Mikvah at the Sternberg Centre, Finchley, UK

Mikvah at the Sternberg Centre

The Mikvah at the Sternberg Centre is innovative in two ways.

1) First, it contains not one but two rainwater stores.

When one is full, it can be used to 'seed' the actual Mikvah immersion bath by running warm water into it - this warm water, which has been 'validated' by mixing with the natural rainwater, then overflows to fill the immersion bath.  This is common and normal procedure.

However, once the rainwater tank is full of rainwater, further rainfall automatically fills the second rainwater store.  Once the second store is filled, the first can be emptied and cleaned. This is very useful where the rain has fallen onto dirty London roofs, and despite the sand filter it passes through, is inevitably still grimy, with sediment settling at the bottom of the tank!

2) The second innovation is that, traditionally, you need a careful mikvah operator to ensure that no tapwater is allowed into the rainwater tank to overflow and fill the immersion bath) until the rainwater store is already full of rainwater.  If it is only half-full of water, a person could turn on the tap and fill the rainwater tank with tap water (invalid), which would eventually overflow and fill the immersion bath with INVALID water.  Technically, this would not be a 'kosher' immersion.  At the Sternberg Centre mikvah this cannot happen. Each rainwater tank has a float switch.  The tap water is controlled by valves.  When you turn the hot and/or cold taps on, the water only flows into a rainwater tank that is already full (valid).  If neither rainwater tank is full of rainwater, then no water will flow and hence the immersion pool cannot be filled.

The room is divided by a wall and translucent divider.  The first area has a toilet (the space was originally allocated to be a disabled toilet and still fulfills this function), a shower (it is a requirement to be completely physically clean before immersing to become 'ritually clean'), a wash basin, a storage cupboard, towel rail, clothes hooks, hair dryer and a seat, as well as steps up to the sliding divider, behind which is the immersion bath.  The second area contains the immersion bath with steps down into the bath.  There are two platform areas with different pastel coloured tiles (see below) - those who are short, children, or people with a fear of the water can be advised to go only to this step as it is not so deep.  One or two more steps take you to the full depth (note, in these pictures the immersion bath is not full, although well over 'kosher' amount of water).

Mikvah - meaning and origins

Mikvah - origins

The word means a "collection" – generally, a collection of water, as we first find in the creation story – ‘u’l’mikveh hamayim kara yamim – the collection of water [God] called Seas’ (Genesis 1:10).

So a mikvah is understood as a body of water including a natural, free-flowing source (mayim chayim – living waters’).  This might include a river or the sea but for privacy and convenience, a mikvah (pl. mikva’ot) is usually an indoor pool which is fed partially from ‘mayim chayim’ of some sort.

Torah contains many references to regaining spiritual purity after various sorts of bodily emissions: menstruation, ejaculation, discharges and weeping wounds.  Usually these require a physical cleansing (such as washing the clothes), and then a full immersion, sometimes, as in Leviticus 15:13, specifically in ‘Mayim Chayim’, ‘living’ water.   It is from these texts that the formal procedure of immersion was developed, and traditionally used by Jewish women after menstruation or childbirth and before marriage, by Jewish men to achieve ritual purity, and for utensils to be used for food, to render them ‘kosher’.

The Mikvah at the Melbourne City Baths

The Mikvah at the Melbourne Baths

The new Melbourne City Baths opened to great excitement on 23 March 1904. The design reflected the needs and architecture of the turn of the century and, to provide for the observant Jews of East Melbourne, included a Jewish ceremonial bath (Mikvah)!

Progressive reforms to Judaism date back to the establishment of the Seesen congregation in Lower Saxony by Israel Jacobson way back in 1810, when the belief that such ‘human emissions’ could render us ‘unclean’ was rejected, so for more than 200 years Progressive Jews have not usually used the mikvah for the above purposes.  However they have been used, and especially over the past generation, for the final stage of conversion to Judaism, since this is a powerful symbol of transition.

The various mikva’ot under Orthodox auspices are not usually available for use by the Progressive community, so we have had to find alternatives.  For some years, the Melbourne community used the mikvah at the Melbourne City Baths, until, some ten years ago, it suffered a structural cracking, after which we resorted to the most natural of mikva’ot, Port Philip Bay!  For reasons of privacy, comfort and safety, this was far from ideal, so we worked with Melbourne City Council and with the support of Lord Mayor Robert Doyle to complete a renovation of the City Baths mikvah which is now warm, attractive and carpeted, and complete with pictures, bath and shower.

As Progressive Jews we emphasise individual educated choice and encourage the use of any religious traditions that might help to bring God more into our lives; the mikvah has therefore occasionally been used as part of preparations for the New Year or marriage, and now that we have one available in Melbourne, it is being rediscovered by those seeking meaningful rights of passage symbols.

The Progressive Judaism Victoria office (03 9533 9930) can assist you with organising and booking the mikvah. 

The mikvah will be filled in advance, as it takes nearly an hour to fill!  We explored sending all this warm water into the main chlorinated pool system after use but it turned out to be unviable!  

When the taps are turned on, the water flows a metre along a terracotta pipe attached to the wall, before entering the mikvah.

This is a commonly employed legal fiction which is considered to have turned the water from 'drawn' tap water (invalid) into 'mayim chayim - living, natural water' (valid).

It derives from the question 'if a bucket of water is drawn water, but I tip it on the floor, when does it become natural water again?'.  The answer given is that once it has flowed a cubit along the ground, it is natural water.  The subsequent question is 'what sort of ground must it flow along' and the answer is 'ground that is absorbent' and absorbent is taken to mean that it shows the passage of the water.  Hence we use a terracotta pipe, which becomes darker (ie absorbs some of the water) as it flows along it.  Attached to the wall makes it part of (one with) the building.  Traditionally lean concrete has also been used for the purpose.

Heater and hairdryer make use of the mikvah more comfortable

                                                        Steps down into the mikvah

                                   The bath for physical cleansing.  It now has a shower 
                                  and shower curtain around it, and the area is carpeted.