Tavilah B'Mikveh Immersion in a Mikveh
Join us on July 5th 2008, for a Mikveh service at Bryant's Grove.PDF/Bryant's Grove.pdf
What
physical act could a person perform in order to symbolize a radical change of
heart, a total commitment? Is there a sign so dramatic, dynamic, and
all-encompassing that it could represent the radical change undergone by a new
believer?
Jewish
tradition prescribes a profound symbol. It instructs a person to
place himself or herself in a radically different physical environment--in water
rather than air. This leaves the person floating--momentarily suspended without
breathing-- an aimlessness, a weightlessness, a detachment from the former
environment.
Ritual immersion is the total submersion of the body in a pool of water. This pool and its water are precisely prescribed by Jewish law and the Brit Chadasha, the New Testament.
Immersion,
tevillah, is the common core component of every [traditional] Jewish
conversion process, for male and female, adult and child, student and scholar.
Religious
Functions of the Mikveh
Several
religious functions are served by this powerful symbol of submerging in water.
In the days of the ancient Temple in Jerusalem, the mikveh
was used by all Jews who wanted to enter the precincts of the Sanctuary. The law
required every person inside the Temple grounds to be in a spiritually pure
state appropriate to the pristine spirituality of the Sanctuary itself.
A
major function of immersion in the mikveh is for a new Believer in Messiah. The sages declare that a gentile who wishes to become a Jew must
undergo the identical process by which Jewish ancestors did in ancient times.
Water
Symbolizes Birth as a Messianic Believer
in Messiah
Submerging
in a pool of water for the purpose not of using the water's physical cleansing
properties but expressly to symbolize a change-of-soul is a statement at once
deeply spiritual and immensely compelling. No other symbolic act can so totally
embrace a person as being submerged in water, which must touch and cover every
lesion, every strand of hair, every birthmark.
The
water of the mikveh is designed to ritually cleanse a person from deeds of the
past. The convert is considered by Jewish law to be like a newborn child. By
spiritually cleansing the convert, the mikveh water prepares him or her to
confront God, life, and people with a fresh spirit and new eyes--it washes away
the past, leaving only the future. Of course, this does not deny that there were
good and beautiful aspects of the past. But, in the strictest religious sense,
that past was only prologue to a future life as a Jew.
There
is a second layer of meaning to mikveh. It marks the beginning of the ascent to
an elevated religious state. This function of mikveh goes beyond the basic
purpose of purification.
In
a sense, it is nothing short of the spiritual drama of death and rebirth cast
onto the canvas of the person's soul. Submerging into waters over her head, she
enters into an environment in which she cannot breathe and cannot live for more
than moments. It is the death of all that has gone before. As she emerges from
the gagging waters into the clear air, she begins to breathe anew and live
anew--as a baby struggling to be born.
If
we take this graphic metaphor a step further, we can sense that the mikveh is a
spiritual womb. The human fetus is surrounded by water. It does not yet live.
The water breaks in a split second and the child emerges into a new world.
"As soon as the convert immerses and emerges, he is a Jew in every
respect" (Yevamot 47b).
What
is a Mikveh, Halakhically?
The
water must originally have been transported to the mikveh in a manner resembling
the natural flow of waters. The general practice is to build cement channels at
the sides of the mikveh roof, which will enable rainwater to flow directly into
the mikveh. Done right the first time, with the required initial amount of
water, other piped waters may be added later in whatever quantities and at any
time, and the mikveh will still retain its religious validity.
The
waters must be stationary and not flow (not even the flow caused by a filter)
while the mikveh is in use. The water, by all means, should be chlorinated to
assure its meeting the highest standards of hygienic cleanliness. (While the
chlorinated water may be somewhat discolored, it does have to retain natural
water color.)
Water
deriving from a natural spring is considered a valid mikveh if it complies with
halakhic conditions. Also quite proper is immersing in the ocean, where there is
no mikveh available, given the satisfaction of certain halakhic conditions.
Parameters
of the Mikveh Experience
The
ceremony must take place on a weekday [and not on Shabbat, the Sabbath] and
during daylight, as do all other Jewish court procedures. In cases when a full
circumcision has to be performed (unlike the touch of blood for previously
circumcised males), enough time will have to elapse to be certain that the wound
has healed completely.
We have been buried therefore with Yeshua through immersion into death, in order that as the Messiah was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life.
For if we have become united with Yeshua in the likeness of His death, certainly we shall be also in the likeness of His resurrection. ---Romans 6:4-5
In
obedience to the command of our Lord the Messiah Yeshua and based on the
profession of your faith and your trust in Him alone for your salvation, I now immerse you in HaShem, the Name of the Father, the Son Yeshua, and the Holy
Spirit. Arise and walk into a
renewed life.