There's a Shark in the Mikvah!
Penny Harow Thau & Naava Pasternak Swirsky
109 pp.
There’s a Shark in the Mikvah! (“A light-hearted look at
Jewish women’s dunking experiences”) is a local Beit Shemesh release. It
contains about fifty short stories on the adventures women have experienced in
the course of keeping this very special mitzvah. Some of the adventures
include: finding a mikva late at night, hiding ‘mikva night’ from family
members, the cleanliness of mikvas, mikva ladies, husbands driving their wives
to the mikva (and waiting for them to come out!), Friday night mikva
experiences, hiding from your mother-in-law in the next room, and much more.
The stories are quite cute and have a very personal touch.
Most of the stories are certain to crack a smile out of you, some are even
inspiring. It’s a fun read. While the book is tastefully done, with the stories
anonymous and not overly revealing, some of the more orthodox may be
uncomfortable with a book whose every page invokes thoughts of women immersing
in a mikva.
Here's a sample chapter:
Taxi !
Although
I was living in London at the time, my future husband and I flew to Israel for
our wedding. The day before our wedding, we went to see the rabbi to finalize
wedding details. We told the rabbi that I still needed to go to the mikvah. As we left the office, the rabbi handed me a piece
of paper with the address of a local mikvah on it
and instructed me to ask a taxi driver, as discreetly as possible, to take me there.
The next morning, a very nervous me, along with my mother and aunt, went to the
taxi stand of the hotel where we were staying. I was “makeup free” and holding
a bag. As I had been told to do, I approached the window of the first taxi and
showed him the piece of paper. The taxi driver looked at me, looked at my bag, looked
at my entourage and said, “Are you going to the mikvah?”
I nervously
replied, “Er... Just the parking lot of this address, please.”
He then said again,
“Are you a kallah? You’re going to the mikvah!?”
And
before I could reply, he started honking his horn to his fellow taxi drivers
waiting outside and shouted out of his window – “Mazal Tov! We have a kallah!”
With
that, about five or six taxi drivers got out of their taxis and started dancing
with each other in a circle, singing “Mazal Tov and Siman Tov!!!”
Later
on that evening, at my wedding reception at the hotel, a few of those taxi
drivers came by especially to wish me Mazal Tov yet again.
To order a copy: sharkinthemikvah@yahoo.com