Follow the Mikvah!

by Rabbi Corinne Copnick

Have you ever immersed yourself in a mikvah? Probably not, unless you are an orthodox woman. Modern mikvahs look like what would be a very tiny swimming pool in Los Angeles. Yet going to the mikvah is an age-old requirement for Jewish women, as a kind of ritual purification after menstruation or an illness. Immersion in the mikvah – you have to be squeaky clean before you descend its steps into the water — can be a celebratory ritual, too – before a wedding, or after the birth of a child, or as part of a conversion ceremony. There are attendants to help you, like a spa. You recite beautiful prayers and feel wonderful afterwards. I immersed completely – not a strand of hair can show above the water — in the mikvah the day before I was ordained as a rabbi. I’m not orthodox. You don’t have to be orthodox to go to the mikvah. If you can’t swim, the attendant will kneel beside the pool and hold your hand.

Men can go as well, separately, and religious Jews often do – as bridegrooms perhaps or before the Sabbath. If it’s a conversion, the supporting Rabbi will accompany you.

There are strict standards to maintain, though. The mikvah’s water must be natural, spotlessly clean, and constantly circulating from a fresh source (oceans, rivers, spring-fed lakes, even rainwater or ice or snow collected to meet specific transport and handling regulations). It is usually housed in an enclosed space either built into the ground or attached to a building. It can’t be a portable arrangement. Most mikvahs today have water-purification and filtration systems, which makes the plumbing expensive to maintain.

Alternatively, you can simply immerse yourself completely in the sea three times and say the prayers, but there is the danger of currents sweeping you away, and the weather doesn’t always cooperate. So mikvahs are indoors. Of course, with indoor plumbing, hot water, and even luxury bathtubs available in North America today, many Jewish women no longer feel the need to go to the mikvah. Like an appendix, it seems unnecessary, an anachronism.

But the mikvah is not just about cleanliness of the body. It’s not a bath. You have to take a bath or shower and clip your nails BEFORE you enter the mikvah squeaky clean. There is a strong spiritual dimension involved. It’s a Jewish RITUAL bath, in which you immerse ALL of you. Three times, and with each immersion you say a special prayer, ending with the core Hebrew prayer, the Shema (“Hear O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord I One”). Guests may sit behind a screen and offer prayers and blessings, even songs, as well. It’s an occasion.

And where there is a mikvah, you can be sure there will be a synagogue. Some people say, “Follow the money!” In this case, you can say, “Follow the mikvah!” That’s why people in Brazil were so excited when a centuries-old mikvah was discovered in Recife in the year 2000. Interested archeologists, who already possessed old maps and records, had started to dig – eight floors down — beneath a building in the old Street of the Jews (Rua dos Judeus). And they found it! So they knew. That’s where the oldest synagogue in the Americas had once been.

Yes, it was the site of the old Kahal Zur Israel synagogue, founded in 1630. A congregation of Jewish refugees from the Inquisition in Europe had prayed there until the conquering Portuguese banned Judaism in Brazil. So by 1654, the Jews were forced to flee again. Or else to hide their religion as conversos, sometimes in the interior wilds of Brazil. Eventually, they created prosperous sugar plantations and other thriving businesses and are credited with building up the economy of Brazil in many ways.

Although many Brazilian Jews left for Israel in 1948, about 120,000 Jews still populate Brazil today, largely centered in the big cities of Sao Paulo or Rio de Janiero, home of Carnival. Unfortunately, in latter years, there has been some anti-Israel sentiment in Brazil, with its recently deposed President holding strong pro-Palestinian views.

But the Jewish community is still strong. And today, directly across the street from the recently rebuilt Kahal Zur Israel (which means “Rock of Israel”) synagogue in Recife stands a Jewish museum and cultural center. What makes the complex extraordinary is that part of the excavated mikvah is on display right there — protectively covered by glass. It was this ritual bath’s discovery that reactivated philanthropic interest in rebuilding the old synagogue in the spot where it once stood.

Although the museum and cultural center are stunningly beautiful, throughout the time I was there, my eyes kept returning to the excavated mikvah; my heart was in the mikvah, my thoughts spilling into its protected waters.

In Los Angeles, where I live, I serve from time to time as one of the dayanim – one of the three rabbis that make up a rabbinic court known as a Beit Din (House of Justice). After a conversion acceptance, it is a joyful part of our task to accompany the applicant to the mikvah to complete the conversion process. For me, each time it is a mystical moment, connecting all of those present to the Divine. Each time I have tears in my eyes, just as I did looking into this mikvah dating back to the 1600s — and excavated at the very beginning of the third millenium in what, for me, no longer felt like a foreign land.

May you find only beauty and fulfillment

Within the embrace of Judaism.

May it illuminate your path, enrich your life,

And elevate your soul.

May you bring to the diverse people of this world

All the sweetness and goodness you have to offer.

May you continue to grow from strength to strength,

And may you always be a blessing for the Jewish people.

The Sands of Time

by Rabbi Corinne Copnick

During 2016, I spent 100 days at sea as Guest Rabbi on several cruises to disparate parts of the world – and consequently was out of the United States of America. I have now conducted all the Festivals/Hags as well as many Shabbats and some Interfaith services on the ocean in many lands, and it has been a life-changing experience in terms of my feeling of connection to Jews, past and present, in so many parts of the world.

It was so moving, for example, to stand in the beautifully restored old synagogue (rebuilt in 1636 as the Kahal Zur Israel synagogue) in Recife,* Brazil. Originally

, the synagogue had sand floors, one of five in the world. I realized that I was standing where, centuries ago, 23 courageous Jewish people departed from this congregation, fleeing persecution from the Inquisition that had travelled from Europe to Brazil. It was the second time they were fleeing the Inquisition; in 1497, they had already escaped the Inquisition in Portugal for what they hoped was safety in a new, faraway land. That land was Brazil (colonized by the Dutch until the Portuguese defeated them).

The Jewish refugees came in the guise of New Christians or conversos, but secretly most of them practiced Judaism and married only within their own group. Now, with the emergence of this threat of the new Inquisition, a small group risked sailing to Peter Stuyvesant’s fledgling New Amsterdam, where they pleaded for admittance as refugees. That is how Jewish people who did not want to live in hiding or masked as Christians, as many others did, but rather continue to conduct their lives by the Holy Laws of Judaism, came to dwell in what was to be New York in America.

Other secret Jews fled to Curacao, where there is a second sand-floor synagogue in Willemstad, where I also visited (Mikve Israel Emmanuel).

With about 200 congregants today, it was built in 1732 by the descendants of the Jews who fled there). Some fled to areas of the Caribbean.

In fact, three more synagogues with sand floors can also be found in Kingston, Jamaica; Saint Thomas, Virgin Islands; and Paramaribo, Suriname (the latter is technically in South America. They still maintain the sand-floor tradition.

Why did these Portuguese secret Jews fleeing the Inquisition put sand on the floor of their synagogues? The reasons given are symbolic. First of all, the sand was to remind them of the 40 years the biblical Israelites had spent wandering in the desert. Secondly, it was a reminder of how their Portuguese ancestors had placed sand on the floor of their basement synagogues in Portugal to muffle the sound of their sacred rituals.

In 1665, the Portuguese, who had by now defeated the Dutch, closed the Kahal Zur synagogue in Recife and expelled 1,200 Jews. Judaism was banned. Although since the early 1900s, Jews have once again prospered in Brazil, it was not until 2002 that, funded by the Safra banking family, the synagogue’s doors reopened for the first time since the 17th century.** It had been closed for 347 years. It is said to be the oldest existing synagogue in the Americas. (In North America, the oldest shul is the Touro synagogue in Newport, Rhode Island.)

And in the winter of 2016, when I traveled from Brazil to Willemstad, Curacao, where other members of old Recife congregation had fled, I took my shoes off in the sanctuary of Mikve Israel Emmanuel and stood gratefully in prayer. On the sand floor.

*In Recife the name is pronounced as Hecife. The “R” at a beginning of a word is pronounced as an “H.” When you get to Rio de Janiero, Recife is pronounced the way it is spelled, with an “R” sound.

**See http://www.Jewishvirtual library.org and multiple other sites on the Internet.

Raisin Bread and Hot Chocolate

by Rabbi Corinne Copnick

Like the United States or Canada, Australia spans a vast territory. When my four children were growing up in the 1970s, our family took lengthy road trips all over North America. Over several years, we visited every single province in Canada – our goal was to reach the Easternmost tip in St. John, Newfoundland and, the next year, the Westernmost tip in Tofino, Vancouver Island (our hardy, beige and brown station wagon traversing log roads stretched over canyons, our luggage doing a balancing act atop the car). “Don’t look at the scenery,” we would call out to my husband, who was driving. “We’ll watch the scenery. Just keep your eye on the road!”

Then, over the next couple of years, we tackled the vast landscape of the United States. We were already familiar with much of the Eastern seaboard, all the way from Montreal, Quebec in Canada to the east coast of Florida, but now our goal was to visit 48 of the 50 states. Only after most of our family had moved to Los Angeles, California did I have the opportunity to visit Alaska and Hawaii (three times, so far) to make 50.

Not until many years later, when I served as Guest Staff Rabbi on a cruise ship, did I get to learn words like “Oceania” (Oceania is a vast, arbitrarily defined expanse of the world where the Pacific Ocean – rather than land borders – connects the nations) and “Australasia”(a region within Oceania that consists of Australia, New Zealand, New Guinea, and the neighboring islands of the South Pacific Ocean). Finally, there was Australia, so like North America in its grand assortment of gorgeous landscapes and diversity of people. So like Canada in many ways, with a history linked to Britain. I felt at home in Australia.

On arrival, though, I was taken aback by the graphic signs in the bathrooms at customs; the signs instructed visitors to sit down on the toilet seats with their feet on the floor, and NOT to place their feet on the toilet seats and squat. For some Oceanic or Australasian countries, even those with relatively modern plumbing, toilets are a hole in the floor.

I was surprised, too, by the people just ahead of me who tried to smuggle in food (there are stiff fines for doing so) like raw veal and even a whole, plastic-wrapped, cooked duck in their suitcases. They didn’t see anything wrong with it. “If I pay the fine, can I keep the duck?” one young man (a Chinese student) asked. He was bringing the duck to his relatives. No, he couldn’t, was the answer.

Maggots were already infesting the bottom of the suitcase belonging to the Asian lady who was bringing in veal as a present for her friend who had a restaurant in Sydney. “My friend will cook it for me,” the lady explained with a winning smile. But the customs officials confiscated the suitcase, maggots and all, anyway.

Visitors don’t have to worry about finding food in Australia. It is readily obtainable in all price ranges, fresh and delicious. But I must say that everywhere I went, it was the raisin bread and hot chocolate I first tasted in the rolling Blue Mountains that won my heart.

The Blue Mountains are a two-hour or so bus trip from Sydney. Our plans included a cable car over a spectacular canyon, a trip to a recommended animal park featuring kangaroos, wallabies (smaller than kangaroos), monkeys, sloths, and, of course, koala bears. Then we were to take a small boat trip back to Sydney Harbor.

Amid all this scenic grandeur, it was the charming town of Laurel in the heart of the Blue Mountains that captured my heart. The atmosphere is traditional in a way that evokes the English cottage country in earlier times, almost Victorian in feeling. In that little town was a shop that sold soaps and perfumes and a whole repertoire of romantic items, things that had pretty little flowers all over them. I purchased a sturdy shower cap that looked like a Victorian night cap; it had delicate mauve and pink flowers on it too.

Conveniently situated next to this shop was a small café. It was not yet lunchtime, but we had risen early, and we were hungry. I will never forget my first taste of Australian, perfectly toasted raisin bread. It was sliced like a Jewish mother would slice challah (there were two slices), an inch thick and lathered with butter. Accompanying it was the best hot chocolate I have ever had. Not cocoa. Not packaged hot chocolate from a processed powder. No, this was thick hot chocolate sauce topped off with absolutely delicious, warmed, whole milk from Blue Mountain, grass-fed, Australian cows. Then this gorgeous concoction was well mixed, not in a blender but by hand, to perfection, and, in something approaching ecstasy, I finished it to the last drop. If ever the perfect red heifer the ancient Jews sought for Temple rites is found, it will be in Australia.

I was hooked. I kept ordering raisin bread and butter and hot chocolate all over Australia, and not once was I disappointed. Better yet, we did so much walking that I didn’t gain weight!

The Great Synagogue is Great!

by Rabbi Corinne Copnick

It’s an old Jewish joke that when there are two Jews, three synagogues are needed. They each have their own ideas about how the prayers should be conducted. Prior to visiting the Great Synagogue in Sydney, Australia, I left a message identifying myself as an ordained rabbi from Los Angeles who was interested in the synagogue’s history. I don’t know which of the two or more Jews got my message, but no one seemed to be aware of it when I arrived. However, at least there was a synagogue to receive me, a grand one. Often referred to as “The Jewish Cathedral,” it was established in 1878.*

But a hundred years earlier in 1788, when the first few Jewish convicts were transported to New South Wales on the First Fleet to serve out their harsh sentences, there were no synagogues yet, not even one. As a matter of fact, when the first Jewish convict died that same year, there were no Jewish burial rites or sites.

Although only ten Jews are required to make a minyan (while each person can pray individually, developing communal values is considered essential in Jewish life, and the Torah cannot be read aloud without a minyan). The idea is to gather enough participants to make a kehilla, a little community. Eventually — some three decades later – there were enough Jewish convicts –about 30 of them — to gather together for regular worship. Towards the end of the 1820s, a few free settlers joined the congregation as well, led by a young man recommended by the Chief Rabbi in London.

So now there was one synagogue for 30 plus Jews. Oy veh! That wouldn’t do. They argued and argued about different ways of conducting services in the synagogue. And other things. It goes without saying that a rival congregation was immediately started, led by a young man who didn’t have a recommendation from London. Who cared? Now they had two synagogues. The number of free Jewish settlers grew to 25. After a lot of negotiation, and helped by a rabbi who who had traveled to Australia, the congregation united. They were one.

It turned out that some of the free Jewish settlers had influential ties (to the Montefiore family, for example), and the Australian government finally recognized the Jewish congregation in 1831. The little congregation celebrated their first High Holy Days together a few months later on George Street in a room above the store of one of the congregants. There was a bona fide Jewish congregation in New South Wales, Australia.

From this small beginning, under the leadership of their first actual rabbi, Rev. Michael Rose, the congregation grew to 300 people and soon had to take larger facilities on Bridge Street and then, only a decade later, on York Street, in a 500-seat building designed by James Hume. By this time, non-Jews were also taking interest in the synagogue and contributing to the project. Amazing.

What had boosted the Jewish population and made this phenomenal growth possible? Follow the money, they say. The Gold Rush of the 1850s attracted Jewish settlers!  Unfortunately, their different circumstances led to conflict between the old and new settlers so that – you guessed it! — a rival synagogue was again established.

Finally, almost a century after the first Jewish convict died in Australia without Jewish burial rites, the rival synagogues united, and the Great Synagogue was born on Elizabeth Street, where it still stands. The religious services, complemented by fine liturgical talent, were – and still are – traditional in nature. It was 1878.

In the formal and elegant fashion of the time, the Great Synagogue was built to generate awe at its stately magnificence, both outside and inside. There are stained glass windows and gold stars on the ceiling (added in later years) to intensify the light. It’s gorgeous.. An education center, auditorium, memorial center, and library were added over the years. The Great Synagogue still boasts many activities, but the elderly volunteers told us that the whole congregation is aging and, by attrition, dwindling.

As my visit drew to a close, I noticed that there were mincha (afternoon) services scheduled for 1:30 PM. “I’d love to join in prayer at the mincha service,” I said to the knowledgeable woman who gave us an informational talk. “Would that be possible?” I asked.

“Well, it’s usually just the men,” she answered hesitantly, and then added, “I suppose we could put up a screen for you.”

“Thank you,” I replied, “but since my time in Sydney is short, I think it would be better spent at the Jewish Museum than behind a screen.”

“Oh, that’s great,” she said in relief. “There’s a bus that will take you to the Museum that stops right in front of our door.”

So with an exchange of smiles and good wishes, my daughter and I left for the Jewish Museum of Sydney, where I promptly bought a purple kippah with an aboriginal design.

With the dispersion of young families to the more affordable suburbs around Sydney, there are a number of thriving, suburban synagogues today – Reform, Conservative, and Modern Orthodox — and most have egalitarian seating.  Female rabbis who visit Sydney are not obliged to sit behind a mehitza (screen or wall) in order to pray there, if they do not choose to do so.

So you see, it’s true. When you have two Jews, you need three synagogues.

*For those who are interested in more historical detail about the Great Synagogue’s history, a book by the Rabbi Emeritus, Rabbi Dr. Raymond Apple, is available: The Great Synagogue: A History of Sydney’s Big Shule, UNSW PRESS, 2008.