What Kind of Ass-Backwards Woman Goes to the Mikvah?
Anime Period Ghosts: Okay, this is just sillyFor years I’ve had a love/hate relationship with the idea of the mikvah, the ritual bath women are required to take after menstruating (and after childbirth too). The concept that women are unclean and must be purified seems like crap to me, but I dig the idea of ritualizing cleanliness, and I LOVE taking a bath. And then today I discover that we should all be going to the mikvah more often. Not just women, but men too. Before holidays and Shabbat, and before getting married. Some Jewish men go to the mikvah every time they have a nocturnal emission (Yeah, right!) Some people have even started using it as part of the in-vitro process. I’ve only been one time myself, and that was for my conversion, many years ago. But since then I’ve known women I respected, Jewish feminists, smart ladies, who went regularly to the mikvah, and today I’m trying to rethink what it means to be purified. See, here’s the thing—I’ve menstruated, and I’ve had a kid,
