Mikvah

Overview

• A Jewish pool of gathered "living water" used for ritual immersion and cleansing — the immediate background to the baptism of John and to Christian Baptism.

Summary

Under the Law, a range of ritual impurities were removed by washing the body in water (Leviticus 15; Numbers 19). By the time of the Second Temple these immersions were performed in a mikvah — a pool fed by "living" (naturally flowing or gathered) water, in which a person immersed completely to pass from a state of impurity back to purity.[^1] This everyday practice of cleansing by immersion is the soil out of which Christian baptism grows: John the Baptist calls Israel to a baptism of repentance in the Jordan, and the Church takes up the same sign of washing in water and fills it with a wholly new meaning.[^2] Where the mikvah restored ritual purity to be repeated whenever needed, Baptism is received once and works something the old washings never could — a real death and rebirth, being "born of water and Spirit" (John 3.5). See Baptism, Catharsis.

Sources

[^1]: The Law's washings in water for the removal of ritual impurity (Leviticus 15; Numbers 19), the practice later carried out in the mikvah. [^2]: The washing-in-water of John's baptism and its fulfillment in Christian baptism, "born of water and Spirit" (John 3.5); see Baptism.