In 2000, author Anita Diamant wrote “Why I Want a Mikveh,” an essay that called for a communal mikvah that would welcome, respect, and serve Jews from every denomination, “a mikveh that would be beautiful in design and decoration – a welcoming and inviting place, from the minute you walk through the door.” 
A year later, Diamant organized a founding board, and in May 2004, Mayyim Hayyim (“living waters”) opened its doors in a renovated Victorian house in Newton, Mass.

Rabbi Ilana Garber

Mayyim Hayyim is now a mikvah and family education center that sees some 1,400 immersions in a year, and offers educational programs, art exhibits, consultation services for communities seeking to build communal mikvaot, and volunteer-training opportunities.
Rabbi Ilana Garber of Beth El Temple in West Hartford was instrumental in creating the curriculum for the women who would serve as “mikvah guides” at the new facility. Her mother, Roz Garber, is founding secretary of Mayyim Hayyim. Rabbi Garber spoke with the Ledger about what it takes to create a communal mikvah.

How did you and your mother become involved in Mayyim Hayyim?
A: At the time, my mother was involved in the Jewish community and has always been a Jewish professional, either with Hadassah or the Synagogue Council of Massachusetts. She was friendly with Anita Diamant, and was an obvious person to be a founding board member.
Anita envisioned a place where the towels are fluffy and the robes are warm and the water is clean and you just feel so gentle going into the water. She felt that, to mark important transitions in one’s life, there should be a very sacred, warm, friendly place where it can happen.
They hired an executive director and were doing fund-raising and research long before there was a building, and that’s when I got involved.
I was getting a masters degree in Jewish education, while pursuing my rabbinical training, both at Jewish Theological Seminary in New York, and was asked to help write a curriculum for men and women who would serve as mikvah attendants.
Instead of the traditional “mikvah lady,” we wanted someone who fit the philosophy of Mayyim Hayyim and be educated or sensitive to women in all conditions. If you see a mole or a scar or notice that someone has lost weight, how will you respond? As a mikvah guide, you’re seeing a woman in a vulnerable situation.

What sources did you draw from while writing the curriculum, and what does it address and redress?
A: At JTS, I was learning very strict curriculum-designing models and used the Mayyim Hayyim project as part of my coursework.
I was being engaged to write the curriculum the year my father died. The day shiva ended, I went to a program in the house that was to become Mayyim Hayyim. A group of 25 women was asked to think about a life-cycle event and use their hands to describe it and I did something like falling over in grief. The facilitators put the motions together into one dance and taught us a song called “Guide My Steps.” It was an “aha moment” for me. I called the resulting curriculum, “Guide My Steps.”
Every section starts with the ‘Big Idea’ and has all different kinds of models of education – small groups, individual work, interactive activities, time for reflection, assessment, follow-up reading.
I worked with a lay committee made up of members from all different walks of life. We discussed what had worked for people and what hadn’t, bad experiences with “mikvah ladies.”
The curriculum talks about how to deal with all different kinds of immersions. What do you say when someone cries or needs a moment? One bride may want to immerse alone, while others may want to be in a group.
The number seven is very important in the course. Like the seventh day, Shabbat, having special significance, there are seven steps leading into a traditional mikvah. There are seven weeks of training, which are very tied together.

How did you personally come to the mikvah?
A: I’ve gone for all different reasons: the week before I became a rabbi, the end of a year saying Kaddish for my father. At Mayyim Hayyim and in my teaching at Beth El, we try to encourage people to immerse for all kinds of significant moments.

Why do you think the mikvah lost ground in this country among non-Orthodox Jews?
A: It’s such an important part of Jewish family and communal life, we’re taught that a Jewish community is to build a mikvah first, even before a synagogue, for the sake of family purity and the reuniting of husband and wife; otherwise, according to halacha, a couple cannot be together in order to conceive children. You can even sell a Torah if you need money to build a mikvah.

Many know about mikvah only as it pertains to conversion. We don’t talk about the mikvah experience. Mikvah got a bad rap in this country. With only male rabbis, if a woman had a question about her cycle, who’s she going to go to?

What are the points of debate regarding a mikvah?
A: There are strict precepts regarding design, construction, and supervision. Mayyim Hayyim was built with the guidance of a nationally regarded authority on the creation of kosher mikvaot. When we first started, the supervising rabbi was Conservative, so the Orthodox community didn’t accept the mikvah as kosher.  ow, the supervising rabbi is Orthodox.
Another point of debate is around the Talmudic precept, “Mikvah lo mikabel tumah,” a mikvah cannot become impure. You can’t “trayf” a mikvah. We don’t let a person go in when they’re actively bleeding, but a woman who’s finished her menstrual process is impure until she immerses, but she doesn’t make the mikvah impure. Whatever happens in the mikvah can’t make it impure.
I once had a married couple come to me who was converting a child they had adopted and wanted to go in together. The rule at Mayyim Hayyim is that only one adult can immerse at a time, because a man and a woman would never go into a traditional mikvah naked together. So we apply old rules to new family situations. How do we handle same-sex couples? Each goes in one at a time.

How do you create a truly communal, pluralistic mikvah?
A: What we need to do is agree that the mikvah itself is completely halachic –100 percent. In the case of Mayyim Hayyim, there’s no question there.
Then, it requires that a lot of people take something very personal and learn to make the goals of the community as important as their own personal goals and needs. That’s hard – not in the halachic sense, but in the personal and mythical sense. People might know in their heads that, for example, you can’t trayf a mikvah, but have to feel it in their hearts. It’s such an emotional experience and mitzvah that people are often very scared to open up those gates.
There’s an Orthodox mikvah in New Orleans that was destroyed by Hurricane Katrina. A young rabbi there is working to rebuild it and he came to a Mayyim Hayyim conference in October called “Gathering the Waters.” He was in a session I taught, and the discussion centered around not how to rebuild the mikvah, but how to make it a community mikvah.

How are you engaged in mikvah-related education locally?
A: I was taking Beth El congregants to the West Hartford mikvah and to Mayyim Hayyim together with members of The Emanuel Synagogue. I speak with the mother of every bar- or bat-mitzvah student I work with and encourage her to go. I’m taking our sixth grade mothers this year, and added a mikvah visit into our seventh grade curriculum for the first time.
I want people to know that this is so important, so beautiful. If you don’t go because of family purity laws, it can be to celebrate other special moments. As Jews, we have a place to connect to our Creator publicly – the synagogue. But we also need a place where we celebrate personal milestones, and inwardly connect with our Creator and be with that still small voice inside us. No matter what the change we’re marking at the mikvah, it’s a rebirth.