CLOSE-UP
The
Wit i•cwurrii
Renewing the marital
A
bond each month.
nne and Sheldon
are unusually ex-
cited about the pending birth
of their third child.
It's not just because
they're becoming new
parents again, and it's not
just because they'll have
another chance to give
their sons a sister or
brother.
The Southfield couple is
especially excited because
they're about to have their
first "mikvah baby" —
their first child conceived
while observing the laws of
mikvah a-nd taharat
hamishpachah, laws of
Jewish family purity.
"We call this our mikvah
baby because since I
started going to the
mikvah our marriage and
our relationship with our
children has become even
24
FRIDAY, OCTOBER 18, 1991
more solid, closer, even
spiritual," Anne said.
According to Jewish law,
a Jewish wife visits the
mikvah, or ritual bath,
each month after her
menstruation finishes and
she has counted seven days
free of any menstrual
discharge.
Marital relations and
other physical contact bet-
ween couples while the
woman is in niddah, the
state in which she has her
period, is forbidden. The
Torah considers the trans-
gression as serious as
eating bread on Pesach or
eating on Yom Kippur.
During this time, couples
observe harchakot, a series
of dos and don'ts revolving
around physical contact.
After a woman goes to the
mikvah, she and her hus-
band may renew the
physical side of their mar-
riage.
Anne knew nothing of
these laws. She didn't grow
up in an observanthome. It
wasn't something that was
AMY H. MEHLER
Staff Writer
taught in Hebrew school.
For most of her marriage,
she never thought about it.
"I didn't even know there
were women who still used
the mikvah," Anne said.
"I'd heard a lot of women
say they thought the whole
idea was outdated, or de-
meaning to women. Cer-
tainly nothing a contem-
porary, Jewish woman
would consider doing."
Sheldon said he knew
about mikvah and taharat
hamishpachah as he was
raised in an Orthodox
home. As he grew older,
however, he became less
and less observant. Not un-
til several years ago did he
again become interested in
a more religious lifestyle.
He and Anne began atten-
ding religious classes and
experimenting with diff-
erent religious obser-
vances.
"It was always some-
thing inside of me,"
Sheldon said. "We started
slow because it's crucial to
understand exactly what
you're getting yourself and
your family into. It's easy
to go full tilt and then fall
flat on your face. Mikvah,
however, was never some-
thing I pushed on her."
"It was me," Anne said.
"A year ago last February,
I came home and suggested
we think about keeping
mikvah. We talked about
it, and Sheldon saw that I
was serious.
"What I found was that