Welcome to Gaia! ::

There's a reason it sounds like baptism. Baptism is a ritual stolen adapted directly from Judaism for Christian purposes.The philosophies and purposes of the two are different, however.

Baptism happens once in a person's life, generally, and is used explicitly and solely for the purpose of bringing the individual into the Christian covenantal society. It is said to wash away sins and make the individual spiritually clean in order to be able to serve Jesus as a newborn being for the rest of his or her life. Baptism is the act; the facility is called the church (building) or the font (actual body of water, if the water isn't a river or lake).

Mikvah is the name of the immersion facility (both the building and the body of water; also applies to natural bodies of water which are outside buildings), not the immersion itself. The immersion itself is called t'vilah (immersion). Instead of once in life, mikvah immersion takes place many times. Some people bring baby daughters for immersion as part of a b'rit bat, or simchat bat (covenant of daughter, or joy of daughter -- new ceremonies to welcome daughters into the covenant of Judaism, meant to be parallel with the circumcision of boys). I know one family that lets each daughter immerse once during the week before becoming bat mitzvah and once after her first menstrual cycle, whichever comes first. After that, a girl/woman doesn't immerse again until four (or fewer) days before her wedding. Then she counts her days... I'm not going to describe the feminine process here, but suffice it to say she immerses about once a month for the rest of her married life, barring pregnancy, until she is past childbearing age.

Boys and men immerse as well. Some only do so in the days leading up to marriage, while others do so in preparation for any important milestone, or right after an important milestone -- a birthday, an aliyah, starting a new tractate of Talmud study, completing a tractate, whatever. Others immerse every time they have an emission (again, I'm not going to discuss the masculine process here, but if you're male, PM a knowledgeable male on this guild and I'm sure he'll clue you in). Some immerse every single morning before Torah study; these tend to be Chasidim, but not always. Unlike women, men don't have to immerse singly. I've known communities in which all the students of a given rabbi will go and immerse in a group, then dress and go to Torah study; it's a very spiritual experience, I'm told.

Unlike baptism, mikvah is not meant to wash away sin or wrongdoing. There is a difference between sin, uncleanliness, and impurity. Sin means actively engaging in doing something wrong, or actively avoiding doing something that would have been the right thing to do, or even doing something wrong accidentally or because one didn't know it was wrong. Uncleanliness refers to physical dirt, grit, grime, sweat -- the filth of the physical world. Impurity is neither of these things, and it's not a great word to use as a translation for the term tum'ah (impurity) or tamei (impure), as contrasted with the terms tahor (pure) and taharah (purity). Unlike sin versus virtue or uncleanness versus cleanness, the status of tum'ah does not carry within it an inherent need for its reversal. The only real benefit to becoming tahor versus tum'ah is that once one is tahor again, one can enjoy marital relations with one's bashert. Every single time one immerses in the mikvah, one is reborn, as it were, as a brand new being, as pure as the day one was born.

But it does not free us from the obligation of correcting our misdeeds.(1) Judaism opines that wrongdoing cannot be erased, but can be corrected through sincere repentence -- being faced with similar circumstances that lead to a previous wrongdoing, but doing right instead -- and making amends. Not by washing in a baptismal font. (2) And rather than immersing only one time, we are reborn many times. (3) Also, we do not rid ourselves of wrongdoing by shifting the blame from ourselves onto a human or half-divine sacrifice. We, and we alone, carry our own responsibilities and answer for ourselves.

Ok...way too long.

Condensed Cliffs Note form please? xd

anyone can convert, barring a few exceptions, as long as they're sincere.

it wouldn't kill you to read, you know stare

in a nutshell:

the basic concept of purification through immersion is the same, but with different baggage attached. for a real explanation, i'd have to explain tumah, and that's a real toughie. it's a kabalah thing, so i stay away as much as possible. anyway, t'umah is basicly the spiritual void that comes from loss of life. for example, a the dead body of a jew has the highest level of t'umah possible, whereas the dead body of an animal has a lower level.

the white and the red (i'm sure you can figure that out. and if you can't, you're not old enough anyway) both contain tremendous potential for life. consequently, when that potential is eliminated, it, and anything it touches, becomes ta'ameh, impure (this also depends on the level, or strength of tumah). total immersion in pure water, ie a mikveh, "purifies" the body. like i said, there's a lot of mysticism in this. also, the word impurity isn't right at all, but i've yet to find a more accurate analogue.

not that while submerged, one is usually in the fetal position.

Good point, about the privacy. Unfortunate, but at least any woman who's interested can check out http://yoatzot.org for more information. Men... please, show the maturity to avoid going there. If you want to know about women's private matters, ask your wife or your rabbi.

And yes, I'm delighted to have that posted to the subforum! smile Thank you, I'm honored.

pft; if Hell even existed, I've been told I'm going there by many different people. If every religion had their way, I think all of the world would be dead. xp

it just so happens that none of the staff is male stare