Mayim Chayim

Mayim Chayim is Hebrew for "living waters."  It is the technical requirement for water in a mikvah, or Jewish ritual bath.  Like most things involving the laws of observance it is hedged about with restrictions and technicalities "too numerous to mention."  And since, in this case, they all involve plumbing, suffice it to say that in some cases that phrase "living waters" is honored technically.

The basic requirement of ritual baths is that the water be flowing from a spring or well, or from a lake of river that has a spring or well as its source.  Leviticus 15 refers to several causes of impurity and requires bathing in living waters to wash some of them away.  Leviticus 11, in the midst of lengthy lists of animals that are not kosher, explains that spring water and cistern water remain clean even after contact with dead animals that cannot be eaten.

Growing up I heard the worst things about the mikvah.  At that time and in that community it was an embarrassing place where women had to get naked in order to prepare for marriage.  And it was associated, too, with bathing after one's menstrual period.  The women I knew, who were deeply observant, did not like the mikvah and thought of it as a backward, humiliating and male supremacist practice.

I was happily surprised when visiting Jerusalem at the age of 17 to discover that it was a large, clean tank filled with cold water.  A thorough shower was required before immersing, and the facility also had a sauna and a schvitz.  It was a place to prepare for the Sabbath, and the physical act of bathing in living water served, not only as the performance of a commandment, but also as a physical metaphor for the spiritual act of shedding the mundane cares of the work week.

So I wrote about Mingo Sanders's transformative experience in the waters of baptism without having shared that experience myself.  But I shared a parallel experience in the living waters of the mikvah.