Emerging From the Waters: Explaining the Mitzvah of Mikvah

Spirituality permeates every aspect of Jewish life, especially between a husband and wife. One of our missions in this world is to imbue the physical with the spiritual. To that end, the concepts of taharah, purity, and tumah, impurity, are spiritual concepts with physical implications. Tumah is closely related to death or loss of potential life, whereas taharah is tied to the possibility of life continuing and being fulfilled. Chasidic teachings¹ explain that spiritual impurity is a lack of holiness, and holiness in definition is called “life” or “vitality,” which in turn is directly sourced from the Creator of all. The Kotzker Rebbe states that tumah can only exist where holiness has been and gone². The closer one is to God, then the more holy a person is considered. This degree correlates to the level of purity – closer to life and further from death. 

A woman’s menstrual cycle ebbs and flows according to the possibility of new life and the loss of that possibility. A dual strength deeply rooted in a woman’s connection to the Source of Life – the possibility exists for either a greater degree of tumah, impurity, and also the ultimate closeness to Hashem. A man and a woman form a holy union and as such when they interact with each other it must follow the dictates of halacha. In a greater sense, all of our actions should imitate Godliness and our homes are modeled after His house, the Beit Hamikdash. The kodesh hakodashim is Hashem’s personal and private space just as the bedroom of a husband and wife is.

The halachot of taharat hamishpacha, the laws of family purity, are intricate and follow a woman through her monthly menstrual cycle. During the time of the woman’s menstruation, she is considered to be in a state of niddah, and the couple separates physically. This culminates in the woman preparing and going to dip several times in a mikvah, a ritual bath, to achieve a state of taharah. This halacha is learned out from several sources in the Torah including Vayikra 15:18, “and they shall bathe in water,” and Numbers 31:23, in which a mikveh is referred to as “the waters of niddah.” A woman in niddah who immerses is permitted to resume physical intimacy with her husband.

Water is a life source, but why is it essential for a mikvah taharah? Going back to its origin, “In the beginning God created heaven and earth. The earth was without form and empty, with darkness on the face of the depths, but God’s spirit moved on the water’s surface” (Genesis 1: 1-2). On the second day, “God said, ‘There shall be a sky in the middle of the water, and it shall divide between water and water. God thus made the sky, and it separated the water below the sky from the water above the sky. It remained that way” (ibid. 6-7). Still, the world was flooded with water. Then on the third day, “God said, ‘The waters under the heaven shall be gathered to one place, and dry land shall be seen.’ It was so. God named the dry land ‘Earth,’ and the gatherings of water, He named ‘Seas.’ God saw that it was good” (ibid. 9-10). Before land, stars, people, or even animals there was water. It gave form to the earth. It was the beginning – the start. Just as a wife immerses herself in a mikvah as a way to restart their physical relationship, so too the earth was immersed in the water to start the existence of life³.

The mabul, the great flood, in the times of Noach, was a cleansing of the world from the evil that inhabited it with water. The flood covered the entire world in water that came from below and above for 40 days. It is meaningful to consider that a halachically kosher mikvah must have at least 40 se’ah of water. Just as it took 40 days to cleanse the world and rejuvenate it, it will take 40 se’ah of water for a woman to rejuvenate herself and reset her status of taharah.

Water has a torrid history in that it is the source of life as we know it, but at the same time it can be a source of devastating destruction. The mabul, the great flood, in the times of Noach, was a cleansing of the world from the evil that inhabited it with water. The flood covered the entire world in water that came from below and above for 40 days. It is meaningful to consider that a halachically kosher mikvah must have at least 40 se’ah of water. Just as it took 40 days to cleanse the world and rejuvenate it, it will take 40 se’ah of water for a woman to rejuvenate herself and reset her status of taharah.

The Rambam writes in the Mishneh Torah, that this immersion in the mikvah requires the intent of the heart, the intent to purify oneself spiritually, from all of the improper thoughts or bad traits, to bring one’s soul into “the waters of pure understanding.” Water brings about the separation of all outside elements, and therefore, purifies⁴ . Historically, water has the ability to purify such as when Adam was banished from Gan Eden and the Midrash relates that he sat in a river that flowed from the garden itself. This was a part of his teshuva process. Before Har Sinai, Bnei Yisrael was instructed to prepare themselves through purification with water. The water that was available to them in the desert was the well of Miriam. Every kohein was required to immerse before their appointment and before entry into the Mishkan or Beit Hamikdash. 

A mikvah taharah has very specific halachot. It must be attached to the ground and not in a separate system. It cannot have a hole in it nor be leaking. The mikvah is defined in Parshat Shemini as water that “gathers” in the ground naturally, “The only thing that shall always remain ritually clean is a mikvah of water”⁵. A ritually pure mikvah is one where the stagnant groundwater has come from a natural spring or rainwater that accumulated. The natural spring water, from the ground itself, is kosher for immersion if it continues flowing, but the collected rainwater, from the sky originally, can no longer be flowing⁶. Natural spring water is called “zochalim,” as it flows, and in general it is referred to as “mayim chayim,” living water or water of life. 

All seas, large and small, are kosher for the immersion of people and utensils. And although sea water moves back and forth because of the wind that creates waves, or flows because of rivers that enter them, this does not invalidate them, rather, just as a spring is kosher even when its waters flow naturally, likewise, the sea is kosher when its waters flow or sway as they naturally do⁷. 

To complete the process of reaching a state of taharah the woman must fully immerse in the waters of a mikvah. It must contain within it 40 se’ah (a unit of measurement equivalent to approximately 750 liters or 198 gallons) in any place on the ground where water can “gather” is kosher as a mikvah, including a spring, ocean, or a pit dug in the ground. Even on the 100th floor of a building, as the building itself is connected to the ground. As long as they are in or connected to the ground naturally then they are considered tahor and cannot receive tumah⁸. 

Through immersion in a mikvah, a woman channels the kedusha in the world and brings it down into her mikdash me’at – her home. The truest sense of tumah and taharah that continues to exist in the world post-destruction of the Beit HaMikdash is that between a husband and a wife. Our Jewish homes are innately filled with kedusha, and it is our privilege to maintain a high level of taharah through mikvah.

1. https://www.chabad.org/theJewishWoman/article_cdo/aid/1542/jewish/On-the-Essence-of-Ritual-Impurity.htm
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2. Sefer HaLikkutim, Dach “Tzemach Tzedek,” vol. 6, s.v. Niddah ↩︎
3. R’ Eliezer melamed, Revivim Article, Yeshiva Har Bracha ↩︎
4. https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.chabad.org/theJewishWoman/article_cdo/aid/1542/jewish/On-the-Essence-of-Ritual-Impurity.htm%23footnote3a1542&sa=D&source=docs&ust=1714660536753257&usg=AOvVaw3u3HES7hzCaXykZsR4UTJL
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5. Leviticus 11:36 ↩︎
6. Mishnah Mikvaot 1: 7-8; S.A. 201:2 ↩︎
7. Rashi, Tosfot, Shabbat 109a ↩︎
8. Chatam Sofer, Y.D. 213 ↩︎