Mayyim Hayyim gallery: Mikvah Project
Dec. 3rd, 2007 01:37 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
magidLast night was the opening of the Mikvah Project in Newton, at Mayyim Hayyim. I'd heard Leah Lax talk about the show this summer, showing slides and telling stories, and stories about the gathering of the stories and how the pictures were done. And I'd seen the website, too. So I suppose I shouldn't've been surprised that there wasn't anything new for me to see, nothing I hadn't looked at before, though there were invitations to talks on related topics coming up in the next few months.
This was balanced out by getting a tour of the mikvah*, which I hadn't seen before. I've heard stories of places that are utilitarian or even unpleasant in some way, but this mikvah is beautiful. It's in an addition on the back of a house (which itself has been revised to have an art gallery, offices, and other gathering spaces), and the air is warmer and wetter in that area, reminding me of a place that has a sauna or hot tub. There's a central area, with four preparation rooms, one off each corner, each named for a different body of water (Stream, Lake, etc). There are two mikvaot, one between each pair of preparation rooms.
Each preparation room has a fully-stocked bathroom (with either shower or tub, and descriptions of what to do to prepare; I noticed that they do not require cutting the nails short, just cleaning them, so in their opinion, nails are not a hatzitzah***) and another sort of waiting room. Once someone has finished preparing, they call the mikvah attendant (on the phone), and when called, exit the preparation room through a different door to the mikvah. There are steps curving down one side into the water, and a sort of swooping lowish ceiling above. I asked about that, and was told that before they installed that, many people felt the space was too large, too open. The materials are stone and wood in warm colors, which also contributes to the coziness.
It's really interesting how they've made a space that is designed to allow a lot of privacy, while still having public space (a gallery!) as well.
* A mikvah is a ritual bath with particular requirements about the nature of the water (which are complex, but in general, means rainwater or natural bodies of water), traditionally used** by women and by men, though not for all the same reasons. Women immerse just before they marry, after their monthly cycle and after childbirth. People immerse as part of conversion. Some people have the tradition of immersion before Shabbat and/or Yom Kippur (or other holidays). Scribes immerse before writing the Name of the Deity.
** This is a non-denominational mikvah, so they offer immersions for a wider range of events than strictly Orthodox mikvaot do.
*** A hatzitzah is something that gets in between the body and the immersion. One must be clean, with no unattached hairs, no nail polish, and so on. If one usually wears contacts, they're out for the immersion. I know that there are opinions that one must cut the nails short, that the excess nail is a problem.
This was balanced out by getting a tour of the mikvah*, which I hadn't seen before. I've heard stories of places that are utilitarian or even unpleasant in some way, but this mikvah is beautiful. It's in an addition on the back of a house (which itself has been revised to have an art gallery, offices, and other gathering spaces), and the air is warmer and wetter in that area, reminding me of a place that has a sauna or hot tub. There's a central area, with four preparation rooms, one off each corner, each named for a different body of water (Stream, Lake, etc). There are two mikvaot, one between each pair of preparation rooms.
Each preparation room has a fully-stocked bathroom (with either shower or tub, and descriptions of what to do to prepare; I noticed that they do not require cutting the nails short, just cleaning them, so in their opinion, nails are not a hatzitzah***) and another sort of waiting room. Once someone has finished preparing, they call the mikvah attendant (on the phone), and when called, exit the preparation room through a different door to the mikvah. There are steps curving down one side into the water, and a sort of swooping lowish ceiling above. I asked about that, and was told that before they installed that, many people felt the space was too large, too open. The materials are stone and wood in warm colors, which also contributes to the coziness.
It's really interesting how they've made a space that is designed to allow a lot of privacy, while still having public space (a gallery!) as well.
* A mikvah is a ritual bath with particular requirements about the nature of the water (which are complex, but in general, means rainwater or natural bodies of water), traditionally used** by women and by men, though not for all the same reasons. Women immerse just before they marry, after their monthly cycle and after childbirth. People immerse as part of conversion. Some people have the tradition of immersion before Shabbat and/or Yom Kippur (or other holidays). Scribes immerse before writing the Name of the Deity.
** This is a non-denominational mikvah, so they offer immersions for a wider range of events than strictly Orthodox mikvaot do.
*** A hatzitzah is something that gets in between the body and the immersion. One must be clean, with no unattached hairs, no nail polish, and so on. If one usually wears contacts, they're out for the immersion. I know that there are opinions that one must cut the nails short, that the excess nail is a problem.