This website is about how we made our own kosher mikveh (Jewish ritual bath) in our back yard. We began construction in the winter of 2003 and operated the mikveh for about 12 years. We ceased operation when a new kosher mikveh became available in a nearby community, Portland, Oregon.

Our intention was that our mikveh could be used by anyone in the community for various purposes: conversion to Judaism, monthly cycles (taharat hamishpacha), before weddings, sabbaths and holidays. It was also used for personal rituals of renewal and healing.

We were inspired in part by the popular example of The Jewish Catalogs which encourage ordinary Jews to be empowered with the knowledge to do mitzvot (e.g. tie tzitzit, lay tefillin, hang a mezuzah, write a ketubah, build a sukkah, make a menorah, huppah, etc.) We were also inspired by our teachers, Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi, z"l, Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach, z"l, and Rabbi Myron Kinberg, z"l, who encouraged the use of mikveh.

In some Jewish communities, mikvaot are built by and for the orthodox only, exercising strict control and often excluding non-orthodox Jews. Our aim is to ensure that all Jews have access to this beautiful traditional ritual. The halakhah does not have to be complicated or mysterious, nor is it prohibitively expensive to build a mikveh if the design is simple. Helpful resources include the Artscroll Tractate Mikvaot (Hebrew-English with clear text and drawings), and Rabbi David Miller's informative book, The Secret of the Jew, which details Rabbi Miller's thoughts and designs for do-it-yourself home mikveh projects.

Our first mikveh was a simple garden pond that we dug in our back yard. We surrounded it with river rocks and ferns, and allowed it to fill naturally with 40 seahs (200 gallons) of rainwater. We named it Berekat Shekinah, and it was used frequently. The mikveh described on this website was our second one. It was a side-by-side mikveh which means it had two pools. The smaller pool (the bor) contained 40 seahs of rainwater collected on the roof, and connected to the larger immersion pool by a small opening called the kissing hole.

Over the years, before we built our mikveh, we examined a number of mikvaot (plural of mikveh), obtained some blueprints, and were also able to observe firsthand some of the construction phases of a valid mikveh. Construction of the mikveh described here began in January 2003. We have placed in the first link below photographs that show the stages of our project along with relevant details.

We invite you to

• See how we built our mikveh (text and photos)
• Read Reb Shlomo Carlebach's teaching on mikveh
• Read excerpts from Rabbi David Miller's book The Secret of the Jew
• Read Rabbi Zev-Hayyim Feyer's discussion of ritual purity
• Visit the website of Mayyim Hayyim, a new community mikveh
  and spiritual healing center being built in Boston.
• Send us a message.

Or, you can move up one level.