Mikvah Decisions

[lavendersparkle]

It's 19 days until my wedding and I'm trying not to get too freaked out with organisation. One of the things I need to sort out is immersion before the ceremony.

As I see it I have three options:

Sternberg Centre
Pros: purpose built kosher mikvah, warmish water, I know it, I won't have to lie about my status to use it
Cons: no mikvah lady so I'd have to find my own witness, I think they're only open during office hours which might make finding a witness trickier.

Kenwood Ladies bathing Pond
Pros: I'm going there anyway for my bridal picnic, there will be people there who can witness, it should be a kosher mikvah because it's spring fed
Cons: It's cold, I'd have to try getting into the nip in public, it's scary dark water with fish in, I'd have to immerse a week before the wedding, I'm not 100% sure that it's kosher

An Orthodox Mikvah in Cambridge
Pros: definitely kosher, open in the evenings, there have their own mikvah lady, I might be able to buy some bedicah clothes while I'm there, they have better prep facilities
Con: I'd have to lie/allow people think untrue things about me, it's a bit scary

What do you think?

Comments

[onanothertopic.livejournal.com]

Why not go twice? Once at the KLBP as a festive event, once at Sternberg (closer to the wedding) as a private, spiritual one.

I must say, KLBP sounds like a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity--you're not going to have a good reason to party outdoors and/or involve your friends and/or greatly inconvenience yourself once you're married. You'll have a lot of chances to go to Ortho. mikvaot and a few to go to liberal mikvaot. But when will you go back (to dunk) here, esp. if you intend to immerse at night after you're married?

If you make a second (closer to wedding) appt. at Sternberg, you'll be able to forgo the actual immersion at KLBP if it's cold or scary or doesn't feel right. Or if you're having a lot of fun, you do immerse, and it turns out to be more of an exuberant thing, you still have the chance for a meditative experience at Sternberg. As I understand, the mikveh is right there in the center, correct? So if you decide to cancel, it's not as though anyone is greatly inconvenienced--after all, they don't provide a rabbi or a mikveh lady. You could even send in a donation despite cancelling. Everybody wins.

I am with hatam_soferet--at 7(!) mikvaot, the only things I've been asked are "You just moved in?" and "Are you staying in town for the holidays?" But I am also, obviously, with you--my mikveh problem isn't that people bother me, it's that I have to go and do a mitzvah under the welcoming eyes of decent women who would be, at the very least, disappointed if they knew the truth about my circumstances. Again, you'll have many, many chances to let "them" look the other way--for the first time, you might as well use the other alternatives.

(Also, did you mean this to be locked?! It is on google blogsearch, of all things--I naturally have a "mikveh" alert set up, and there you were.)

[lavendersparkle.livejournal.com]

I went to leave the post open. I wanted input from anyone who felt like giving it and I doubt that Orthodox rabbis will be carefully printing out my userpic and handing it to mikvah ladies with a note saying "Do not dunk this woman".

[onanothertopic.livejournal.com]

figured, just making sure. ;-)

[onanothertopic.livejournal.com]

besides, your userpic is a mouse of ambiguous gender

[curious-reader.livejournal.com]

Oops. I forgot to mention I used the same Mikvah as you. That is why I said I am surprised you had noone because I got a Mikvah lady at the Sternberg. Masorti welcomes everybody. Any converts allowed, too.