Miscarriage, menopause, gender transition: mikvah reinvented

At a time where many Jewish Australians could benefit from connection and healing, the mikvah, or ritual bath, is a largely untapped source.

Traditionally, immersion is used by orthodox Jews primarily to mark the division between the menstrual period and permitted sexual intercourse, and for other moments of purification.

But progressive and secular Jews are harnessing mikvah for a range of rituals, from mourning a miscarriage to marking menopause to celebrating gender transition.

Rabbi Jacqueline Ninio discovered the power of mikvah in her own life when she was struggling to conceive, and experienced a miscarriage.

“It can really help. I was really stuck and it was only after I created a ritual and did it for myself that I felt I could move on from that place. Even though I’ve done it for so many other people, it never occurred to me to do it for myself, but it just affirmed for me the power of those moments, and just stopping and marking and acknowledging. Sometimes we need to acknowledge where we’ve been and the pain of that in order to be able to move to the place of joy and connection.”

Once she realised the power of mikvah combined with ritual, Rabbi Ninio, from Sydney’s Emanuel Synagogue, was keen to share its impact.

 “I realised there were many, many moments in people’s lives that we should be marking.” She started offering mikva’ot for many of life’s milestones and transitions, including those that didn’t have spiritual rituals in Judaism, like miscarriages, divorces and gender transitions.

“Someone came to me when they were in the process of transitioning, and they asked if we could mark the end of one journey and the beginning of the new one. And so, together, we created a ritual. Unfortunately, we don’t have a mikvah at the Synagogue that we can use, and the community mikva’ot don’t allow us to use them for our conversions or anything, but the ocean, thankfully, is a natural mikvah, and we have a lot of ocean.”

When she worked on creating ceremonies, she found the most powerful ones had “an anchor in Judaism” and were grounded in Jewish tradition and prayers. “I put together some prayers and readings, and things that are not necessarily just the traditional ‘get in the mikvah and say your prayers’, so there’s a bit of ceremony around it.”

She created a ceremony around Havdalah (the ceremony that marks the end of Shabbat). “We used elements of the Havdalah ceremony – the twisted candle, the spices and the wine – and we reimagined what they could be for this ceremony, for this moment.”

When she was single, in her thirties, Rabbi Ninio realised, “If I don’t end up in a relationship and have children, there will be no ritual that applies to me until my funeral. And I thought, that can’t be right — it can’t be that the only things you mark are on the traditional path.”

TJI Editor Deborah Stone immersed in the mikvah as part of a ritual she created to mark menopause.

"We lit candles to mark the passing of the joys and griefs of our child-bearing years. It was very important to me, as a way of letting go of the sadness and retaining the gratitude. For me, immersing in the ocean before that ceremony was a moment of great power and surprising joy."

While Rabbi Ninio loves to take people for ocean mikva’ot, she dreams of creating an accessible and inclusive community mikvah. “I really think it would make such a difference to have a beautiful spiritual space. I went to a whole lot of different mikva’ot in America, community ones, and everything that happens in that space is connected to body and spirit together.”

Making mikva’ot accessible to Progressive Jews was one consideration Rabbi Jonathan Keren-Black had as part of the group that renovated the Melbourne City Baths mikvah, which was built in 1904. Rabbi Keren-Black used the mikvah for Rosh Hashanah preparation and “found it really wonderful just floating, womb-like. I found it a very powerful experience.”

Raphael Lee used the Melbourne City Baths mikvah as part of their journey with their gender identity. For Lee, the mikvah was a marking point, a realignment, and a point of healing – “being at a point where I know what my identity is and I’m comfortable with it.”

“In the Progressive movement, … [a mikvah] is not a regular occurrence. So it felt a little unusual to utilise a ritual that’s not commonplace like it is in other Jewish communities, but I think finding rituals to mark important milestones is something that we need… Forging accessible rituals for the queer community is something I’m particularly passionate about as I’ve gone through my own journey.”

Lee had a very different mikvah this year after their Rabbi suggested, in jest, that they jump off a pier in Port Phillip Bay as a mikvah experience following some challenging experiences. Lee jumped off a pier in Port Melbourne. “It may become a yearly thing before Rosh Hashanah,” Lee tells me, “because the clarity that it brought, and the cleansing and the healing – it allowed me to be more focused and present, particularly for Tashlich.” The mikvah had a profound impact on Lee, who found it beautiful, accessible and meaningful.

“Being able to take back some of those rituals is powerful. And it gives me hope that there is a place for us in the Jewish community. It’s been really isolating to be queer and to be a Jew at the moment.”

Lee would like to see an accessible mikvah in Melbourne closer to the Jewish community in Caulfield or surrounding neighbourhoods. “I’ve spoken with friends who said if they had the means, they would set up a mikvah and it would be accessible for all.”

But Lee is also now a fan of the bay. “Being able to link the grounding, calming presence of nature with ritual and spiritual practice, I think, strengthens the importance of those things and allows me to connect in a different way – a stronger and deeper way.”

That is necessary, particularly now. “We have ways to care for ourselves, to care for community and to process what it means to be queer or to be a Jew in 2024,” Lee says. “I think I’d be really lost if I didn’t have access to rituals like mikvah.”

Where to have an inclusive, accessible mikvah:

Sydney

Parsley Bay Reserve and Redleaf Beach.

Melbourne

Melbourne City Baths – call 03 9658 9011 or book online

Port Phillip Bay

USA

Mayyim Hayyim, Massachusetts

Immersion ceremonies are available for downloading.