Mikvaos 7:1: The following substances may be used as part of the minimum volume of the mikveh: snow, hail, frost and ice… Rabbi Akiva said, “Rabbi Yishmoel disagreed with me and said that snow cannot be used for a mikveh.” But the men of Meidva testified that Rabbi Yishmoel told them to go out, bring snow and make the entire mikveh out of snow.
Tosefta, Taharos 2:3: A mikveh made of mayim sh’uvim (water that was carried in vessels) that froze is now free of the taint of mayim sh’uvim. If it melted, it is kosher to gather upon it.
Shulchan Aruch Yoreh Deah 201:30: Only water invalidates a mikveh if it is carried in vessels. But snow, hail, frost, salt and thick mud, even if they are fluid enough to be poured from vessel to vessel, are not invalid when carried in vessels. Thus if one carried vessels full of these and dumped them into a mikveh that contained less than the minimum volume, they did not invalidate it. Not only that – even if the entire mikveh was made of snow, frost or hail brought in vessels, it is kosher.
201:31: A mikveh made of mayim sh’uvim (water that was carried in vessels) that froze is now free of the taint of mayim sh’uvim. If it melted, it is kosher to gather. Shach: This means that they are now like rainwater and one may immerse oneself in them.
מקואות פ”ז מ”א אלו מעלין ולא פוסלין השלג והברד והכפור והגליד… אמר ר’ עקיבא היה ר’ ישמעאל דן כנגדי לומר השלג אינו מעלה את המקוה והעידו אנשי מידבא משמו שאמר להם צאו והביאו שלג ועשו מקוה בתחילה.
תוספתא טהרות ב,ג: מקוה שאוב שהגליד טהור משום מים שאובין, נמוחו כשר להקוות עליו.
שולחן ערוך יורה דעה סימן רא,סעיף ל: אין שאיבה פוסלת אלא במים אבל השלג והברד והכפור והמלח והטיט שהוא עב קצת אפי׳ יש בו רכות שיכולין להריקו מכלי אל כלי אין שאיבה פוסלת בהן שאם שאב מאלו למקוה החסר לא פסלוהו ולא עוד אלא אפילו עשה כל המקוה משלג או כפור או ברד שהביאו בכלי ועשה מהן מקוה כשר.
שם סעיף לא: מקוה שאוב שהגליד טהור משום מים שאובים, נימוחו כשר להקוות. וביאר הש”ך בסקע”ד: כשר להקוות, כלומר שחזרו להיות כמו מי גשמים ומותר לטבול בהן.
In July 2012, the rainwater basin of the mikveh of Omaha, Nebraska was accidentally emptied when a maintenance crew member thought that cleaning the mikveh meant emptying it completely. In most circumstances, a mikveh can be refilled relatively easily through rain, but that summer’s drought made that impossible.
The mikveh was out of service for almost two months. Women traveled to the next closest mikveh in Des Moines, Iowa, or Kansas City, Kansas, each more than two hours away. Dishes went unpurified. The receptionist at the Rose Blumkin Jewish Home, where Omaha’s mikveh is located, received calls every time it rained an inch, asking if the pool had somehow miraculously filled.
Rabbi Jonathan Gross of Beth Israel immediately contacted Rabbi Mendel Senderovic who lived in Milwaukee, but oversaw the kashrus of the Omaha Mikveh. Rabbi Senderovic gave Rabbi Gross instructions of how to make sure that the mikveh was prepared to collect rainwater at the earliest onset of precipitation. Unfortunately, with the Bor Z’riah (pool where rainwater collects) being empty and drought conditions preventing it from being easily refilled, it seemed that a usable mikveh would not likely be available in Omaha for many more months. So in early August, Rabbi Yitzchak Mizrahi suggested using ice to fill the mikveh.
Rabbi Mizrahi asked Rabbi Yaakov Weiss, the chaplain of the Blumkin Home and one of the supervisors of the mikveh, to use his connections at Yeshiva University to speak with Rabbi Hershel Schachter about this possibility. He called Rabbi Schachter, who referred him further to Rabbi Zvi Sobolofsky, another Rosh Yeshiva at YU with encyclopedic knowledge and who has been involved more directly with mikveh construction and law. Rabbi Sobolofsky provided him with much insight and guidance to the requirements for using ice as an alternate method of filling the mikveh. He had never been directly involved with this process, however, since it is a very rare occurrence, so he directed him to Rabbi Yirmiyahu Katz who not only wrote the book on modern mikvaos (literally), but who has also had first-hand experience at filling a mikveh with ice. Rabbi Weiss called Rabbi Katz, and he was incredibly responsive, helpful and cautious while outlining the requirements and parameters of Jewish law needed to fill a mikveh with ice. Through discussion with Rabbi Katz, sending him pictures of the Omaha mikveh (via snail mail as he did not use the internet), and research into how the mikveh normally functions, Rabbi Weiss developed a plan with Rabbi Katz involving the placement of 250 10-pound blocks of ice into the mikveh. While Rabbi Weiss had a handle on the requirements of doing this from the standpoint of Jewish law, there were still many logistics to work out. For example, would 250 blocks of ice realistically fit into the Omaha mikveh? Could he get them in there before they all melted, as any melting would invalidate the process?
[Theoretically, if the ice could be carried to the mikveh in such a way that all water drained off before reaching the mikveh, this would not have been an issue. Since, however, the ice invariably came packed in plastic bags, any melting would mean that the melted water remained in the bags and thus ended up in the mikveh together with the ice. See comments below.]
Here is how Rabbi Weiss later described the process of ordering the ice and getting it into the mikveh: “I spent days on the phone with Rabbi Katz, Matt Chadek, the Facilities Manager at the JCC, and any distributor of ice within 100 miles of Omaha. (Did you know that while there are many ice companies – Arctic Ice, Omaha Ice, Glacier Ice – they are all actually the very same place?)
“Finally, I spoke with a local ice distributor, going over the process with him and letting him know that it was imperative that the solid blocks of ice stay frozen during the entire process. I arranged a team of 11 volunteers on a Friday morning to work as an assembly line to get ice from the delivery truck into the mikveh as quickly as possible. I gave instructions and provided diagrams to volunteers. Finally, the ice truck arrived. I got onto the truck, lifted up the first ice block only to find that the block of ice was not a block at all; it was crushed ice in the shape of a block, pooling with water. There was an audible sigh from all of the volunteers. The delivery man looked baffled stating, “It’s ice. Ice melts.” Unfortunately for us, we could not make use of any ice that had already begun to melt, and we needed to scratch the plan. Despite having spoken with the manager at the ice company numerous times and discussed our exact needs, apparently his idea of frozen solid blocks of ice was different than mine. We sent the ice back, and we all left the mikveh a little disappointed. We were not, however, deterred. Everyone was optimistic that we would meet again with a new plan to fill the mikveh with ice.
“As I continued on a search for solid blocks of ice (and now knowing that some people have different definitions of solid blocks of ice), I called more and more companies to see what was out there. Lots of Federation, JCC and RBJH employees suggested ice distributors to contact, but all of them confirmed that their ice was crushed rather than solid. I visited every local supermarket, gas station and superstore looking for solid blocks. The closest I came was at HyVee where they sold such cubes, but probably due to their lack of popularity (unless you want them to fill a mikveh), they were all broken up in their bags. The manager special ordered a fresh case of the blocks for him to examine, but even the ones right off the truck were no more solid than what was in the store.
“I moved on to my last option: Muzzy Ice, a company specializing in 300-pound ice blocks used for ice sculptures. These were actually solid ice blocks. I talked with them to find out if it was at all possible to have the blocks made smaller so they would be easier to move. One option was to hire an ice sculptor who would use a chainsaw. Not only would our cost greatly increase, but the chainsaw would cause some of the ice to chip and melt and break apart in addition to adding grease from the chainsaw to our ice, making it unsuitable for our needs. The other option was for us to use a Flintstones-style ice pick to chip away at the huge blocks. I came to the conclusion that we just had to go ahead and use the full size 300-pound blocks. To achieve the amount of melted water necessary, we would need seven of them. That is more than a ton of ice.
“This time, I wasn’t taking chances. I went out to Muzzy Ice’s warehouse to personally inspect the blocks of ice to make sure they were indeed solid and suitable for our needs. As I looked them over, I found that they were definitely solid (and definitely big), but they also had some frost built up on them. I was concerned that the frost build up could cause an issue of premature melting, so I again consulted with Rabbi Katz. He assured me that the buildup would not be problematic as any miniscule drops of melted ice that might form would immediately freeze back, and since we were transporting the ice early in the morning while it was still cool outside, there would likely not be any melting at all. I also took a look at the inside of the ice truck to make sure that it was kept at a cool enough temperature to keep the blocks frozen. I was very happy to see that there was ice buildup on the sides of the truck indicating that it was freezing on the truck – something that I did not see on our first attempt a few weeks earlier. Once I had confirmation from Rabbi Katz about the ability to use Muzzy Ice, I checked one last time with Matt Chadek to be reassured that we could make this happen. Matt was confident that he and his team could successfully move the ice blocks from the truck into the mikveh’s entrance one at a time, unwrap each cube, allow for inspection and then place them into the mikveh. With that, I placed the order for the ice to be delivered 24 hours later.
“Those 24 hours were pretty anxiety-ridden. Any minor deviation from the expected plan could result in a failed effort, not to mention the loss of significant funds since Muzzy Ice could not provide us with a refund policy. I wanted to be responsible with our community’s resources and did not want a sizable amount of money to be spent on something that did not work out. I enlisted Leon Shrago to assist me in the morning. As he is recently retired, and always looking for ways to help the community and learn more, I knew he would be up for this challenge.
“The time finally arrived for all members of our team to be in place and fill our mikveh with ice. At 8:00 a.m., the Muzzy Ice truck arrived and we assembled the crew. Muzzy Ice was kind enough to be extra careful in ensuring that the ice stayed frozen and filled the truck with 100 pounds of dry ice to keep the truck colder than usual. We plugged in the freezer truck to an outlet as an additional measure to ensure that everything stayed frozen until the blocks of ice were safely placed in the mikveh.
“One by one, the delivery man wheeled the ice blocks which were wrapped in plastic and packed in boxes into the mikveh room. The JCC and RBJH facilities staff unwrapped the ice blocks and got them ready to place in the mikveh at the top of the stairs. Leon and I checked to see if there was any water pooling (there was not), and we wiped off any piles of frost as a safeguard. Matt did the hard part of supporting most of the weight of each block of ice carrying them down the stairs with ice tongs, bracing each one with his body as an additional crew member held on to the ice at the top with tongs. After each cube was placed in the mikveh, Leon and I wiped down any residual water to make sure no contamination took place. After the first block, Matt assured me that ‘It was pretty easy.’ But the sweat on his brow told me that maybe it just wasn’t as bad as he originally thought it would be…
“Less than an hour later, all seven blocks were placed in the mikveh. We all had a big sigh of relief. Before we loaded the ice into the mikveh we bottomed out the thermostat to keep the room as cool as possible to prevent any melting. Now that all the ice was inside the mikveh, we turned up the heat so that the ice would melt at a natural pace. I locked the door, put a sign on it noting that no one should enter since any breach could result in a disqualification of the entire process. Now, we waited for the ice to melt and for our mikveh to be functional once again.
“Within 48 hours of completing the whole ice transfer, nearly all of the ice had melted. At that very same time, an act of G-d brought a deluge of rain upon Omaha – a storm that was not only a rarity for the past 3 months of the drought, but rainfall that by all measures was above normal. As it turns out, the Bor Z’riah – the place in which rainwater is collected – was naturally filled by the storm with the requisite amount for a kosher mikveh.
“Jewish tradition teaches that however much we as humans attempt to bring G-d into our lives, G-d reflects back the same amount of involvement in this world. I can see no better manifestation of this teaching than in the story of the Omaha mikveh. We as a community worked so hard together to ensure that a proper mikveh be available for our community. At times, it seemed like it may not be worth the effort, or perhaps there was just no way to do it, but we persevered and made it happen. While a mikveh filled with melted ice certainly would have been kosher for use and would have fulfilled the immediate needs of our community, it still would not have been a mikveh created in the ideal way – with rainwater. An ice-filled mikveh requires many leniencies in Jewish law to be permitted for use that should only be employed in exceptional cases of great need. (The drought of 2012 qualifies as such a case.) So, I believe, G-d responded in kind to our community’s effort and provided for us a magnificent rainfall enabling Omaha to have a top-tier mikveh that meets the highest qualifications that Jewish law demands.”
Source: Rabbi Yaakov Weiss, personal memoir
[Rabbi Meir Arik (Imrei Yosher chelek 1, siman 148) raises four different concerns about man-made ice (i.e. any ice that was mayim sh’uvim before it was frozen). Actually, the first two concerns apply specifically to man-made ice, while the last two apply to any snow or ice, even natural, used as a mikveh.
The questions about man-made ice center around the meaning of the Tosefta quoted above.
- The first question, brought up by Rabbi Meir Arik’s correspondent, is that the Smag, quoted by the Beis Yosef, gives two explanations of the Tosefta:
- One may make a mikveh purely out of melted ice (that was originally sh’uvim); the taint of sh’uvim is completely gone.
- When the ice melts, it is not kosher for a mikveh by itself, but one may add 40 se’ah of rainwater on top of it and the mikveh will be kosher. In other words, the melted ice does not have the status of “3 lugin of mayim sh’uvim” which invalidate a mikveh even if 40 se’ah are later added.
Although the Shach rules in accordance with the first opinion, the Smag himself seems to endorse his second explanation. He compares 40 se’ah of mayim sh’uvim that froze and then unfroze to 40 se’ah of mayim sh’uvim that flowed for 3 tefachim on the ground, in which case the Sheiltos rules the water is not kosher for a mikveh, but at least it’s allowed to add 40 se’ah of kosher water on top. Also, it can be argued that since we pasken (Yoreh Deah 201:44) like this Sheiltos, we should also pasken that sh’uvim that froze and then melted is also not kosher by itself. (The counter argument would be that the Shulchan Aruch was not bound to the Smag’s comparison of freezing to flowing on the ground.)
- Rabbi Meir Arik’s second argument against machine ice is that today’s water is tamei (since we are all tamei today and therefore the vessels used to draw the water which was then frozen are tamei) and so the Tosefta’s statement is not applicable anymore. Tamei water that froze and then unfroze is not kosher for a mikveh, according to the Tzlach in Pesachim 17b. (This problem may not have applied in Omaha, if the ice making machine or molds were not mekabel tumah.)
His two concerns about ice and snow in general:
- The Rema in s’if 30 quotes a Mordechai at the end of the fourth perek of Shabbos who brings a dispute as to whether one may immerse oneself in snow while still in its frozen state (Rabbeinu Shmarya), or one must wait for it to melt (Rabbeinu Simcha and Rabbeinu A. of Bohemia). The Rema concludes that it is better to be strict and wait for it to melt.
The Shach proves that actually, all the poskim agree with the stringent opinion, and even Rabbeinu Shmarya retracted in the end. Therefore, one may definitely not tovel in snow, a psak that seems merely academic, but… the Chasam Sofer (Yoreh Deah 200) shows that it is very relevant to the procedure of making a mikveh from snow or ice. Let’s assume the snow or ice is now in the mikveh – how can we accelerate the melting process? We could pour a pot of hot water on it, but since the snow is not yet kosher for tevilah, that would be considered making the mikveh out of mayim sh’uvim. Therefore, the Chasam Sofer recommends placing a hot metal plate atop the snow, and piling up hot coals on the plate to keep it hot until the snow is melted. (In the Omaha story, they melted it by turning up the heat in the building, which would also be fine.)
- The Chasam Sofer (Yoreh Deah 200) brings that the Rosh actually holds that one may tovel in snow as is, but the Raavad in Baalei Hanefesh objects to this with a two-pronged argument (mimah nafshach): if the snow is treated like water, then why is it not subject to the law of sh’uvim? And if the snow is not treated like water, then why is it allowed to tovel in it? Therefore, says the Raavad, it is not allowed to tovel in snow as is. But it is not subject to sh’uvim, hence one may put snow in a vessel and carry it to the mikveh. The Chasam Sofer’s only concern is that part of the ice may melt while the snow is being transported to the mikveh, and that water in the bottom of the vessel – now mayim sh’uvim – will be added to the mikveh too. Therefore he advises using wicker baskets so that melting snow can drip out. In Omaha, with the ice packed in plastic and cardboard, there was a concern that melted ice might be in the package too, hence the care they took to keep it cold and wipe it down.
Rabbi Meir Arik points out that the Chasam Sofer still does not satisfy the opinion of the Baal Hamaor, who is even stricter than the Raavad and says that one must not carry the ice in any kind of vessel because this is תפיסת יד אדם – human power. Rather one must slide it along the floor. However, this shitah – the Baal Hamaor – is against the psak of the Shulchan Aruch.
The bottom line is that Rabbi Meir Arik was against machine ice for his first two reasons, and even with natural ice, he outlines rules for how to use it. Where did the other poskim stand on the issue of machine ice? The Divrei Malkiel permitted it. So did Rabbi Nissan Telushkin (Sefer Taharas Hamayim, page 46). However, there were poskim who were against it: The Gidulei Taharah, Rabbi Moshe Mordechai Epstein, the Yad Dovid and the Satmar Rav (although the Satmar Rav’s teshuva on this subject has been lost so we don’t know his reasons). Rabbi Moshe Feinstein (Y.D. 3:67) was also against it.
In the Ohama story, it seems that the ice was placed in the bor tevilah, not the bor z’riah. (Rabbi Weiss refers to steps, and typically a bor z’riah does not have steps. Also the bor z’riah is typically small and wouldn’t have room for so many large blocks of ice (each cube probably had a side length of about 2 feet). Also, he relates that the rainstorm filled the bor z’riah, implying that it was empty until that point – not full of melted ice.) Then the ice melted, and then rainwater filled the bor z’riah, allowing them to add tap water to it and have it overflow into the bor tevilah. Thus, the icewater plus the rainwater overflow satisfied even the second explanation of the Smag, which holds that melted machine ice is not kosher by itself, but is kosher after 40 s’ah of rainwater is added to it.
Can we interpret the Omaha story, as Rabbi Weiss did, as evidence that Hashem did not want them to rely on the opinion that permits machine ice, so He made it rain? Possibly, but the objection to that would be לא בשמים היא. The Omaha community asked a shailah to a posek, and Hashem agrees to the psak given by poskim in this world. Also, that would contradict another story of Divine intervention in a mikveh, which we hope to publish soon – stay tuned.]
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