, will my marriage be harmed? If we do have sex, will it be a sin? Should I consult our rabbi again? Should I not?”  Every time, no matter what choice I make, I feel guilty, and uncertain, and wrong – impure both physically and spiritually.

Last week’s allegations about Rabbi Barry Freundel brought my anguish and fears about taharat hamishpacha to the fore. The idea that a powerful, authoritative man with decision-making power was watching a disempowered, rule-following woman while she was naked and vulnerable in the mikveh—struck forcefully to the very core of my feelings about my faithful adherence to these laws. As I read the initial news report, a cold descended over me and I began to shake. Throughout my entire marriage, I have felt that there was a metaphorical hidden camera in my bathroom, my bedroom, my body, my soul.  I have trembled, trying always to do the indeterminate and elusive right thing, feeling watched by the rabbis who wrote the laws of taharat hamishpacha; by my rabbi, who inspected the stains on my underwear and judged my status; by my fearful, rule-following inner child, yearning to please, terrified of making a mistake; and by God.  Now, in black and white, glowing on my iPhone screen, was a report of a rabbi filming a woman doing exactly what she was directed to do, following to the letter the instructions and advice she was given, all in the name of achieving holiness.  And yet, despite her faithful obedience, her holiness was stolen from her by the very one who instructed her in its achievement.

For nearly twenty years, rabbis and doctors have probed and prodded, inserted themselves between me and my husband, between me and God, and perhaps worst of all—between me and myself. All these years, I may not have sinned. But achieved holiness?  There, I believe, we all have failed.

I am supposed to go to the mikveh tomorrow night.

mikveh

Pronounced: MICK-vuh, or mick-VAH, Alternate Spelling: mikvah, Origin: Hebrew, Jewish ritual bath.