Clean as a whistle!

Common saying

Water is a necessity for biological life here on earth. I’ve been pondering recently about how many religions believe and trust in its ability to contribute to our spiritual life as well.

I recently visited a medieval mikveh in Speyer, Germany that has been miraculously well-preserved. This sacred location plays a huge role in Jewish cleansing ceremonies, allowing one to become clean again before God. In fact, while at this historical mikveh and synagogue, I learned that having a mikveh is necessary to create a new Jewish community. Becoming ritually clean after doing any unclean practice (i.e. touching blood, finishing a menstruation cycle, dealing with the dead) is a required step in Jewish life.

An interesting aspect of the mikveh is that it needs to be filled with living water. This means that the mikveh cannot be simply filled up every day and drained when the day is done. Instead, water must constantly run through the pool of water, with input and output into natural water systems. In the case of the Speyer mikveh, it’s built deep below the ground to connect to sources of living groundwater.

I also recently took a long boat cruise down a stretch of the Rhine River. As a lifelong boater, it felt incredible to be reconnected with the water. I sat and stared at it for hours, thinking about how rivers like these were able to create the countries and situations that have created our world today.

I’m not quite sure what my final thought on this is, but I do think it’s interesting that so many practitioners out there, no matter what religion they belong to, connect with water. Maybe it’s our path on a journey, maybe it’s an instrument to become something new, maybe it’s something entirely different. Or maybe, it’s all of those things at the same time.

I’m constantly amazed at the mind’s tendency to find symbols in the everyday world around us. Though this might be the way water has been defined in some religions, it might mean something else to you.

What’s a natural symbol that’s brought you closer to the divine?

Mikveh

Jewish ritual cleansing bath. Used in occasions where one must go from ritually unclean to ritually clean (i.e. conversion, conclusion of menstruation, etc). Specific practices differ between Jewish communities, but always requires that one dips in the water to become clean. Present in Judaism since ancient times. 

“What Is A Mikveh?” My Jewish Learning. (https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/the-mikveh/)

Synagogue

Center of Jewish worship; many Jews these buildings as the center of their religious lives. Traditionally, men and women are seated separately (though this isn’t uniform in all Jewish sects today). Has a shrine to house the synagogue’s Torah scrolls; many other features are uniform across all synagogues and all serve to point the worshiper to G-d. 

“What Is a Synagogue?” Chabad.org. (https://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/365930/jewish/What-Is-a-Synagogue.htm)