What Is a Chabad Mikvah - Rabbi Menachem Mendel Wilschanski shlita

00:02 Speaker 1 You’re listening to the “Lemaan Yishme’u” podcast from the Chabad Halacha Institute.

00:09 Speaker 2 Good evening. Today we’re going to discuss something very important: the mikveh, one pit above another, a mikveh built according to the approach of our Rebbeim—a design established by the Rebbe Rashab. Of course, in his study he already had before him all the stringencies and enhancements established by the Alter Rebbe and the Tzemach Tzedek in their responsa, even though the mikveh he established was different. As we approach this subject, we certainly remember that we are now in the era of Moshiach. The words of the baraisa at the end of Tractate Sotah come to mind: “Purity leads to the resurrection of the dead,” through Eliyahu Hanavi, of blessed memory. Very soon, immediately, we will see the great tidings, and then there will be purity throughout the world. “I will sprinkle pure water upon you, and you will be purified”—literally. When we speak about a Chabad mikveh, what does the world know as a mikveh built according to the Chabad approach? Everyone knows to say: one pit above another. One pit over another. What the Rebbe calls, in one of his letters, a tevilah pit above a zriah pit. To understand what is innovative about the Chabad mikveh, we’ll need to understand many things. But it’s important to stress at the outset: a Chabad mikveh is not just one pit above another. A Chabad mikveh includes dozens of details, beginning with the list of more than ten points written by Rabbi Landau. The Rebbe adopted that list as the Rebbe Rashab’s instructions for a Chabad mikveh. The Rebbe directed that it be included and printed in the Shulchan Aruch starting in 5719, and wrote that the list had been shown to the Frierdiker Rebbe. From that year on, the Rebbe did not print the Shulchan Aruch without adding that list concerning the construction of a mikveh. What more needs to be said? It is a Shulchan Aruch for the laws of mikvaos. The laws of mikvaos in the Alter Rebbe’s Shulchan Aruch include an addition based on what

02:35 Speaker 2 Rabbi Landau heard from the Rebbe Rashab in Rostov. It was shown to the Frierdiker Rebbe, who approved the list. The list contains many details concerning the construction of the mikveh and its subsequent maintenance. Over the years, the Rebbe himself also added precise points and explanations, with further enhancements that we also need to know and remember. There are many mikvaos that were once considered Chabad mikvaos but have only one pit above another, without the other features. As we said, there are many points and sub-points in building and maintaining a mikveh, and those mikvaos lack these enhancements. There are also things that were developed over time. Not long ago, I met the rabbi of one of the well-known Chabad communities. He said to me, “Look, we have Chabad mikvaos here. Could it be that, over the years, the Rebbe—or that new things emerged that weren’t known before?” I told him, “Certainly. Look, there’s no doubt that new things have emerged, and more than that. So as the years go by, we have more opportunities to be meticulous in fulfilling the Rebbe’s wishes.” Nor does anyone dispute the fact that the Rebbe himself, the Rebbe Melech HaMoshiach himself, would immerse in a mikveh that was not built according to the Chabad approach. In Crown Heights at that time, the mikveh where the Rebbe immersed was not built according to the Chabad approach. At the same time, when a new mikveh was built, the matter was important to the Rebbe. The Rebbe spoke about how chassidim did not have the necessary conviction to come and insist, as a matter of principle, that this mikveh was the best kind of mikveh. The Rebbe said that if a person lacks conviction on this matter—that our Rebbeim established these mikvaos—and he knows their approach is the most correct but cannot convey it because he does not live it and does not feel it, then, as the Rebbe said, “If the chassidim are lacking in this, how can we come with complaints against others?” So the Rebbe showed us that when you build a mikveh, you should build it as well

04:44 Speaker 2 as possible, with every enhancement possible. And indeed, over the years, particularly in Eretz Yisroel in recent years, the Chabad mikveh has come to incorporate even more of the Rebbeim’s enhancements, as far as possible, including all the Rebbe’s precise instructions on the matter. So we need to explain what a Chabad mikveh is, so we’ll know what one looks like. We also need to explain what other mikvaos are and what was done in the past; that will help us understand what the mikveh teaches us. For hundreds of years in earlier generations, a certain kind of mikveh was commonly used. It was very common in Eretz Yisroel, and mikvaos like it are still found in various archaeological excavations. Most of these mikvaos that we find today used hashakah—a connection to another body of water—from the side. First, what is a mikveh in general? The Torah says, “But a spring or a pit, a gathering of water, shall be pure.” A spring and a pit are a gathering of water, and a person who enters them becomes pure. This comparison between a spring and a pit is already discussed in Toras Kohanim. We have, you might say, just over four lines there that essentially contain the entire body of the laws of mikvaos. Four passages: “a spring and a pit,” “but a spring and a pit,” “a gathering of water.” Each expression teaches us something. What concerns us here is “a gathering of water”: it means water that collects, water that gathers. How does it gather? In a pit, generally. This is called water collected in one place, or ashboren. When water is collected in one place, it forms a gathering: it has no outlet from where it stands, and it does not flow along like water from a spring or river. It is called water gathered in one place, and the pit that holds it is called a mikveh. If that water contains forty se’ah—there are several opinions about the amount; the commonly accepted halachic measure is 750 liters, and those who are more stringent make it as much as 1,000 liters—when it contains that required quantity

07:03 Speaker 2 of water, it is called a mikveh, a mikveh of purification, and one can immerse in it. A mikveh of purification in which one can immerse in rainwater is all well and good, but over the years, as we know, the water is cold. Our Sages did not want people to immerse—particularly women—in a cold mikveh, lest the haste, fear and shivering caused by the cold water lead a woman to immerse improperly. There is also sand and dirt, and so on. Then times came when the water itself became dirtier. So, many years ago, people began building mikvaos alongside rivers and connecting them to the rivers through hashakah. We know Tosafos’ explanation of what the Gemara says about Shmuel’s father: he would take a kind of mats and make a square enclosure out of them, placing it at the side of the river. According to the Rambam and some of the Tosafists, the intention was for the water to collect within those walls and remain there beside the river, so that his sons and family members could immerse in that mikveh. This idea of building beside a river, or at a river or spring, was used in particular by the Alter Rebbe and the Tzemach Tzedek. They discussed it in lengthy responsa, from which we learn their approach to many aspects of mikvaos, including what materials should be used to make a mikveh. But that is not the approach we’re discussing, because it is not practiced today; we’ll go into it at length another time. What matters to us now is understanding the idea of hashakah. “A pit, a gathering of water, shall be pure.” The Gemara says: “But a spring and a pit”—“but a spring.” A spring may flow, but a pit may not. In other words, although the pit must contain rainwater, rainwater does not purify if it starts flowing, as a spring does according to some opinions, or as a river—if the spring flows. Right?

09:31 Speaker 2 Rather, only a spring—a spring alone. “Only” is a limiting term: only a spring purifies when its waters are flowing; a pit does not purify when its waters are flowing. So people did, in fact, immerse in rainwater, and as I explained earlier, that caused problems, and the water was dirty too. What did they do? They began connecting rainwater to drawn water—to tap water, as we call it. That was essentially the method used for, I would say, about the last hundred years in Jerusalem, elsewhere in the Holy Land, and especially outside the Land, in the United States. This is a mikveh with a side connection. In other words, there is a large pit of rainwater containing more than forty se’ah. Near the top, at the level of the mikveh, they make an opening the size of a shfoferes hanod, roughly six centimeters across. The opening is customarily made round, though it can be another shape; the main thing is that it meets the required size of two fingers that can turn around. The rainwater stands in one pit. Beside it they build a concrete pit and fill it with tap water—drawn water. As the level of the drawn water rises, it gradually reaches the opening to the neighboring rainwater pit. That contact makes the water in the adjacent pit fit for immersion. In other words, one can immerse in the tap water when it is connected to rainwater. This is called a connecting pit. What is gained? That water can be changed frequently, cleaned, and above all heated. You can also build an attractive pit with ceramic tiling. We’ll soon see how it’s built. That is basically the standard method. But it has a very significant drawback. Anyone can understand that, over time, when you have one pit beside another and the waters are constantly connected, they also exchange water with

11:54 Speaker 2 each other. Water moves from one to the other. So even if the side pit initially contains the required quantity of rainwater, over time, as water flows out and in, it loses some of its water. The amount drops below forty se’ah, below seven hundred and fifty liters. Then the rainwater pit no longer has the required quantity that gives it the power to make the neighboring mikveh fit for immersion. That is one problem. There are others. Another major problem is that the person’s body itself may be immersed in flowing water. To my great regret, I have seen this happen. I encountered a case where someone entered a mikveh—a woman immersing, for example. I’m speaking about someone whose immersion is required by Torah law. She must immerse in rainwater or in water connected to rainwater. But the tap water had not been filled to the correct level. When she entered, the water rose. Either it had not reached the connecting opening before, so there was no connection, or it reached the opening as she entered. Then the water began moving back and forth. When she immersed, her head was right at the level of the opening. So her head and hair were actually immersed in water flowing in and out from one pit to the other. That is called immersion in flowing water. Even the Beis Yosef, who permits this arrangement, is speaking about immersing below the level of the flow, not at that level. It is very difficult to consider such an immersion valid. In other words, the mikveh itself might be fit for immersion once they raise the water level, but in this case the person has not become pure. So a mikveh of this kind, which was used for many years, has serious drawbacks: first, the loss of the required amount of water, and second, the problem with the immersion itself. Over the years, because of this problem in mikvaos, the Chazon

14:11 Speaker 2 Ish was concerned about it and developed a mikveh design. It is called the Chazon Ish mikveh, but the first to establish this as a method was actually the Chasam Sofer. It is the Chasam Sofer mikveh, called a seedling pit. The concept of seedling is already mentioned by Rashi and the Rashba in Tractate Beitzah. “Seedling” comes from the word “to sow.” Sowing means blending, mixing. You sow wheat or seeds in the ground; they become mixed with the earth and grow. The idea here is to mix municipal water with rainwater. In other words, you have a pit of rainwater. Provided the initial quantity contains forty se’ah—say, seven hundred and fifty liters or a thousand liters of pure rainwater—you can then pour tap water into it and fill it. By pouring in the tap water, you have “seeded” it: you have mixed that water with the rainwater. The Tzemach Tzedek raises a question in one of his responsa: What happens to the water you add to the rainwater? According to one explanation he cites, which is the position of the Rosh, once you put tap water—drawn water—into the rainwater, it acquires the halachic status of rainwater. All of it has the status of rainwater. According to the second view, the added water has become connected to, or seeded in, the rainwater. It has mixed with the rainwater, and because of that mixture it becomes water fit for a mikveh. So remember these two explanations. That, then, is a seedling mikveh: you seed water into the mikveh. Such a mikveh is excellent. Suppose we had a mikveh

16:25 Speaker 2 containing forty se’ah, and we poured clean, hot water into it all day and all night, filling it until it was enormous, able to hold thousands of liters like a swimming pool. That would be excellent. Why? Because the Rambam writes that if you have rainwater and add drawn water to it—even all the water in the world, as much water as you like—it remains fit for immersion, provided it all stays in the same pit. But that is not how the seedling pit we are discussing is used today. Today, water is poured into the seedling pit, which has an opening near the top. The water flows out of that pit into a neighboring pit, where people immerse. The immersion pit is not the original pit in which the rainwater and tap water—the drawn water—were mixed. The immersion pit contains the resulting water, after it was mixed in another pit. That water now flows into the pit used for immersion. Some leave an opening connecting the two pits, while others seal it, following the practice of the Chassidim of Sanz. So what we have here is a mikveh whose water was previously seeded in rainwater. The contents of that mixture of rainwater and ordinary water now enter the second mikveh, where we immerse. According to the Rosh, water that passes from one mikveh to another in this way is fit for immersion. But Rabbeinu Yerucham, one of the great Rishonim, whom the Shach cites, is uncertain whether this constitutes a valid mikveh. And the Shach, in his commentary on the Shulchan Aruch, takes his view into account and says we must be concerned that it is invalid. Most mikvaos in the Land today—because the Chazon Ish specifically wanted this, following various incidents he had experienced

18:38 Speaker 2 With a hashakah mikveh where they forgot to close the opening, and similar cases, he instituted the use of a zeriya mikveh. With zeriya mikvaos, as I said, you do not receive the water itself. Besides, today’s mikvaos are not actually built according to the method of zeriya mikvaos advocated by the great Rishonim—not even according to the Chasam Sofer, and not even according to the approach followed today in Israel by those who insist that a zeriya mikveh must be built. The reason is that today there is a rainwater reservoir, and they open the tap of the municipal water—the drawn water. It pours onto the rainwater reservoir and immediately falls through the opening into the immersion pool. Notice: it is not that the water enters the rainwater reservoir, mixes, and then they open the hole so it flows out after mixing. Not at all. Today they open the tap and pour the municipal water onto the rainwater in the reservoir, and at the same time, while it is still flowing and moving, it falls into the pool. In other words, there was never a moment when the water was absorbed into the rainwater, blended and mixed, and came to rest. That never happened. The water enters the rainwater for a second from above and flows right out. According to many opinions, that is not called a zeriya reservoir, and that describes most zeriya mikvaos today. Some came up with a workaround: they run a pipe so the tap water goes all the way to the bottom, causing the rainwater remaining inside to flow out into the pool beside it. And bear in mind all the facts I have presented above. We must also take into account that many times the mikveh attendants, the bathhouse cleaners, or even the rabbis forgot about the plugs: they filled it with tap water and forgot to open the hole connecting the mikvaos. That is a terrible thing.

21:08 Speaker 2 Keep all of this in mind. Some wanted to favor the zeriya reservoir, but their enactment made things worse. When you fill a zeriya reservoir from above and the water flows out into the adjacent pool, with no connection remaining afterward, that is not the zeriya the Sages spoke about. You did not have the initial zeriya, in which the rainwater received and contained all the municipal water, and the two became one. What you have is a result: they became one here and moved somewhere else, and in that second place the water is already a derivative. A derivative that loses its potency. Rabbeinu Yerucham is concerned about this. Here we come to one of the points most relevant to us in the list the Rebbe Rashab gave Rabbi Landau. Rabbi Landau notes that the Rebbe Rashab instructed him to build one reservoir above another. Why? Because the Rebbe Rashab knew that in every other mikveh design, the waters mix, and over time the amount of rainwater falls below forty se’ah. When the Sages deemed forty se’ah sufficient for a person to immerse, they said that a person’s whole body can enter forty se’ah and be covered by the water on every side. The Rebbe Rashab says that when you make a reservoir alongside the pool, or a zeriya reservoir, the water is replaced over time and the amount of rainwater falls below forty se’ah. According to the Raavad’s view: the Raavad says that if you add a se’ah and remove a se’ah—for example, you add one se’ah of drawn water or rainwater and remove a se’ah, and then add a se’ah of municipal water and remove a se’ah—you keep adding and removing, adding and removing. Over time, the required amount is depleted. At the very first stage, if the mikveh held forty se’ah, or forty-one se’ah, and you added a se’ah or two, it no longer contains forty se’ah of rainwater. Most of it is still rainwater. Over time, even that majority is replaced and depleted.

23:29 Speaker 2 When you have a mikveh containing forty se’ah, and you add a se’ah and remove a se’ah but continue immersing in that same mikveh, some opinions consider it valid. But when you have a mikveh of forty se’ah, add a se’ah and remove a se’ah, and then transfer the water in it to another mikveh, far fewer opinions consider it valid. Especially since Rabbeinu Yerucham is concerned about this, and the Raavad certainly rules it invalid. The Tzemach Tzedek says: the matter Rabbeinu Yerucham is uncertain about—the question he and the Shach have—is whether water that underwent zeriya, blended and joined in one reservoir, remains valid when it passes into a second reservoir. According to the Raavad, it is certainly invalid. For according to the Raavad, only when you have a full forty se’ah here and add water to it may you immerse in that same reservoir. If even one se’ah has been depleted, you have a problem even in that same reservoir; and if the majority has been depleted, that reservoir is invalid. When you take that water and transfer it elsewhere, then certainly there is a problem if the rainwater here has fallen below forty se’ah and only thirty-nine remain, as happens over time. You have thirty-nine se’ah of rainwater and another se’ah of municipal water. There are forty se’ah here, but over time the waters mixed and some water flowed out, including rainwater. Now what you have is a mixture of rainwater and municipal water. You add more municipal water, and again the water flows into another reservoir; you add still more municipal water, and again it flows elsewhere. Or you place the reservoirs side by side, and the water moves back and forth, flowing from one to the other and back again. Little by little, the required amount is depleted, sometimes by more than twenty-one se’ah, or more—

25:14 Speaker 2 More than twenty—twenty and a bit. Then it is certainly not acceptable. And according to the Raavad, even if just one se’ah has been depleted and the water passes into the second mikveh, we have a problem, as Rabbi Mendel Chen writes in his letters, in his halachic discussions with the Rebbe Rashab about the meaning of the Raavad’s words. Therefore, the Rebbe Rashab saw fit to institute a mikveh that would solve these problems—a mikveh that would address all the concerns we have mentioned, as well as many additional concerns, the loss of many enhancements in halachic observance, and differing opinions. The Rebbe Rashab followed the approach that the Rebbe cites from the Tashbatz: with a mikveh, one should take even the most stringent opinions into account, so that it is valid according to every view. And we must understand: the pure children of the Jewish people, the generation of the Geulah, emerge from these mikvaos of the seventh generation. So it is no wonder that we have the privilege of building them—building mikvaos to the highest standard of halachic observance and purity. The Rebbe Rashab came to this question, weighed it and established a solution. As mentioned in several places, the Rebbe Rashab delved into it, studied it, and decided which method was most correct. Not that the Rebbe Rashab needs proof, but for those who began to question it, thank G-d, since the Rebbe Rashab’s passing, the Ritva’s novel interpretations have been published in the last generation, and there he writes that one reservoir above another is the most wonderful arrangement. What does “one reservoir above another” mean? You build a mikveh with a lower reservoir, and when pouring the concrete, you construct an upper pool above it. There is a floor between them with two openings, each a handbreadth by a handbreadth, one here and one there. And in the middle, a slab of at least—what do I mean by a slab? A cover that can be lifted. Rainwater is placed in the lower reservoir. Then, once the lower reservoir fills and the rainwater rises over the floor, it rises and rises until its level forms a thin layer on the floor of the upper pool, the floor of the upper pool,

27:30 Speaker 2 Which is actually the roof of the lower pit. When this floor has a slight slope, you fill the upper pit with as much water as you want—hot water, cold water, and you heat it. The main thing is that the water is clean, and that is where people immerse. When water rests on top of water, the chance of the two exchanging places is close to zero. The Rebbe speaks about this from a scientific standpoint. In the booklet published by the Garlik family in New York on the subject of mikvaos, a great insight the Rebbe cites was revealed to us: somehow, scientifically, water resting on top of water does not mix, even if one is warm and the other cold. The Rebbe says that in the ocean there are hundreds of different currents, differing in temperature and in other ways, and they do not mix with one another. Water rests on top of water. When you change the water, the Rebbe has a method: always leave a thin layer of rainwater at the bottom. That thin layer should always remain, so that the next time you fill the mikveh, you are not simply adding tap water; you are adding it to rainwater. Always into rainwater. We will soon explain why this is done, but I will say it again: with water on top of water, very little is exchanged. And even if some is exchanged, in his notes the Rebbe Rashab instructed that the lower pit contain twice forty se’ah. We do not put in forty se’ah—which is 750 liters or 1,000 liters. We put in 1,500 liters, so that even if some water is exchanged, there will always be forty se’ah left in the lower pit. And when drawn water is added to forty se’ah, as the rabbi, the av beis din, told us—how does the av beis din put it?—there is no disqualification of “adding a se’ah and removing a se’ah.” You added a se’ah of drawn water and took out another se’ah containing a mixture of drawn water and rainwater, thereby reducing the required measure. Because we always leave

29:22 Speaker 2 the water in place, and when we pump out the upper water, we have no problem. Note that in a mikveh with a pit at the side, or even with a bor zeriah, when you fill the water above the opening, water always spills out as you remove and pump out the water. Because of the principle of communicating vessels, the water reaches the same level in all the pits. So when you pump the water out of the middle pit, there is always water in the two side pits at or above the level of the openings, and it begins to flow out. This causes an even greater loss from the required measure of rainwater. But when we pump out a Chabad mikveh, we pump out only the upper pit, and the lower pit remains intact. What a wonderful solution. How do you build a Chabad mikveh? The two pits must be cast together, one above the other, with a floor between them and two openings, each a tefach by a tefach, on opposite sides of the mikveh. The openings are also made at an angle; that is better, more sound from an engineering standpoint, and safer afterward as well. In the middle there is a removable slab one amah by one amah, as Rabbi Landau says, so that it can be lifted when the mikveh is cleaned and the lower pit can be cleaned too. That way we always have access to the lower pit to clean it, and so on. Once these pits have been cast, I need a way for rainwater to reach them. The rainwater generally comes from the roof. On the roof, care must be taken that there are no pipes—certainly no enclosed sheet-metal pipes—as it says in those notes. If possible, one should also avoid plastic. Most mikvaos abroad, and in Eretz Yisroel as well, use plastic. But the Rebbe says that whether plastic is susceptible to ritual impurity is in doubt, so it is best to avoid it. The water should not pass over something that could mean its formation involved an object susceptible to impurity. This is a very significant hiddur, especially

31:09 Speaker 2 since plastic today is not made specifically to be fixed to the ground. Many argue that anything made to be fixed to the ground is considered like the ground itself. But this plastic is also made for portable uses, not only for installation in the ground. Therefore, it is best to make all the pipes out of stone or smooth wood that has never had the status of a vessel, and to make the pipes as carefully as possible. On the roof, there should be no vessels and nothing that holds up the water. The Rebbe Rashab discusses this: the water must not be held up in places that look like vessels. And if there is any concern that the roof, if it is made of metal, might pose a problem, it should be covered so that the water does not run over a metal roof, over iron. This is another hiddur the Rebbe cites in Sefer Hamaamarim—in Sefer Hamaamarim 5699, in a sicha during the month of Pesach. The Rebbe Rashab told the Frierdiker Rebbe that there should be no iron anywhere the water passes on its way from the rain into the mikveh. The rainwater should pass over a smooth, clean surface, enter the appropriate pipes, and from there go into a storage reservoir. For most mikvaos, the Rebbe asks—indeed, requires—that there be a storage reservoir. What is that? It is a reserve pool, a reserve mikveh where you collect rainwater. If you suddenly need to replace the rainwater in summer and there is no rain—and even in winter, replacing the water in a mikveh takes time—if you have to wait for rain, the mikveh will be out of service for several days. It is always preferable to have another pool alongside it. This is called a rainwater storage reservoir, and the water from the roof flows into it and collects there. Near the bottom of this pool, a little above its floor, the Rebbe Rashab says to make an opening. That opening is plugged specifically with a wooden stopper. There are other methods too, but the idea is not to use a rubber stopper, because the Rebbe Rashab considers it something

33:06 Speaker 2 susceptible to ritual impurity. So there is an opening a little above the floor. The wooden stopper holds the water back, and when you remove it, the water flows out into a pit beside it. This is a kind of trough. The Rebbe Rashab asks that a trough be made so that a person can reach into it and pull out the wooden stopper. Now what happens? At that moment, the water might touch his hand, or there might be some concern about human force being involved. Right? The person’s hand touched the water, and rainwater in which a person has played a direct part—that is, the person has effectively drawn it or brought it out by his own action—becomes drawn water. It is disqualified. But for this concern, it helps if the water passes through a channel. So they pull out the stopper, and the water enters a channel filled with soft sand. If there was a problem when the stopper was opened, the sand now gives the rainwater an additional purification, makes it fit for use again, and the water then flows from that channel through an opening, or over the edge of the mikveh, into the lower pool. When filling the mikveh, the pools must be completely dry. If three log of drawn water have fallen into it—whether from construction, from ordinary water, or from the previous filling when the mikveh was filled and has now been emptied—if three log of water remain, a tiny amount, less than a liter, and forty se’ah of water then flow in on top of it, the whole mikveh is disqualified. The Sages said that three log of drawn water disqualify a mikveh. There is, in fact, a dispute as to whether the disqualification of drawn water is from the Torah or rabbinic. Many opinions hold that this disqualification is rabbinic, but there are

35:00 Speaker 2 There are also opinions that this is a Torah-level prohibition. Either way, that makes no difference for us. These waters are invalid, and one cannot immerse in them. So we make sure the mikveh is completely dry, and this requires an expert. Sometimes water seeps out of the walls, or from under the floor tiles or ceramic tiles. You have to know this well and know what counts as dry. Once the pits are completely dry, you go to the plug in the reserve tank, or to the plug in the pipe on the roof. You open it, and all the rainwater flows straight into the lower pit. When the lower pit fills and overflows onto the floor, you can open the tap and fill it with tap water. This is called zriah in ashboren—introducing water into a stationary pool. The water is introduced into the stationary pool. Rabbi Boaz Lerner deserves to be remembered for the good he did: he also recognized the Rebbe’s higher standard, that the water should always pour from the tap onto that spot. That was not so common. It is true that Rabbi Ashkenazi had practiced this earlier in Kfar Chabad, and Rabbi Agrestock [?] always arranged, in the countries of South America, for the rainwater in the mikvaos to fall onto the opening. What does “onto the opening” mean? On the first filling, you always pour the water in. It always pours onto the rainwater. But on subsequent fillings, after you have already filled it the first time with rainwater and then ordinary water, the water becomes dirty. You pump the water only out of the upper pit, the immersion pool. The rainwater remains below, in the lower pit. When you refill it with tap water, the drawn water that pours in is introduced—as we said—directly over the opening. The Rebbe calls this zriah in ashboren. In fact, the Rebbe introduced a major innovation here, as Rabbi Dworkin and Rabbi Ashkenazi, a”h, explained. They explained that the Rebbe’s approach, the Rebbe’s arrangement, makes the two pits into one pit. Once

36:49 Speaker 2 there is an opening a tefach by a tefach between them, which counts as an opening for matters of ritual impurity and purity, and once the tap water is introduced directly over that opening, you have effectively created one large pit with a sort of floor in the middle. When a man immerses above, or a woman immerses in the upper mikveh, it is considered as though they are immersing in the lower mikveh itself. And the Raavad, even though he says one must be careful about removing a se’ah and replacing it with a se’ah, does not object if you immerse in that same pit, in drawn water together with forty se’ah of rainwater. Everyone agrees that this is an ideal mikveh to begin with. That is why a Chabad mikveh has such wonderful advantages. Now, as we said, within this whole subject, because we avoid rubber plugs, because we refrain from using plastic, and because we take care not to use metal, it follows that very many mikvaos built in Israel, which are built with plastic pipes, do not meet these standards. What’s more, some of the connecting pipes have actual bends. One of the Rebbe Rashab’s instructions is that when the piping is installed, there should be no angled connectors. How is piping installed today? You don’t bring in a single pipe a hundred meters long. You cut it, and to connect it you use various angled fittings and washers. Those angled fittings have a place where they are built on a slant. They are joined to one another with screws—yes, it is shaped like an inverted nun. Wherever there is that inverted-nun shape, if you put water there and hold it at an angle, in that triangular position, the water is held back and it becomes a receptacle. The water then becomes drawn water. That is why the Rebbe Rashab writes that there should be no such thing. What’s more, in very, very many

38:41 Speaker 2 of the joints, even straight joints, there is a recess in the middle for a rubber gasket. Any recess made to hold a rubber gasket makes that fitting itself a receptacle. The water inside it has passed through a receptacle. This is called “its formation through something susceptible to impurity,” and according to one opinion there is also an issue of drawn water, as well as an issue of impurity. However you classify it, it creates a serious problem with the water, and many mikvaos are built this way. What’s more, even at the hashakah pit—in the hashakah opening, excuse me, between one mikveh and another—we have found places where they installed plastic pipes and did not remove the section with the recess for the rubber gasket. That is called a receptacle: once it can hold something, it is a vessel. So most mikvaos in Israel lack the additional standards observed by Chabad. That does not mean they are not kosher, G-d forbid—not at all. The mikvaos of the Jewish people and all the holy Jewish women: they are all pure, and their children are pure. We know, after all, that even our forebears—the Alter Rebbe himself—were not born following immersion in a mikveh built according to the Alter Rebbe’s standards. The point is that we have been instructed to make the best possible mikveh, because one must be stringent about mikvaos. If today we are not immersing in the spring itself, or in the sea in accordance with all the halachos—of course there are many issues there and one must be careful; no one should go there, and it is forbidden to go there. It creates a great deal of confusion. Only when there is absolutely no alternative, and with very specific guidance from a rabbi, can one know how to immerse in a spring or a river. In many cases a spring may be invalid; not every place in a spring is suitable. But what I am saying is that we must remember well: immersion in a mikveh of purity brings holiness and sustains the generation. You bring a new soul, with a new Jewish body,

40:28 Speaker 2 into the world. All the more reason, then, to follow the Tashbetz’s words and take even a lone opinion into account when it comes to a mikveh. We are always as stringent as we possibly can be. So when we speak about a Chabad mikveh, we have touched on many of the points discussed so far. How do you build the mikveh? You start at the roof, continue through the piping, and work your way down. Under the requirements in Israel, the religious council—or donors building mikvaos here—will generally demand that the mikvaos meet “all opinions,” as they put it. What does a mikveh that meets all opinions mean? You build one pit above another. Beside the upper pit, on one side, there is an adjoining hashakah pit; on the other side, a zriah pit. The municipal water enters the zriah pit and flows from it into the immersion pool. To the side is a rainwater pit. As the water level rises and rises, it reaches the opening that connects it to the immersion water for hashakah. So you have a zriah pit and a hashakah pit. Underneath, you build a rainwater pit in the Chabad manner, and you have a mikveh that meets all opinions. Friends, that is the kind of mikveh built in most of Israel. It is fine; it meets a high standard. It would be preferable, if possible, to do as my uncle Rabbi Ashkenazi, a”h, did: he built a number of mikvaos in Russia with only one pit above another. And may he be distinguished for long, good life, my father-in-law builds only one pit above another when he can. So yes, we do not want the other arrangements, for this reason: when you immerse in a mikveh that is not exclusively the Chabad design, one that also has a pit to the side and hashakah to the side, even if the Chabad pit underneath makes the water valid, it can often happen that the water in the side hashakah pit drops well below the opening. Some of it has been lost; it has drained out, and the water has diminished, and it

42:31 Speaker 2 They dropped below—their level fell well below the opening for hashakah—and when someone immerses in the immersion pool, the water rises. When a person enters the pool and immerses, the water rises, and during the immersion it spills out into the pool beside it. That is flowing water, particularly if the person’s body is positioned [unclear]. I’m talking about a woman’s immersion, which is a Torah obligation, or a man’s immersion. So if he immersed below the point where the water is flowing, the Beis Yosef certainly permits it even while the water is flowing. But when a woman immerses in a case like that, it is invalid. The immersion is invalid; it has not brought about purification. That is why one pool above another is preferable. In any event, these mikvaos are built to a high standard, especially if someone supervises them properly and makes sure all the pools are filled to the required height. Usually, the hashakah opening is made—it is better to make it—below the waterline, within the height of the water. If the water is 1.30 meters deep, then the hashakah opening is made within that height, at 1.15 meters. The opening through which water spills into the mikveh is generally at a height of about 1.5 meters. Either way, when building a mikveh, they know all the heights and do it properly. But the main point is that here in Israel they ask you to build according to all the approaches. So you have a side pool for zeriah, into which the water descends and pours; you have a side pool for hashakah; and you have the Chabad pool underneath. Some are particular that the water should not descend over steps. We immerse on a step from the outset. That is why the Shulchan Aruch also provides for a small step. One of the things the Rebbe Rashab mentions is that there should be a step of at least 40 centimeters by 40 centimeters, though it is preferable to have a larger step for someone short, so that a short woman has a step on which she can immerse,

44:23 Speaker 2 and stand securely. We also make sure not to build Chabad mikvaos too large or too wide. Some women are simply afraid in the water; whether they know how to swim makes no difference. So we make the mikveh 90 centimeters wide at the steps, allowing her to enter safely. We immerse on the steps from the outset. So the whole idea of calling this katapres because it is inside the mikveh—katapres means water descending in stages, as though down a mountainside, flowing and cascading in what is called chardaliyos, which invalidates a mikveh. A mikveh of katapres, where the water descends in steps down a mountain, is invalid. That has nothing to do with one large, enclosed pool. It has defined boundaries, and the water is contained throughout; inside it there could even be hills and valleys, and that makes no difference. Recently, some people have come along and claimed that the Divrei Chaim disqualified a mikveh built above another mikveh. They claim that the Divrei Chaim of Sanz wrote against such a mikveh. First of all, a very great Torah scholar in Boro Park has already published a substantial work, the three-volume Mikveh Mayim. He shows that the Chabad mikveh is built to the highest standard, even though he is not a Chabad chossid, and demonstrates just how wrong this claim is. Anyone who reads the text that way simply does not know how to learn it. The Divrei Chaim himself is discussing a different kind of mikveh, not a Chabad mikveh, where one pool is directly above the other so that they form one pool—and even if they do not form one pool, they are one above the other and connected through hashakah. He is discussing an immersion pool with a pipe coming out of it at an angle, connecting the upper pool to the lower pool. They did this in Russia at the time. People who wanted a warm immersion pool with

46:16 Speaker 2 hot water made a warm immersion pool, built a pipe out of cement or, I don’t know, wood, and used it to connect the pool to the mikveh below—and at an angle, at that. Certainly, when the two pools are separate and there is a pipe between them, there is an invalidating issue called katapres. The point of katapres is precisely when water runs vertically or down a series of steps and thereby connects an upper pool to a lower pool. Suppose I have a pool of rainwater up on a mountain and a lower pool without rainwater, and I connect the upper pool to the lower one through hashakah by means of steps or something similar. Certainly, the lower mikveh is invalid. By contrast, if I have one pool beside another on the mountain, I can connect them through hashakah and it will be valid. But if the connection is through a vertical drop or a series of steps, that invalidates it. They wanted to make that claim about the Chabad mikveh, but it makes no sense. And the Divrei Chaim himself, in his newer responsa published in the last generation, draws two mikvaos at the end of volume 5: one like the Chabad mikveh, which he says is fine, and one unlike the Chabad mikveh, with a pipe at an angle, which he says is not fine. Some people came along and said that the one he called invalid was the Chabad mikveh, and that is simply not true. What is more, I believe that in section 48 of his responsa on the laws of mikvaos, the Divrei Chaim of Sanz relates that he took a box in the city of Sanz. He took a box, made an opening in its bottom, put hot water inside it, placed it on the river, and said, “This is called hashakah.” He himself built a Chabad-style mikveh with far fewer enhancements than a Chabad mikveh. And how does he conclude there? He

48:06 Speaker 2 says, “Anyone who disqualifies this mikveh is among those whose views are astonishing.” He speaks very sharply about how such a mikveh is valid according to all approaches and all opinions. Even though he is talking about a pool, a square structure. Yes, certainly. It was not a vessel. He made sure it would not be considered a vessel. It was a square structure into which they would bring the woman for immersion. As soon as she entered, the hot water would be forced through the hashakah opening at the bottom of this box he had built and into the river. He calls that hashakah and permitted it from the outset. So all those who claim that the Chabad mikveh is not valid according to the Divrei Chaim are mistaken about the plain meaning of his words in one place. More importantly, they contradict what he says elsewhere, where he calls people who make such claims astonishing. I have stressed this because many people try to tell stories, and there is no need for that. Of course, we also know about the Sephardic halachic authorities. Rabbi Eliyahu once received a phone call from the Rebbe in the middle of the night, asking him to approve a Chabad mikveh. In a certain place, they wanted to approve a Chabad mikveh but said they would do so only if Rabbi Eliyahu approved it. It was in a Sephardic area. I heard this from Rabbi Eliyahu’s son, Rabbi Shmuel Eliyahu of Tzfas. He related, in the name of his father, Rabbi Mordechai Eliyahu, that he remembered how the Rebbe’s secretary called, and then the Rebbe came on the line in the middle of the night and asked him for this favor. Rabbi Eliyahu said that his father had always considered the Chabad mikveh valid, always built to the highest standard. He had no questions about it. At the Rebbe’s request, he wrote a letter, and as a result the Chabad mikveh has today become accepted by all groups. Our task is to make known its special enhancement, particularly this arrangement of one pool above another, where the waters are not replaced

49:48 Speaker 2 The water and zeriya in an ashboren. As I said earlier, this is what the Rebbe wants. There are many other stringencies the Rebbe speaks about. For example, the ceramic tiles. The Rebbe says that, if possible, the other side of the tiles should not have all those squares, ridges, and recesses that hold the concrete or adhesive. The Rebbe says this is a concern. Perhaps the concern is that they may be considered vessels, making the water drawn water. In any case, for the mikveh we build today, we found mosaic tiles that are smooth on both sides. They’re inexpensive and aren’t glued to cardboard. You put them in, and the mikveh comes out beautiful—and it meets the highest standard. Then there’s making the plugs. Some make them from cork; cork swells, but it’s hard to work with. Cedarwood is best. If not, use a strong wood. Pine is less strong than cedar. There’s also mahogany. You need wood that has never been used in beds or made into utensils. A skilled woodturner shapes and sands it into plugs of the right size to seal the holes. So today we’ve explained a little about the structure of a Chabad mikveh, what makes it distinctive, and its high standard of observance. We’ve explained how important it is to devote ourselves to this, to give our all to it, and to invest in building one everywhere, with joy. We must not forget that the Rebbe says a mikveh should be as beautiful as possible to attract people. We must always see to its cleanliness, hygiene, and polish, making it as inviting as possible. The Rebbe Rashab once explained to a mikveh attendant how he stands at a crossroads: he can help many people fulfill a mitzvah, or he can cause them to stumble, because some women stay away from the mikveh if they find it unappealing. So we must build a mikveh—a Chabad mikveh that meets the highest standards—and make it beautiful. It becomes a means of increasing purity among the Jewish people, and that certainly brings more

51:49 Speaker 2 souls. “The son of David will not come” until the souls in the Guf have all descended; the Rebbe’s revelation and the true and complete Geulah depend on that. So through this, we can bring it about immediately. And one final point: beyond being built according to the Chabad method, every mikveh must be fully maintained under the supervision of a rabbi who understands the relevant halachos. A serious problem often arises when log of drawn water remain in the mikveh. If, on the floor of the upper pit—the immersion pool—they have not left a layer of rainwater connected to the lower pit, because everything was cleaned out, or the entire upper pool was emptied, or the lower pit was emptied as well and no water remained, then three log of drawn water may remain. This is especially a concern when a pump is used to empty both the upper and lower pits: the pump draws water in and discharges it. If rainwater is then added on top of that drawn water, the mikveh has been invalidated. You also need to know how to clean the mikveh so that all these standards are maintained. Someone must maintain the mikveh and keep track of its problems, the plugs and how they are fitted, and the roof when the mikveh is being filled. That person must know what they’re doing and have received proper instruction. Besides knowing the halachos thoroughly, especially those concerning filling the mikveh, it would also help for them to know how to clean and maintain a pool, as people who maintain pools do.