The Sephardic chief rabbi, Rabbi David Yosef, recently issued a directive at a conference of mikveh attendants about how they should react to a woman who requests to immerse without an attendant: “Embarrass her. Scream at her. Tell her that she is acting against the halacha (Jewish law). And make sure that everyone hears.”

Even those who believe that a mikveh attendant to supervise a woman who is immersing in the ritual bath is halachically preferable to the woman immersing alone should be horrified by a directive to shame a woman publicly. The question before us is not only whether a woman may immerse alone, but also whether religious authority may be used to humiliate women at the very moment they are seeking to fulfill a mitzvah.

His remarks were coupled with an outburst against the High Court’s rulings on mikveh practice, which in 2016 affirmed women’s right to immerse without an attendant. But this is not merely a policy disagreement. It is a profound religious and ethical failing, a violation of halacha, and a misrepresentation of halacha for a political power play. Weaponizing the mitzvah of tevilah, immersion, in a campaign against the High Court sacrifices the dignity and spiritual well-being of the very women the mikveh is meant to serve.

As the founder of The Eden Center, I have dedicated years to ensuring that the mikveh functions not only as a vehicle of purification, but as a space of sanctity, healing, and connection. When we see public figures, who draw their salaries from the public purse, actively working to subvert legal protections and incite division, we must call it what it is: a political polemic that has no place in our sacred spaces.

The Human Cost........

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