ariela- rituals- mikvah

 Ariela Kluk

Mr. Roddy

IHSS
12 September 2020

Mikveh: A Jewish Ceremony

A Mikveh is a ritual-bath which takes place before a Jewish wedding. It is a tradition that the bride has this bath, which supposedly cleanses her before the wedding, and brings her peace. Some grooms have begun to follow this tradition and also have a Mikveh. It is supposed to represent their transition from single to married, however, before being able to go to the Mikveh the bride must be at least 7 days without her menstrual cycle, so that she is fully clean before the bath. She also must shower, brush her teeth, clean her hair, take off all jewelry, clean her nails, untangle her hair, clean her ears and then must be checked by a kosher woman to make sure she is completely clean and then she can enter the Mikveh. The bride visits the Mikveh 4 days before her wedding where she can go alone or invite her close family and friends (must be female) to watch her submerge herself into the Mikveh. The Mikveh is filled mostly with natural water (like rainwater) and while in the Mikveh she must submerge herself completely with every single hair on her body underwater. The water must come from running water and must be filled naturally and not by something artificial. Before going under the water she must say one prayer. After being submerged the bride goes into a room with the rest of the female guests and a hard piece of bread shaped as the start of david is breaked over her head. This is to remember the destruction of the temple in Jerusalem. A candle is lit and everyone wishes her something good for her marriage. After this she sits in a shower on the floor and all the guests take turns putting water (with henna) on her feed which symbolizes fertility. While the water is poured on her the bride wishes good things for each invited guest. After the Mikveh the bride can not be by herself for even a second until the moment of her wedding (not even to use the bathroom). 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Prisoners Design What They Can't Buy- Luke

Luke Kirchner      I chose to read the article "Objects Made by Prisoners in the United States". This was a very interesting article, as it showed what it's like to be in an American prison and how they make some objects. When Prisoners are in prison, the severity of their punishments can vary, but the lack of creative freedom is often detrimental to each prisoner. This lack of freedom can sometimes drive their creativity to make their own objects, showing off individual expression. Some items like pens and toothbrushes were not given in the full form, due to the fear of prisoners turning them into weapons. Instead, the prisoners thought about how they could fix these problems. The article says "The items shown here, made by inmates in the U.S. prison system, illustrate the severity of restrictions imposed on prisoners as well as the human instinct to persevere through creativity and invention" (The Atlantic).      They took the ink cartridge for the pen an
Read more

Josey - The Fashion Industries Effect on the Enviroment

           Clothing production around the world has doubed since the year 2000, making the fashion indsutry the second biggest polluter in the world. The impact of the indsutry on the enviroment has always been substantial, but in recent years as it has continued to grow, the impact has grown with it. It is estimated that aproximately every second a truck load of clothing is dumped or burned in a landfill. Not only is this a huge amount of resources, but it is also clothing that could easily be reworn or recycled. This is an extremely wasteful amount and is not only affecting the resources that are used, but also the workers who are being forced to produce materials at extremely fast rates.            Wasting these materials is one of the major ways that this is having an effect on the enviroment but another is the waste that is produced and put into the enviroment. Often when factories produce clothing, once they are done they dump chemicals from the factory into rivers. These chemic
Read more

Recovering Ecosystems

Tyler Holland Mr. Roddy IHSS 26 March 2020 Recovering Ecosystems A large challenge for stopping the increasing problems that we face with air pollution and other environmental problems, is that humans are natural control freaks. People try so hard to invent new ways to control the risks that our Earth faces instead of just trying to let nature do its work. Isabella and Charlie, a couple who owned farmland in England, came to the realization that nature solves its own problems, after they had a run in with a feared weed for many farmers. Once they discovered the 'cursed thistle' in their farms they feared the worst as it spread so quickly, but they had decided to let it happen because using pesticides and chemicals was not an option for them. After a while they started to see a flourishing environment in their acres that they had not seen there before, painted lady butterflies flew across the land and after a while caterpillars were crawling all over their 60 acres and ea
Read more