As I mentioned in an earlier post, the Chabad rebbetzin who is responsible for our city's only working mikvah told me that because I did not have a sufficiently halachic conversion, the usual rules do not apply to me. So I've been doing some research regarding mikvah and what's commonly referred to as Taharat Hamishpachah (Family purity). I figure this is the way I determined my level of kosher observance, so it makes sense to do the same for my mikvah use.

I got out my trusty copy of The Mitzvot: The Commandments and Their Rationale by Abraham Chill and my favorite Torah commentary, Etz Hayim. Chill says that the laws regarding a menstruating woman originate in Leviticus 15:19.


Niddah is often translated as menstrual impurity or menstrual condition. The impurity is primarily  a reflection of a woman in niddah's unsuitability for making sacrifices at the Temple, if such a place existed today. As Chill says, the common rule is for a woman to wait until the end of her period and then count seven days. At the end of the seventh day she goes to the mikvah and immerses, ending her ritual impurity. In the meantime she is not to have any sexual contact with her husband, lest he become ritually impure as well.

However, a strict reading of the verse indicates a total time of 7 days. Common practice has built a fence around the law to ensure that the law is not broken. But if the halacha (law) does not apply to me then I am free to interpret it as I see fit. A total time of seven days from the beginning of my cycle. And on day eight I can go to the mikvah and immerse. One week of no sex is doable, especially when I have my period for half of it. Also it would then "allow" us to have sex in the second week of my cycle, exactly when we need to in order to fertilize the egg that should arrive at the end of the second week.

This month I have counted seven white days, as is common practice. In the future I think I will schedule mikvah based on this new interpretation. Opinions?