Preparation for Immersion
Mayyim Hayyim, https://www.mayyimhayyim.org/preparation-for-immersion/
Mayyim Hayyim’s Seven Kavanot for Mikveh Preparation
The Holy One created the world in six days, but made it complete with Shabbat, the seventh day. The number seven suggests wholeness and represents the creative process. Seven steps lead into the mikveh.
These seven kavanot – preparatory meditations – are offered in the hope that your immersion will provide you a sense of shleimut – of wholeness and peace.
1) Hineni. Here I am.
Take a minute and think about the transition mikveh will help you mark today.
Immersion in the mikveh represents a spiritual transformation from one state to another. In traditional language, your change is from ritually unready (tameh) to ritually ready (tahor). Prepare yourself by writing in a journal, or saying a personal prayer, or reading something of meaning to you. Breathe deeply. Sigh audibly.
2) Hiddur Mitzvah. The unadorned body is beautiful in itself.
Remove all jewelry as well as makeup, paying special attention to the eyes.
Remove nail polish on fingers and toes. (Acrylics may stay on if they have been on for more than a month.) There is no need for adornment or artifice in the mikveh. There should be no physical barriers between the body and the living waters.
3) Nekavim nekavim. You fashioned the human being intricate in design.
Empty your bladder.
Our tradition celebrates and blesses the body in every possible moment and mode.
4) B’tzelem Elohim. I am made in the image of God.
Remove all clothing, eyeglasses, contact lenses, dental plates, hearing aids.
Each person enters the mikveh as naked as the day of their birth. Without rank or status. Simply a human being. Gloriously a human being.
5) Elohai neshama shenatata bi tehorah hi. The soul in me is pure.
Shower or bathe with thoughtful attention to the miracle of your own body. Pay attention to every part of yourself. Wash yourself, head to toe; shampoo your hair, lather your shoulders, back, arms, belly, and genitals. Scrub elbows, knees and heels, removing calluses and dead skin. Wash between fingers and toes.
Relax and enjoy. The water of the mikveh will feel even sweeter after this.
6) Kol haneshama t’halel yah. The breath of every living thing praises You.
Clean your ears, blow your nose, brush and floss your teeth, rinse your mouth.
Stand before the mirror. Consider all of your senses. Look into your own eyes and smile. Think about the words that come from your mouth.
7) Tikkun Olam. We can stand for justice; we can build a world of peace and justice.
Clean under your nails – toenails, too. (Nails do not need to be cut.)
Consider the power of your hands and feet to create wholeness in your life, in our world.
Zohar 2:204a
When the Sabbath comes in, it is incumbent on the holy people to wash away from themselves the marks of their weekday labor. For what reason? Because during the weekdays, a different soul roams about and over the people and it is in order to divest himself of that soul and invest himself with another soul, a spirit sublime and holy, he must wash away the stains of the workday world.
By Cynthia Wallace
Mikvah
Naked and alone I approach the Mikvah
no speck of dirt or trailing hair
between my body and the warm flowing waters.
I pull knees to chest head curled down
a fetal position
the shape of the human heart
Water touches my every cell
The borders of my body become indistinguishable
from molecules of sacred water
As one together, yet cradled and
enveloped by a profound embrace
Hashem that is water
Water that is Hashem
Nourished in his womb
that is her womb
that is the womb of the people Yisrael
Three times I curl around myself
immerse my body into the waters
Once within Hashem, Echad, The Place
Twice within the womb of Shechina
Thrice within the soul of my people Yisrael
Stepping out I cherish the feeling of pressure
the water’s indelible imprint on my skin
The comfort of being completely enveloped and sustained
The joy of feeling at one within myself
held within Hashem
Hashem who is
is יהוה
is was
is is
is always will be
is breath
is ah-ahaaaaaa
is
Emet
Returning to the divine womb by Rabbi Rachel Barenblat (The Velveteen Rabbi)
As I enter my third trimester of pregnancy, this language amazes me. If God is the wombful One, then I with my womb and its inhabitant am somehow partaking in a flicker of God's experience as the nurturer of humanity. On a microcosmic level, my son is cushioned in the waters of my uterus, and I care for him in every way I can. On a macrocosmic level, says the B'nai Yissaschar, now is the season when all of us can return to those waters in a cosmic sense, and emerge reborn into renewed spiritual life, ready to draw down the cosmic abundance with which God nurtures all creation. This is our time of year to return to the womb Which cradles us still.
Waters of Eden pg 13, R. Aryeh Kaplan
When a person immerses himself in water, he places himself in an environment where he cannot live. Were he to remain submerged for more than a few moments, he would die from a lack of air. He is thus literally placing himself in a state of non-existance and non-life. Breath is the very essence of life, and according to the Torah, a person who stops breathing is no longer considered among the living. Thus, when a person submerges himself in a mikvah, he momentarily enters the realm of the non-living,. so that when he emerges, hes is like one reborn.
Rabbi Kalonymous Kalman Shapira [The Aish Kodesh]
To Heal the Soul, translated and edited by Yehoshua Starrett
Please, G!d! Hear the voice of our cries! Have pity on Yourself, so to speak, and on us--Your children and servants. Draw us out of the darkness and near to You! True, what are our actions, our repentance and penance before You Whose holy angels tremble with awe? Who is really worthy of Your Presence? But still, have we not purified our very souls by immersing in the oceans of our tears? See how each one of us, when outpouring his bitter soul, is at the same time rejoicing in Your Presence, totally surrendering his very essence to Your will and cleaning his mind of any unwanted presence. No slightest thought will now enter my mind to spoil the bliss of this moment. All is now Light and holiness… My very being I surrender to this Light. Is our immersing in these holy waters not enough even for our low level in order that we enter Your Presence?
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