The mikveh experience is holy, not a political bargaining chip

The Sephardic chief rabbi, Rabbi David Yosef, recently issued a directive at a conference of mikveh attendants about how they should react to a woman who requests to immerse without an attendant: “Embarrass her. Scream at her. Tell her that she is acting against the halacha (Jewish law). And make sure that everyone hears.”

Even those who believe that a mikveh attendant to supervise a woman who is immersing in the ritual bath is halachically preferable to the woman immersing alone should be horrified by a directive to shame a woman publicly. The question before us is not only whether a woman may immerse alone, but also whether religious authority may be used to humiliate women at the very moment they are seeking to fulfill a mitzvah.

His remarks were coupled with an outburst against the High Court’s rulings on mikveh practice, which in 2016 affirmed women’s right to immerse without an attendant. But this is not merely a policy disagreement. It is a profound religious and ethical failing, a violation of halacha, and a misrepresentation of halacha for a political power play. Weaponizing the mitzvah of tevilah, immersion, in a campaign against the High Court sacrifices the dignity and spiritual well-being of the very women the mikveh is meant to serve.

As the founder of The Eden Center, I have dedicated years to ensuring that the mikveh functions not only as a vehicle of purification, but as a space of sanctity, healing, and connection. When we see public figures, who draw their salaries from the public purse, actively working to subvert legal protections and incite division, we must call it what it is: a political polemic that has no place in our sacred spaces.

The Human Cost of Ideological Warfare

The current pushback against women’s agency, particularly regarding the requirement of a balanit, a mikveh attendant, ignores history, the halachic tradition, and human reality.

One may argue for the importance of an attendant. One may teach, encourage, and explain. But instructing attendants to shame women publicly crosses a (halachic) red line.

The presence of a mikveh attendant has deep halachic weight in many communities, but it is not a biblical condition without which immersion is automatically invalid. The requirement for a balanit is a relatively late addition to our tradition, first introduced by Ra’avad, a 12th-century Provençal rabbinic authority. The Shulchan Aruch, the preeminent Code of Jewish Law, itself acknowledges circumstances where immersion without an attendant is halachically valid. To ignore this background and insist that the presence of a mikveh attendant is, and always has been, a requirement without which the immersion is invalid is simply untrue. It is also a disservice to the richness of our Jewish legal heritage.

We must also not forget the women who presented their stories to the High Court, petitioning to be allowed to immerse without being supervised. Many of them are survivors of sexual abuse for whom the traditional mikveh encounter is a source of profound trauma. These women are not looking to subvert tradition; they are looking to uphold it, to observe a mitzvah without being re-traumatized.

For some women, especially survivors of sexual abuse, a supervised immersion may force an impossible choice: endure recurring psychological harm in order to observe the mitzvah, or avoid the mikveh in order to protect emotional wellbeing. By attacking their right to a safe experience, rabbinic leadership is essentially telling these women that their pain is collateral damage in a political fight. From a halachic point of view, insisting on an attendant in every case is, in essence, asking vulnerable women either to psychologically harm themselves on a regular basis, in violation of the command of “Ve-nishmartem,” (protect yourself), (Deuteronomy 4:15), or that they disobey the biblically mandated observance of mikveh in order to protect their emotional wellbeing.

That is not protecting halacha. That is endangering women’s relationship to it.

From Kiddush Hashem to Chillul Hashem

It is deeply ironic that while Rabbi Yosef claims to be protecting the mitzvah, his actions are actively driving women away from it. By shaming women who wish to engage with the mikveh in a way that respects their psychological safety, and by encouraging mikveh attendants to confront and humiliate other women, he is creating chillul Hashem, a desecration of God’s name, rather than kiddush Hashem, a sanctification of it.

More importantly, he is violating a core halachic value by encouraging attendants to shame women who request to immerse without an attendant. As opposed to immersing unsupervised, which has a clear halachic foundation, even if its practice rests on a minority opinion, intentionally shaming someone is an undisputed biblical violation. So harsh is the sin of embarrassing another human being that the mishnah in Pirkei Avot 3:11 states that those who shame another person have no place in the World to Come. And Avot 5:18 teaches that those who encourage others to sin are denied the opportunity for repentance.

Whatever one believes about the ideal role of an attendant, there is no halachic or moral justification for humiliating a woman who comes to immerse.

Instead of fostering a culture of understanding and mutual respect, this rhetoric turns the mikveh into a battlefield. It pits women against women and forces women to choose between their desire to be close to God and the indignity of a politicized system. It disregards the needs of survivors, tramples on the dignity of women, overrides the Torah’s compassion, and disgraces the religious establishment in an effort to assert power.

A Call for Accountability

We, the public, have the right to ask: What does the chief rabbi think he will accomplish by this? Will it bring more women to the mikveh? Will it help women connect more deeply to God and to mitzvot? Or will it drive away the very women who have come to observe? Will it further scar those who have already been hurt by prior traumatic experience? Does he understand that by encouraging these women to undermine authority, he opens the door to undermining his own authority? The mikveh should not become the place where rabbinic authority, state authority, and women’s dignity clash. Whatever one believes about the 2016 Supreme Court ruling, no defense of halacha can be built on the public humiliation of women seeking to fulfill halacha.

We religious women deserve better. We deserve religious leadership that views the mikveh as a place of healing, where every woman can stand before her Creator with peace, dignity, and autonomy. It is time to stop the political grandstanding and start practicing the very values of compassion and darkei shalom (the ways of peace) that our tradition demands.