More information about the mikvaos issue

QUESTIONS:

Why are many women being told not to use the mikva on Dolev and Lachish during the week?
Why is it that women are told they may use the mikva on Lachish on Friday nights, but on condition that they use the upstairs mikva?
Why do we need a new mehadrin mikva on Luz at a cost of a million dollars?

WRONG ANSWERS:
1) There is a halachic problem with the mikvaos on Lachish and Dolev.
2) The mikvaos themselves are fine, but the procedures and checking standards of the mikva ladies do not conform to halacha.
3) The mikvaos are fine, the mikva ladies follow correct procedures, but they are not frum enough.
4) The rabanim in charge are not reliable.
5) There is a shortage of preparation rooms in RBS and the community needs a new mikva.

THE REAL ANSWERS:

1) In fact the mikvaos are fine, and there are no halachic compromises or problems at all with Dolev or Lachish. The obvious PROOF is that Lachish is used now on Friday night, and Dolev will soon be handed over to be run as a private mehadrin mikva, with no changes to the physical structure at all.

2) The standard of “checking” used by the mikva ladies in RBS are exactly the same as what is done worldwide. This has been confirmed by women and mikva ladies who have been contacted in the following communities: Bnei Brak, Har Nof, Lakewood, Boro Park (Klausenberg, also used by Bobov and Satmer), Flatbush, Passaic etc. All report that checking is done EXACTLY as it's done at Lachish and Dolev. (For the purposes of this discussion, "normal" checking refers to looking at a woman's hands including nails, feet including nails, checking for stray hairs that may be on her back where she cannot see them, and asking her if she remembered to do the various things found on any standard mikva checklist.) The only difference between the other mikvaos and the ones in RBS, is that on Friday night at Lachish and Dolev women are checked as usual, while in most of the American mikvaos all checking is omitted completely on Friday night. Even though the way that women are checked on Lachish and Dolev is how generations of women were checked in Europe and America (see Tehilla Abramov's book with the haskama of Rav Elyashiv), there are some rabbanim insisting on a brand-new method which is known as "mehadrin checking." Mehadrin checking is absolutely unheard of in any of the above mentioned communities. Despite all this, the Rav Hamachshir has expressed his willingness to train mikva ladies to provide mehadrin checking to women requesting it, but the rabbonim have repeatedly rebuffed his attempts to meet in order to discuss this.

3) The mikva ladies are very medakdek, frum women but they are not affiliated with "Gimmel." Unfortunately, this seems to be the true reason that we can’t join together and have one mikva. As bizarre as this sounds, some local Charedi people have indicated that they don’t feel comfortable using a mikva with a “mizrachi” mikva lady, no matter what procedures she is trained to use. By any definition, this is base sinas chinam.

4) Here in Beit Shemesh we are lucky to have a very Chashuve rav who works for the Moatza and runs the mikvaos on a very high standard, with many chumros. He is a true “oisek betzurchei tzibur” and big talmid chacham, but not a "Gimmel person." As mentioned, there is no disagreement about the kashrus of the mikvaos themselves, so that is not the issue. The issue is POLITICS. Now that elections are over, the same rabanim who refused to meet with the Rav Hamachshir have determined that they have the power to take over at least one mikva (Dolev). It’s well known that in Poland and Hungary, before the war, when an outsider wanted to wrest control away from the community Rav, a favorite trick was to start a rumor that the mikva in town wasn’t kosher. Then all the women in town started telling their friends, “I heard the mikva’s not kosher…” leading people to question their Rav and letting a new person gain power. It seems RBS is no different.

5) At the present time, there is no shortage of mikva preparation rooms in RBS. Currently there are on average thirty women using the mikvaos each night in RBS-A. There are twenty rooms currently available. Even if the number of people doubled it would still be perfectly fine. True, there are women who during the week use the mikva is in RBS-B due to the “issues” mentioned above. However, there has been no possibility to assess the need for more than the 10 rooms that will soon be given to them on Dolev. It's hard to say how anyone could say with certainty that more rooms space is needed, or wanted, until they first have control of the Dolev mikva with ten rooms and see how many women show up. Additionally, whose decision is it what the proportion of “standard” and “mehadrin” mikva rooms should be? Women, who themselves are involved in this new mikva project, are mostly unaware that the new mikva will not even offer the option of normal yeshivish/chasidish standard procedures.

A final thought: On Friday night, women currently avoid using the lower floor of the mikva on Lachish, because they tell each other "it's not mehadrin." There is no difference whatsoever in the mikva itself. It's just that a chareidi lady is working upstairs. Please keep in mind that on Friday night to not trust a mikva lady seems like nothing less than sinas chinam. Women seem oblivious to the fact that they are being mevayesh b'rabim the very frum aidel woman as she vainly says there are rooms available downstairs, and everyone ignores her. All the women in the waiting room understand the subtexts that are left unsaid. It's as if they are saying to her, "Sorry, we don't trust you and suspect you may say kosher when we're not." How hurtful. Is she not also a human being that deserves to have a chezkas kashrus. In halacha, any woman is acceptable, so is she less reliable than an untrained woman? For those who believe that they think the upstairs mikva is better than the downstairs one, how do they explain the “boycott” of that mikva during the week.
Women who DO use the Lachish mikva during the week should know that the same rabbanim who say to only use the upstairs on Friday night, also say not to go to Lachish at all during the week. Some women who don't go downstairs on Friday night, say that they go to the regular mikvaos in other parts of Bet Shemesh during the week. This makes no sense. The rabbanim who are behind not using the downstairs on Friday nights, do not currently recommend using ANY mikva except the one in RBS-B that is mehadrin.

Let's all turn to our rabanim to ask that we have community mikvaos that are for everyone. A community that can't share a mikva has a long way to go before it can claim to have any achdus.