Have you ever heard of a mikvah? It’s a special pool of living waters (natural waters from a flowing source like fresh spring water, rainwater, or even melted snow) that is used for Jewish ritual immersion, and is often used as a way to acknowledge a major life transition.
When HMI East Bay alumni Jonah and Ariana welcomed their precious daughter into their lives, they hadn’t considered what a mikvah experience could mean to their interfaith family. But when they met another HMI alumni couple who shared their own mikvah experience, they decided to learn more about the ritual. Jonah and Ariana eventually decided to immerse their daughter in the special waters as their own unique way to welcome her into the Jewish community.
Read on to hear about Jonah and Ariana’s experience and what it meant to them at this special time in their lives.
Written by Jonah and Ariana, HMI East Bay Alumni
I held our one-year-old daughter close in warm, chest-deep water. When the rabbi said the blessing, I gently blew air into her face so that she’d hold her breath, and submerged her quickly before bringing her back to the surface…
Our family’s journey to the mikvah
We first began considering a mikvah at an HMI alumni meetup in California’s East Bay. We met an alumni couple who had adopted their eight-month-old daughter, and they shared with us that they were planning a mikvah ceremony for her to convert to Judaism. In Reform Judaism, children are considered Jewish through either their mother or their father’s descent. But this isn’t the case for other denominations, which require the mother to convert to Judaism before having children, or children with Jewish fathers to convert.
We’ve been committed to being an interfaith family from the beginning. Jonah grew up as a Reform Jew in the Midwest, and Ariana grew up in a Muslim family in Indonesia, the world’s largest Muslim-majority country. We are the type of family that puts sambal (chili sauce) on our latkes, and srikaya (coconut egg jam) in our hamantaschen. We celebrate both the Jewish High Holidays and Eid (end of the month-long dawn-to-dusk fasting of Ramadan), and we were married under a chuppah (traditional Jewish wedding canopy) made of batik (traditional Indonesian fabric). On our Honeymoon Israel trip in February 2023, Jonah prayed at the Western Wall and Ariana at the Al-Aqsa Mosque.
We expect that our daughter might someday be challenged with “Are you really Jewish, though?” due to Ashkenormative assumptions, a form of bias among Ashkenazi Jews, about what Jews look like in America, as well as more conservative beliefs about children being Jewish only if their mother is. This is something we’d heard about from LUNAR, a community of Asian American Jews, and from Central Synagogue Rabbi Angela Buchdahl’s experiences growing up in the Jewish community and becoming a Jewish leader. Rabbi Buchdal’s decision to reaffirm her Judaism through a mikvah ceremony inspired us to do so as well.
Although Reform Judaism already recognizes our daughter as Jewish through her father’s side, we wanted our daughter to know without a doubt that she’s fully Jewish. We see her mikvah experience as a form of “spiritual armor” to protect her from teasing at summer camp, gossiping aunties and uncles, or when meeting a future romantic partner’s family. However, we also wanted the ceremony to be a beautiful experience that affirms her Judaism and honors the unique blend of our family.
We began researching the mikvah by talking with a rabbi who was a longtime family friend. We learned that a conversion ceremony is certified by a beit din, which is a panel of three rabbis or learned Jewish individuals. Even though we already considered our daughter Jewish, we chose to have a beit din as we reaffirmed her place in the Jewish community. Our beit din was composed of Rabbi Deborah Newbrun, the rabbi on our HMI trip (who had also officiated our daughter’s baby naming ceremony), the rabbi of a local Reform congregation, and a childhood friend of Jonah’s from Jewish summer camp.
The ceremony
On the morning of the ceremony, we arrived with our family at the Orthodox synagogue in Oakland where the mikvah is located. After a short meeting with the beit din, we were ready to dip. I gathered our daughter in my arms and descended the steps into a small, calm rectangular pool. The mikvah was filled with mayim chaim, or “living waters,” that have come naturally from the sky and will return to the earth.
The act of full immersion in the ritual bath, covering every part of the body with water, represents a total commitment to Judaism–going all in. In the weeks leading up to the ceremony, we practiced by taking our daughter to a public swimming pool to get her more comfortable being in water.
We planned three dunks, each representing a hope for our daughter’s Jewish life: torah (learning), chuppah (community), and maavim tovim (good deeds). During the first dunk, she was skeptical. After the second dunk, she cried. So the third dunk was just a ceremonial dribble. And then…mazel tov! After toweling off, we reconvened with blessings and joyous songs. Then, we celebrated at brunch with matzo ball soup.
As she grows, our daughter will have her own journey with her Jewish-Indonesian-American identity, weaving her own tapestry from the threads of both cultures. We hope the foundation we have given her, including this mikvah ritual, will empower her to feel secure and rooted as she explores her identity and finds her place and belonging in the world.
