Hope springs eternal

The story of how I found myself naked, wet, freezing cold and alone in a cave in the mountains of northern Israel.

Yesterday we left our hotel on the shores of the Galilee and headed north for the center of Jewish mysticism, the ancient city of Tzfat. For thousands of years, Tzfat has been the largest hotspot for studying the Kaballah.

Upon arrival, we were immediately divided up by gender. We men were introduced to our guide, Yonas (soft J as in "going for a light Yog," a forty-something Hasidim. He took us up to the study room, and shared with us his story.

Yonas was originally born as Jonas (hard J, as in jockstrap), to a secular Jewish family in Brookline, Massachusetts. At age 25, after graduating college, he set off to travel the world in search of greater meaning in his life. His first stop was Israel. Before he left, his mother asked of him one favor: Don't come
back religious.

Obviously, judging by the fact that he was standing there talking to us, sporting the curls and the tassels and the whatnot, he had not listened to his mother.

Yonas engaged us in a discussion on what we wanted out of life, and began to tell us about the history of Tzfat, and one of the things that makes this place so special. He explained that the Hebrew word for hope is mechovas (or something along those lines), and the Hebrew word for natural water source is michva (similar uncertainty re: spelling). In Semitic languages, related words share consonant structures with different vowels. By this logic, collections of naturally-sourced water have some sort of spiritual connection to our inner hopes and dreams.

Yonas then took us to the michva house to further explain the concept, both from a spiritual and earthly logistical sense. As with many modern implementations of ancient biblical concepts, the interpretation of "naturally sourced" can be stretched as needed. There is even an exhaustively-defined concept of "second-best," where tap water is pumped through hoses that run alongside the rain water collection barrels, for replenishing the bathing pools when the rain that normally supplies them is insufficient.

Yonas segued from this discussion into an outline on the different cleansing practises of men and women. In Hasidic households, husbands and their wives go through a period of separation during and immediately following the woman's period. He asked the group for their guesses as to the original purpose for this separation.

One guy proposed the most obvious reasonable possibility, that it had something to do with fertility. After general nods from the group affirming the reasonableness of this explanation, Yonas replied that this was not the TRUE reason for the custom. Stephen then proposed an explanation which our guide later admitted had not been proposed before, in all the scores of similar birthright tours he had given:

"Perhaps it's best for the relationship if there's some separation during that particularly, uh, tumultuous time for the woman."

After the raucous laughter stopped echoing through the michva-hall, Yonas clarified that it had something to do with absence making the heart grow fonder or whatever. We then got back to the business at hand. For while the United States is littered with mundane michvatoriums such as the one we were currently chauvanising in, it is only in Tzfat that one can be spiritually cleansed by the holy waters of the ARI michva.

Fed year-round by an underground spring, the ARI michva in Tzfat has been universally accepted as the best michva in all the world. By what divine or physical measures the competing michvas have been assessed and found wanting, I do not know. All I know is that this one trumps them all. Men (and women, in a separate stream, of course) have been cleansing themselves and re-purifying their relationships with God in this exact spot for centuries. So when offered the opportunity to try it for ourselves, none of us could refuse.

So it was that the dozen of us men entered the cave that houses the ARI michva, and removed all the articles that separated us from God. We took turns dropping our modesty towels and taking our cleansing plunge. When my turn came, the shock of the icy cold water hitting me was so intense I could feel my heart palpitating and my lungs gasp for air, despite having taken a deep breath before submerging. It was for this very reason that our guide suggested at least 2-3 dunks to really feel the michva. Once I had done this, I think I felt some of the refreshing, cleansing purity he was talking about.

When we left the cave, the sun was a little brighter, the fog a little thinner, and our steps a little bit livelier.  Perhaps it was the energizing jolt of the cold and the natural progression of the morning into afternoon. Or perhaps it was something a little bit more than that.