My Mikveh Lady

I don't even know what I was watching or doing, but I suddenly wanted to capture this story.

I moved to Israel in 1997, and after a few months there, around March 1998, I decided I wanted to convert to Judaism. That's all a story for another day, but let's fast forward to the day of my actual conversion, August 1998. My boyfriend at the time, Uriel, and I had a terrible fight that morning. This was typical of our relationship, and I recall telling him this was a really important day in my life and I'd kill him if he messed it up. His parents picked us up and we drove to Jerusalem. We went to the park and had a nice lunch, then went to my beit din. I passed with flying colors, chose my Hebrew name of Hadassah, and off we went to the mikveh.

A mikveh is a ritual bath, where women go each month to cleanse themselves spiritually 7 days after their periods end, and it signifies a new beginning of the monthly cycle. Judaism is very tied to procreation. When one converts to Judaism, we also go into the mikveh. This one is in the hills outside Jerusalem, on the grounds of a monastery run by French monks. It is a mountain-fed spring, and very very cold. I had a woman there, with dark curly hair, who served as the attendant for several of us who were finalizing our conversions that day. I vaguely remember her.

Fast forward again to 2000, when I have been unceremoniously dumped by Uriel, who was supposed to move back to the US with me, and I am living in Austin, Texas. I attended the local Conservative shul there, and became friends with a group of people around my age, a little younger here and there, and we would have Shabbat dinners together. I was at the house of Marcus and Nora having dinner, with my at-the-time boyfriend Jordan, and our friend Galit. Marcus and Nora are about to become married, and were discussing if they would use the mikveh after marriage. Galit, who is an amazingly beautiful Persian Jew, with a voice like an angel, tells us of the summer that she spent in Israel volunteering for the Conservative movement, and how she served as a mikveh attendant one day in August for a group of converts. You figured it out, she was my mikveh lady. We later confirmed this with the rabbi who led my conversion.

Isn't it interesting how the world works?