A mikveh (; ; ) or mikvah () is a bath used during ritual immersion in Judaism to achieve ritual purity.
In Orthodox Judaism, these regulations are steadfastly adhered to; consequently, the mikveh is central to an Orthodox Jewish community. Conservative Judaism also formally holds to the regulations. The existence of a mikveh is considered so important that, according to Halakha, a Jewish community is required to construct a kosher mikveh even before building a synagogue, and must go to the extreme of selling Torah scrolls, or even a synagogue if necessary, to provide funding for its construction.Rabbi Naftali Tzvi Yehuda Berlin, Meshiv Dabar, 1:45
Etymology Formed from the Semitic root (, 'collect'). In the Hebrew Bible, the word is employed in the sense of "collection", including in the phrase "" (, ) in Genesis 1:10, as well as in similar usages in Exodus 7:19, and Leviticus 1. Ben Sira, in the Jewish apocryphal Book of Sirach 10:13 (and at other points in the text), is the earliest author to use "" as a word for "pool", and the Mishnah is the earliest source to use it in the sense of "ritual bath".
History
There are no existing written records or archaeological evidence of specific Jewish ritual cleansing installations prior to the first century BCE. Mikvot first appear in the historical record in that century, and from that time, ancient mikvot are found across the Land of Israel and in historic Jewish communities worldwide. Hundreds of mikvot from the Second Temple period have been discovered so far across the Land of Israel,מה בין תקופת בית שני לתקופת המשנה מנקודת המבט של שמירת הטהרה including in Jerusalem,מקווה טהרה מימי בית שני התגלה בחפירות ארכיאולוגיות בירושלים Hebron,מקוואות טהרה מימי בית שני בתל חברון Masada,המקווה במצדה and Hannaton.
The lack of dedicated mikvot before the 1st century BCE is notable, especially since many early Jews did follow purification laws, as shown by the accounts recorded in 1 Samuel 20:26 and 21:5; 2 Samuel 11:4; and 2 Chronicles 30:15 and 30:24, as well as the Elephantine papyri and ostraca.Yitzhak Meitles, Parshat Derakhim: Archaeology and Geography in the Weekly Torah Reading, p. 249-257 One suggestion is that Jews used natural water sources such as springs for immersion, rather than building dedicated mikvot.חיים של טהרה Alternatively, according to many Halakhic authorities, the prohibition on using pumped water for a mikveh is rabbinic, not biblical.Mishneh Torah, Mikvaot 4:2; Tosafot, Pesachim 17b s.v. ela; Beit Yosef, Yoreh Deah 201 Prior to the creation of such a rabbinic decree around 100 BCE, Jews may have immersed in above-ground basins that were built as part of buildings, or affixed to the roofs of buildings, and filled manually. Such structures, dating to the First Temple period, have been discovered in ancient Ashdod and possibly in Dan. The reason for such a rabbinic decree may have been to distance the practice of ritual immersion from the culture of bathhouses, which spread through the region during the Hellenistic period.
Archaeometric studies indicate that many Late Second Temple period mikvehs were built using standardized waterproof plastering techniques found at sites in both Judea and Galilee. These findings suggest that specialist craftsmen transmitted this technical knowledge across the region, although the plaster itself was typically produced from locally available raw materials.
Non-Jewish provision in Victorian Turkish baths In the last decades of the nineteenth-century and the first half of the twentieth-century, a number of mikvaoth were provided for Jewish communities by their local authority or by commercial companies in the area. In what was then the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, and in parts of the British Empire, these were provided as part of local Victorian Turkish baths.
In 1882, when the Oriental and General Bath Company of Leeds refurbished its 16-year-old baths in Cookridge Street, a mikveh was 'built at the request of the Jewish community, from plans supplied by the Chief Rabbi, and used exclusively by Hebrews . . .' In Ireland, a mikveh was added to the Cork Turkish Bath Company's new baths by its (non-Jewish) proprietor, Alf Jacobs, very soon after they opened in 1891. The mikveh, serving a much smaller community than that in Leeds, had its own entrance through a covered passageway off Charlotte (now Fr Mathew) Quay, and was open even before women had access to the Turkish bath itself. In England, the rebuilding of Nottingham's Victoria Baths in 1896, four years after the corporation took them over from their original lessee, provided the opportunity to add a mikveh, endowed by a prominent member of the Jewish community, German-born Jacob Weinberg. In Wales, the only mikveh built in a Turkish bath by a local authority before the 1950s was not in the capital, Cardiff, but in the Stow Hill baths in Newport with its much smaller and poorer Jewish community.
Further afield, the City Baths in Melbourne, Australia, opened in 1904 and included a mikveh for the orthodox community in East Melbourne. The mikveh closed around 2003 due to a structural defect but was renovated by the City Council, working with the local Progressive Jewish community, for use as a non-halachic mikveh. This is still (2026) open.
The mikvaot most recently built in the UK by a local authority were in Bournemouth Corporation's Pier Approach Baths (1937-1984) and in Cardiff's Empire Pool. The latter was opened in 1959, a year after the pool itself, by a Mrs A Sherman deputising for the Chief Rabbi, Dr Israel Brodie. The baths were demolished in 1998 to make way for the Millennium Stadium.
Requirements The traditional rules regarding the construction of a mikveh are based on those specified in classical rabbinic literature. Numerous biblical laws require Jews to "bathe their flesh in water" to become purified from ritual impurity., , , , ; ; ; etc. The type of bathing is specified in , which states that "a spring, or a cistern, a gathering (mikveh) of water" is a source of purity. A mikveh must be built into the ground or built as an essential part of a building. Portable receptacles, bathtubs, whirlpools, or jacuzzis cannot therefore function as mikvot.
However, many Sephardic communities, as well as Ashkenazi Jews in America before World War 2, customarily allowed mikvehs to be filled using municipal water. Bans on such practices only became common in the US after an influx of European Ashkenazi rabbis, who saw the use of municipal water as too lenient. Some rabbis considered permitting spas to be used, but ultimately decided against it as it may encourage women to prefer warm water during immersion instead of prioritizing cold water. According to Rabbi Isaac Esrig, in 1957 most American mikvaot were filled using municipal water.The Use of Municipal City Water for a Mikveh and a Case Study of the Seattle Rabbinate in the 1950s by Rabbi Yossi Azose
Water transport Mikveh water must have collected naturally (bidei shamayim) rather than by human action. Thus, mikveh water must flow naturally to the mikveh from the source (rain or a spring). This essentially means that it must be supplied by gravity or a natural pressure gradient and cannot be pumped there by hand or carried. As a result, tap water cannot be used as the primary water source for a mikveh, although it can be used to top the water up to a desired level provided the minimum amount (40 seah) of ritually appropriate water is in the mikveh first; in practice, this means that for a pool of at least 80 seahs (approximately 1,150 litres) the majority of its volume can be tap water. The water is also forbidden to pass through any vessel which could hold water within it or is capable of becoming impure (anything made of metal); however, pipes open to the air at both ends are fine so long as there is no significant curvature). Frozen water (snow, ice and hail) is exceptional in that it may be used to fill the mikveh no matter how it was transported..
Although not commonly accepted, at least one American Orthodox rabbi advocated a home mikveh using tap water, for those women who did not have access to a standard mikveh. As water flows through only pipes that open at both ends, the municipal and in-home plumbing would be construed as a non-vessel. So long as the pipes, hoses, and fittings are all freestanding and not held in the hand, they could be used to fill a mikveh receptacle that met all other requirements. The use of tap water for such a mikveh was controversial and was rejected by the majority of rabbinic authorities at the time and afterwards.
The laws for a mikveh are slightly different from those of a spring. Mikveh water must be at rest, while spring water can still be flowing. Thus, flowing rivers may only be used for immersion when most of their water comes from springs, rather than rainfall or snowmelt. Seas may be used (even if waves are present).פניני הלכה - מקוואות
Size and practical arrangements A mikveh must contain enough water to cover the entire body of an average-sized person; based on a mikveh with the dimensions of 3 cubits deep, 1 cubit wide, and 1 cubit long, the necessary volume of water was estimated as being 40 seah of water. The exact volume referred to by a seah is debated, and classical rabbinical literature specifies only that it is enough to fit 144 eggs;Numbers Rabbah, 18:17 most Orthodox Jews use the stringent ruling of the Avrohom Yeshaya Karelitz, according to which one seah is 14.3 litres, and therefore a mikveh must contain at least some 575 litres.about 3 Koku, about 116 qafiz, about 126 Imperial Gallons, about 143 Burmese tins, and about 150 U.S. liquid gallons This volume of water can later be topped up with water from any source,. but if there were less than 40 seahs of water in the mikveh to begin with, then the addition of 3 or more pints of water that did not meet the strict requirements would render the mikveh unfit for use, regardless of whether more water from a natural source was added later; a mikveh rendered unfit for use in this way would need to be completely drained away and refilled in the prescribed way.
Inasmuch as water that collects naturally according to halachic prescriptions is hard to come by in urban areas, various methods are employed to establish a valid mikveh. One is that tap water is made to flow into a kosher mikveh and through a conduit into a larger pool in which users actually bathe. A second method is to create a mikveh in a deep pool, place a floor with holes over that and then fill the upper pool with tap water. In this way, it is considered as if the person dipping is actually "in" the pool of rain water. Additionally, the hashoko method involves using two pools: one filled with at least 40 seahs of natural water and one filled with tap water. A hole at least wide on the wall of the pool filled with tap water connects it to the pool filled with natural water. When these two collections of water touch, the tap water pool is okay to use for ritual immersion.
Most contemporary mikvot are indoor constructions involving rainwater collected from a cistern and passed through a duct by gravity into an ordinary bathing pool; the mikveh can be heated to make the experience of bathing more comfortable.
Background Laws
Traditionally, the mikveh was used by both men and women to regain ritual purity after various events, according to regulations laid down in the Torah and in classical rabbinical literature.
Cases where Jews commonly immerse in a mikveh nowadays, in order to fulfill a requirement of Torah or rabbinic law, include: