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.
Shulchan Aruch Yoreh Deah 201:31: A mikveh made of mayim sh’uvim (water that was carried in vessels) that later froze is now free of the taint of mayim sh’uvim. If it melted, it is kosher to gather. Shach: This means that it is now like rainwater and one may immerse oneself in it.
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.
שולחן ערוך יורה דעה סימן רא 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.
A rav in an American city retired, passing his position down to his son. The new rav decided to have the old mikveh, which had served the community for fifty years, checked by Rabbi Yirmiyahu Katz, a world-renowned expert on mikvaos. When Rabbi Katz checked the pipes that brought the rainwater down from the roof, he saw that they were completely posul according to all opinions. “If these pipes were ever used to fill the mikveh, it would be a posul mikveh,” he said.
Hearing these words, the young rav turned white as a sheet and was on the verge of fainting. It took a few minutes for him to regain his power of speech, and then he said, “I don’t remember these pipes ever being changed. I think they were here from the time the mikveh was built.” They called over the old non-Jewish caretaker of the building and asked him who installed the pipes, and he replied casually that he had installed them himself fifty years ago, and they had never been changed.
“Do you realize the magnitude of this problem?” the young rav cried to Rabbi Katz. “Not only is this the only mikveh in this city and the surrounding area, and all the women used it – I myself was born from this mikveh. But also, hundreds of geirim underwent their conversions here over the past fifty years. Many of them have children and grandchildren now, living all over the world. Some of these geirim and their children became sofrim, and have written hundreds and thousands of tefillin, mezuzos and sifrei torah which are sold throughout the world. Many of the geirim signed on gittin or served as witnesses for kiddushin. We are looking at a terrible churban here…” he sighed. “But,” he continued, “if the mikveh is posul, then there is no choice. It will take me years to track down all the geirim and their children and grandchildren, and get them to tovel in a kosher mikveh. I have a very difficult job ahead of me.”
With a pained expression, the rav added, “My father built this mikveh fifty years ago when he first took his position as rav. He built it with mesirus nefesh, because most of the members of the congregation then were not religious, and didn’t allow him to use the kehillah’s money to build a mikveh. They even threatened to fire him if he insisted on building it. But my father was not afraid; he raised the money elsewhere and built the mikveh. I don’t understand it! How could such a terrible stumbling block result from my father’s devotion to this cause?”
The young rav, of course, had the pipes fixed based on Rabbi Katz’s instructions, and filled up the mikveh’s reservoir with new rainwater. But his mind could find no rest; he could not stop wondering how he and his father could have caused so many people to stumble into sin.
Rabbi Katz went home. A few weeks later, his phone rang. It was the young rav from that city, calling to update him on the story.
“After you left,” he said, “I could not rest. At first, I resisted telling my father, who lives in another city, because I didn’t want to cause him pain. But in the end, I decided to simply ask my father to tell me the story behind the mikveh. I hoped I would find some heter and not have to track down all the geirim, or deal with the other resulting problems.
“I went to visit my father, and began to chat with him about one subject and then another. Eventually I turned the conversation to the mikveh. ‘Please, tell me the story behind it,’ I said. My father was surprised by the question, and then let out a deep sigh of sorrow. ‘This story brought me nothing but pain and heartache. Let’s not talk about it,’ he said. But I insisted, ‘Father, I really want to know about it. Who built the mikveh? Who installed the pipes? I want to hear every detail.’ My father sat lost in thought for a few minutes, looking like someone re-living a painful ordeal.
“Finally, he began to tell the story. ‘When I proposed building a mikveh, several baalei batim who were the leaders of the Kehillah opposed me. They threatened that if I went through with it, they would hold elections and choose a new rabbi. But I didn’t care what they said. With mesirus nefesh, I built the mikveh. For the mikveh itself, I was given a blueprint by a rav who was an expert on mikvaos. But for the rainwater pipes, he didn’t give me a blueprint, so I had the non-Jewish repairman and caretaker install them. But let me tell you what an embarrassment I suffered because of this mikveh. On the day the mikveh was finished and the goy opened the pipes to collect rainwater, a drought began. In this part of the country, it rains many times a week without fail, summer or winter. Under normal circumstances, all the reservoirs of rainwater could have been filled within one week. But on the day we finished the mikveh, the heavens closed up. This continued day after day, week after week. The baalei batim who had opposed me were laughing and saying, look how heaven is punishing the rav for making the mikveh against the will of his congregation. Surely if the mikveh were a good thing, Hashem would not hold back the rain. This proves that the rav did the wrong thing. My shame was awful.
“’And so, many months passed. Historians said that no such drought had ever hit this state before. And everyone saw that the drought had started precisely on the day the mikveh opened. One can’t imagine the disgrace that I suffered.
“’After almost a year had gone by, I spoke to another rav, crying and pouring out my bitter heart, asking him why I deserved such a punishment for making a mikveh with mesirus nefesh. The other rav said to me, “Listen, I don’t know Hashem’s chesbonos, but you can fill up your mikveh with snow or ice.” And he explained to me how to do it. The next day, I filled the mikveh with snow and ice, and it was ready to use. Amazingly, the very next day, there was a flood of rain. It was as if all the rain held back in the sky for all these months was coming down now. My embarrassment was now doubled. The baalei batim said, “Look how much Hashem hates you. As soon as you filled your mikveh with snow and ice, it rained.” So the whole mikveh story remained a painful mystery to me, and after that, I never refilled the rainwater basin. I never used the pipes installed by my worker to feed rainwater into the mikveh.’
“As soon as I heard that, I almost fainted with joy. I then explained to my father why I had been asking so many questions about this story. ‘Father, now we see how much hashgacha pratis and siyata dishmaya Hashem gave to this mikveh. It’s the opposite of what you thought: Hashem interfered in nature and held back the rain so that you couldn’t make the mikveh out of rainwater, since the pipes were posul. Hashem saw your mesirus nefesh for taharas yisroel and made a miracle.’”
The young rav concluded telling his story to Rabbi Katz, and then added, “Although the mikveh turned out to be kosher, please promise me that you will keep this story strictly confidential.” When Rabbi Katz later published the story in his sefer, he omitted the name of the rav and the city.
The lesson of this story is that sometimes, a person may harbor complaints about the way Hashem runs His world. “I did such-and-such a good deed; why do I deserve this or that?” A person doesn’t realize that what looks to us like a punishment is sometimes actually a reward, a Divine intervention to save us. This old rav had gone around for fifty years with a grudge against Hashem. Why, he thought, did he deserve this disgrace? He was total unaware that Hashem had turned nature upside down for his sake.
Source: Tiferes Lemoshe, by Rabbi Yirmiyahu Katz, p. 221
[Besides the amazing lesson and chizuk in emunah from this story, it is tempting to try to draw the conclusion that Hashem Himself approved of the use of artificial ice for a mikveh. The trouble is that the story is not clear as to whether snow or ice, or both, were used. The language is, “I filled the mikveh with snow and ice.” Snow is natural, so would not be relevant to our question. Even if it was ice, it could have been natural ice, cut from a river or lake, assuming that the city where this took place was in an area with cold winters. However, the sentence, “In this part of the country, it rains many times a week without fail, summer or winter” indicates that the story took place in one of the southeastern states. So, pending more details, we have no proof from this story.]
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