Mikvah/Mikveh, which is Hebrew for ‘collection’, refers to the spiritual purification in natural waters. Dunking oneself in these waters is seen as a time to wash away impurities and start anew. Growing up next to the beach and swimming in lakes and rivers throughout my life — I had yet to mikvah it up and finally, the opportunity had arrived to join fellow female identifying J’s of the Bay (well mostly Berkeley).
When I looked at the gently crashing waves of the Bay near Aquatic Park, feelings of hesitation matched my feelings of disgust — a dead crow was decomposing in the sand behind us, the 580 freeway was roaring next to the beach with trucks and cars that the crashing waves did their best to muffle, and the murky waters resembled a ‘do not enter’ color.
I envisioned my first time entering a mikvah to be a seamless, spiritual session. I likened it to when Luke gives C3PO an oil bath to help his newly acquired droid not feel so debilitated (poor thing had to journey through the desert heat and the coarse, rough, irritating sand of Tatooine). I too would enter the mayim chayim (life waters) as a person whose experiences from the past year had made me immobile and leave the water as a new person — cleaning out the bits that were paralyzing me and move forward with my life.
“Thank the maker! This oil bath is going to feel so good. I’ve got such a bad case of dust contamination, I can barely move!“―C-3PO
We were given laminated prayer cards so we could take the paper into the water with us (genius) and were instructed to take our time: dunk first, then read the first prayer, dunk again, then the next prayer, and finally dunk a third time and say the final prayer – shehecheyanu, celebrating special occasions and other ‘firsts’ of the year.
‘I even opened my eyes last year in the water..and I can still see just fine,’ a woman told the group in an attempt to reassure us that while the bay water may not be clean, it’s not so dirty it will blind you. Comforting.
When asked about thoughts or expectations to enter the water, I told the group, ‘I imagine I’m a serpent, in need of shedding my old layer of skin and when I walk out of the water, I will be renewed.’ Because it’s that easy, right?????
I never was one for doing things slowly and my impatience to get into the water was rising with the tide. I stripped off my shorts so I was in my bathing suit* and re-enacted those classic Baywatch scenes — except no one showed Pamela Anderson freezing in place (super slow-mo?) once a wave really slapped her body and she had to catch her breath before moving forward. I could barely hear the two singers with their guitars playing on the beach and went for my first ‘dunk’ — I cheated since I did not want to put my head under water and risk contracting some form of water-borne illness, so instead I tilted my head back and got my hair wet.
*supposedly mikvahs are supposed to be done in the nude.
The water was quite chilly, but nothing unbearable (i.e. – Scotland’s river Spey or Loch Ness) and I did the three rounds of prayer while forcing my erratic breathing to slow down. I was surrounded by others of all ages, with different reasons for showing up and what they were hoping to leave behind in the Bay water.
Of course, expectations did not quite match up to reality. Instead of shedding a spiritual layer, I left the water feeling more like the Loch Ness moster as I attempted to remove every piece of slimy algae of the millions of strands that were floating in the water. I did not feel renewed, nor did I feel clean, but I did feel awake and alive. I was shaking and shivering and I felt like every part of me was on high alert. Granted this is probably my brain trying to prevent hypothermia, but still it felt like a physical push to do things that are not comfortable or easy, which seems to be fitting for preparing for the new year.
It was truly ludicrous and classically capitalist of me to imagine a quick fix for the soul/mind/body. No such thing exists my friends so reflect on what brings you joy, what is stopping you from having a happy, meaningful life and roll with the tides. First mikvah down and maybe more to come in 5780?
xoxo,
B
Brianna Sommer 