When there is Commitment, There is Hope
Yom Kippur 5773
Shmuel Herzfeld
Rabbi Aryeh Kaplan tells the story of a friend who visited the former Soviet Union in its darkest days of anti-Semitism and repression of Judaism. After the man was vetted and had gained the trust of the Jewish community, he was shown the pride and joy of the community. They led the man into a closet and from the closet into a secret stairway, and from there he was led to a secret mikvah that was built by a man named Yaakov.Even though he was living under the oppressive Soviet regime, Yaakov took upon himself to build a mikvah which became known as the city Mikvah and was used by more than forty families.
Just getting the materials for the mikvah was a crime punishable with severe repercussions. But with great patience and courage Yaakov completed his task.
Building a mikvah is always difficult but it is unimaginable to me how he built a completely kosher mikvah in total secrecy under the watchful of neighbors who would have been very happy to report him to the KGB. That mikvah became a point of great pride for the Refusenik community of the Soviet Union. When asked why he had undertaken all the expense and danger to build a Mikvah, Yaakov explained, "Without it, I could not live as a Jew."
Building a mikvah is one of the most important things a Jewish community can do. According to the ShulchanAruch, one should build a mikvah before building a school or a shul. (BiurHalachah, OrechChaim 468:4, cited in Aryeh Kaplan, Mikvah.)
Our shul has plans to move forward imminently on building a mikvah. This is a great moment for our shul as it is a very clear statement about what we value and what our priorities are.
This is exciting! It will be your mikvah, our mikvah! A place for our community - everyone there will be able to feel the excitement - the waters of renewal/ rebirth/ purification.
It's a hidden, holy ritual and it will be there for us.
The values and symbolism of a mikvah are in many ways exactly the same as those of Yom Kippur.
Many people know that women require immersion in a mikvah when they reach the end of their cycle. In order to properly reunite with their husbands a woman must first immerse in a mikvah.
It is less well known that it is considered a mitzvah for men also to go to the mikvah on a weekly basis right before Shabbat. The plan is for our mikvah to have a special men’s mikvah in addition to the woman’s mikvah.
The KitzurShulchanAruch(basing itself ultimately on the Zohar) writes (siman 72), mitzvah al kola dam..bekholerevshabbas…sheyitbolatzmobemikvah, it is a mitzvah for every man to immerse himself in the mikvah on the eve of Shabbat.
The MunkatcherRebbe writes that a man should immerse right before Shabbat because then one is spiritually connecting to the Shabbat. The source for this idea is the Jerusalem Talmud (Terumot, end of chapter 8),which states that Rabbi Yehudah Nesiah and Rav Nachman bar Shemuel went to the mikvah every eve of Shabbat. (Cited in ShearimMetzuyanimBehalakhah.)
Why do we go to the mikvah? What is the spiritual value of a mikvah?
The simple answer to this question is because we are commanded to by God.
But on a symbolic level the reason is because a mikvah represents two powerful ideas that intertwined with the awesome power of Yom Kippur. The first idea is that a mikvah teaches us how to be reborn and invigorated in our service of Hashem. The second idea is that a Mikvah teaches us how to recommit ourselves to Hashem.
The imagery of the mikvah is exact image that the Talmud chooses to describe the spiritual purification process that we undergo on Yom Kippur.
The last Mishnah in Tractate Yoma reads:
“R. Akiva said: Praiseworthy are you O Israel. Before whom do you cleanse yourselves? Who cleanses you? Your father in Heaven! As is said, “And I will sprinkle water upon you and you shall be cleansed,’ and he also says, (Jeremiah 17:13) Themikveh of Israel is Hashem (mikvah yisrael Hashem). Mah mikvah metaherethatemeim, af Hashem metaher et yisrael. Just as a mikvah purifies the contaminated, so does the Holy One, purify Israel” (Yoma, 8:9).
According to this teaching, on Yom Kippur, Hashem is figuratively dunking us all in a mikvah and purifying us. A mikvah is a pit of water; but it is also symbolically like a womb. When we exit the mikvah we are reborn and refreshed. Our sins have been wiped away by our total immersion in the water. We have a fresh start.
Yom Kippur is more than Hashem simply not punishing us for our sins. On Yom Kippur we are aspiritually reborn and have an entirely new beginning. This is symbolized by the mikvah. We are given the great chance of beginning every year with a clean slate from God.
We don’t realize it so much today because the nature of our service has changed since the ancient Temple was destroyed, but in the time of the BeitHamikdash, the ritual of the mikvah was the center of the Yom Kippur service.
We know that the entire courtyard of the Temple was packed with people who were there to watch the Yom Kippur service of the KohenGadol. The Mishnah in Yoma tells us (3:3) that no one was allowed into the courtyard of the Temple without first immersing in the mikvah. Einadamnikhnasleazarahleavodahafilutahor ad sheyitbol.
The Mishnah then tells that the KohenGadol immersed in a mikvah five separate times throughout the day. Before and after each time he would wash his hands and his legs (kiddushyadayimveraglayim).
The very first ritual of the Yom Kippur day was that all of the people witnessed the immersion of the KohenGadol in the mikvah. Well, not literally, as that would be highly immodest. But essentially that was what happened. The Mishnah (3:4) tells us: “They spread a linen sheet between him and the people. He undressed, descended, immersed himself, ascended, and dried himself. They brought him golden vestments, and he donned them; then he washed his hands and feet.”
The theme of all of these immersions is to remind us that Yom Kippur is about rebirth and renewal. We begin the year with a new start having been transformed by our immersion in a mikvah in the presence of Hashem.
So when we immerse in the mikvah we are essentially acting out a ritual that promises us a fresh start. This is the theme of Yom Kippur and in many ways it is the theme of every ritual in which a mikvah is used.
When a wife goes to the mikvah, she and her husband are getting a fresh start. When a bride and groom independently go to the mikvah they too are reminding themselves that they are beginning a new stage of their life. When a convert goes to the mikvah they enter as one person and exit as a new person entirely.
This is one of the great gifts that Hashem gives us with Yom Kippur. Through the rituals of Yom Kippur we enter as one person but ideally we leave as an entirely new person.
Mikvah is about rebirth and transformation through the vehicle of sacred water. But mikvah is not only about rebirth and transformation. It is also about a reaffirmation and recommitment to who we are and what we are about.
One understanding of the word mikvah is that it means to gather. As it states in Genesis (1:9): Yikavuhamayimmitachathashamayim, God gathered the waters underneath the heavens. (Total Immersion, 195.)
Each drop of water on its own is useless but when gathered together it makes a powerful spiritual force.
On our own we have very little strength and power. But when we connect to the chains of our tradition and our ancestors then our spiritual power is enormous.
When we immerse in the mikvah we are not only immersing in our own pool of water. We are reaffirming that we are part of a sacred tradition that places a supreme value on the importance of going to a mikvah and we are recommitting ourselves to that tradition.
When the ruins of Masada were first excavated a mikvah was discovered. Senior rabbis inspected that mikvah and said that it was %100 kosher. That mikvah from 2000 years ago is essentially the same mikvah that we use today.
When we enter into a mikvah we are not only being reborn, we are also strengthened and reminded of who we are and where we came from.
Throughout our history Jews have risked their lives just for the sake of being able to immerse in a mikvah.
Even when a mikvah was not essentially required by Jewish law, but was merely a pious practice, Jews risked their lives to connect to a mikvah.
There is a powerful story from the Holocaust that makes this point.
It is a custom for men to immerse in the mikvah on the eve of Yom Kippur. Different reasons are given for this practice. Some see it as part of a general practice of immersing before every holiday. Others see it as an extension of a takkanah of Ezra that men should immerse themselves on a daily basis in the mikvah. Even though Ezra’s takkanah is no longer binding we try to act in a very holy way on the eve of Yom Kippur and thus go to the mikvah. Still others see the mikvah on the eve of Yom Kippur as part of a general connection between repentance and Yom Kippur. Just like a convert immerses before they become Jewish we also must immerse on the eve of Yom Kippur.
Even though the exact reason is obscure, it is a wide spread custom of Jews to go to the mikvah on the eve of Yom Kippur.
But it is “just a custom.”
Well, the Rabbi of the Warsaw Ghetto was Rabbi KalonimusKalman Shapiro, known as the Piaseczno Rav. He urged his followers to do everything possible to stay alive and defeat the Nazis. He said that even though Judaism teaches that we must give our lives for the sake of Hashem, in the Warsaw ghetto that teaching was reversed. In the Warsaw Ghetto the proper way to sanctify God’s name was to do everything possible in order to live.
The Warsaw ghetto was cordoned off in November, 1940. Yom Kippur that year was in October 1940. The Nazis had shut down all the mikvaot in Warsaw. But the Piazeczno Rav wanted to go to the mikvah on the eve of Yom Kippur.
His travels that day in 1940 are well documented. He arose with some devoted members of his community and they snuck through the streets before dawn. In the pitch black they arrived at the courtyard of the mikvah. In total silence, they entered through a chiseled hole in the wall. With great difficulty they pushed themselves through the wall and found themselves on a wooden platform. Still in total darkness they jumped into a corridor, which led them to the mikvah. In the mikvah they found a “sizable” number of people who had heard that the mikvah would be open for an hour. They immersed quickly, got dressed, and snuck out the same way they had come in. As they left the sun had begin to rise and they saw the sign on the outside of the courtyard. It read, “Opening the mikvah or employing it will be subject to between ten years in prison and death.” (From Kiddush Hashem, republished in Total Immersion: A Mikvah Anthology, 263.)
But you don’t only have to be the Piaseczno Rav in the Warsaw ghetto to use the holiness of the mikvah as a way to recommit to Hashem.
Many men and women use the mikvah on a regular basis in order to demonstrate their love for Hashem.
One of the most powerful articles about mikvah that I ever read was by a woman named,ChavaWillig Levy.
A childhood bout with Polio caused her to be “weak in the knees.” After she got married whenever she went to the mikvah she would need as many as eight women to come with her and help carry her into the mikvah. She writes about how she went to mikvah for six years desperately praying to have a child. One time she arrived and the mikvah lady told her: “We have a terrible problem. You should go straight home.” Her heart fell because she was preoccupied with infertility and she knew that even a day lost could mean the loss of an entire month. She asked what the matter was. When she was told that the heater had broken, she laughed and said: “Is that all? I thought you were going to tell me that there was no water in the mikvah.” Needless to say she immersed in the mikvah that night. (Total Immersion, 196.) She writes that eventually she was fortunate that her prayers for fertility were answered.
ChavaWillig Levy calls the Mikvah a “House of Hopes” because it is a place where hopes reside as many souls come to stand before God and pour out their hopes and prayers. Another possible meaning of the word mikvah is hope. Mikvah comes from the same root as the word Hatikvah, or hope.
This same word “hope”, is the word in which we end our major psalm for the High Holidays, Psalm 27 (ledavid Hashem ori). We say at the end of that psalm, “Kaveh el Hashem, chazakveyaametzlibekhavekaveh el Hashem. Hope to Hashem, strengthen yourself and He will give you courage; hope to Hashem.”
Where does such hope come from? It comes from us strengthening ourselves in our commitment to God. The more we commit to Him the more hope we will have. If we hope to Hashem, then He will give us courage.
When we immerse in a mikvah—man or woman—we are placing our hope in Hashem. We are linking ourselves to the lives of our courageous ancestors who risked their lives in order to fulfill the mitzvah of mikvah. We are gaining strength and courage from them.
Mikvah is about both being reborn and recommitting to the traditions of our ancestors. This is exactly what Yom Kippur is about as well.