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).