Mikve’s centrality

Regarding “Free the Mikve!” (Editorial, February 19), I feel my security here in Israel is at stake – more than from any terrorist attack. The mikve laws underpin the Jewish family unit, and the family unit is the basis of the Jewish nation.

My husband and I made aliya 25 years ago because we felt the need to be a part of ensuring the nation of Israel’s survival in its homeland. Our survival here depends on our faithfulness to God’s Torah. This is a basic Jewish belief.

The mikve, possibly more than any other mitzva, is based on ne’emanut (faithfulness). The husband has to depend on his wife’s word. The woman has to depend on the mikve being kosher, and on the balanit (attendant) doing her job faithfully. The balanit has to depend on the woman’s word that she has made the proper checks before immersing in the mikve.

Our continuity as Jews depends on this. In fact, it is well known that if a community can build only one communal institution, it must be a mikve, which is perhaps the ultimate symbol of our faithfulness. It can serve no other agenda.

I tremble when I send my sons to our army – and my prayer is that we may merit God’s protection. We have a brit (agreement) with Him. We cannot forget that it is a two-way brit.

We have to serve God and not ourselves, at least when it comes to the mikve.

JANINE BLOCH

Ra’anana

Your editorial makes the point of linking Orthodoxy with coercion and lack of innovation – in short, being undemocratic and unfair.

There seems to be a basic mistake or misunderstanding. Democracy and freedom must allow free religious practice, but they cannot determine what is and what is not religious practice. Religion is a set of God-given rules that one can accept or reject, but they are not changed by coercive pressures.

Enough is enough.

YITZCHOK ELEFANT

Dimona

The writer is chief rabbi of Dimona.