Deal Mikveh Video

[Music] It's actually the lap of luxury like the most beautiful hotel you've ever been to. We wanted it to feel like a mix between a palace and a spa. This is their happy place. When you come in, your heart just open up. You feel the kaduca in the air. Hopefully that will make the girls enthusiastic and have a good feeling to [Music] go. Many many years ago, our mikvah was very very simple and our community was not feeling that comfortable coming to do that beautiful mitzvah with women have three special mitzvot of course woman purity of course kalah and we have today we know woman purity is the biggest mitzvah there is. We want to make it special for us. When we got married in 1971, all of the brides and grooms always had a visit with Rabbi Kassen. So, all the brides went to the mikvah before we got married. After that, we really didn't know the laws. We just went by rote in the summertime. There was no mikvah. We would have to drive to Lakewood. That was the only mikvah. As a matter of fact, since we didn't know the laws so well, we would get a group of girls and decide, you have to go Wednesday, you have to go Monday, let's all go on Thursday to Lakewood. And so later on in years, my mother-in-law, Freda Cassen, took it upon herself to call the brides and give them a class about the laws of family purity. When I got married, one of the only McVeys that we had was Norwood Avenue McVey. This McVey was nothing like this. I think I might have even dreaded coming in the beginning. I mean, you can't even put it in the same sentence or in the same realm as what I'm looking at right now. So hashem over the years the community has grown by leaps and bounds and the observance of mishba hashem has blossomed and the building was starting to take its toll and renovation was mandatory at that point I was at an engagement party and I saw a lease she said uh you want a job and as a joke I said only if it's holy and she goes it's the mikvah I go oh and she brought me on board to this most spiritual beautiful mitzvah Uh, as time went on, I did realize though there was not a lot of girls coming. And then I would hear maybe they went to an ocean or whatever it was. Our little mikvah needed to be updated. It needed to be beautified. Everything we do is a cut above. And the mikvah has to be an extra cut above. I worked for someone years ago that was very involved in doing mikvas. and seeing all the projects that he did in the past. I saw the level that a mikvah could be at and it was ironic cuz in our community everything is to the max and I felt like our mikvah were not there. Now it's amazing to see all these thank you notes like we get comments like it's a slice of heaven. Thank you. I never thought that the mitzvah could be like this. It's not so appetizing to go to a mikvah that's not beautiful and sparkling and clean. From the beginning of time, mikvah was always a beautiful place for women and especially today because that's the sense that we want to bring home to the family. When talking to young married brides, I know they look very forward to the going to the mikvah each month to be able to be part of the mitzvah. A girl came in from a little out of town one night and she was all red and she was flustered. One of the attendants said, "Uh, are you okay?" She's like, "Really? I have to tell you, I hate coming to the mikvah." By the time this girl left the building, she was glowing. And she tells us all the time, "You don't know how you transformed my life." We really gutted the entire building. There's all new lighting, all new plumbing, the way that the pools are, the lighting in the pools. We redid all the tile. There's a new salon room. We made the rating room better. We wanted them to feel like a princess at every point in the building from the minute that they pulled in to the minute that they left. Each patron that comes is going to be accorded the same amount of respect every single time that she comes. Whether it's her first time after the wedding or she's married for 40 years. For women struggling with infertility, the mikvah can serve as a very deep meaningful place to pray and a place where they can seek spiritual support. We always try to accommodate everybody no matter what time it is because we are the community mikvet. There's three special people that made that beautiful, gorgeous mikvet possible. My dear friend Deborah, my dear friend Maurice, and my dear friend Eddie. All three of you made the mikvah day and night like your own home. You decorated the most magnificent way. You put your heart. I remember Maurice and the entire crew, Elise, Ellen, Victoria, taking road trips to go visit all the different mikvot around and to see what everybody else offers and to make sure that when they build this mcvet that it was the top of the line in every regard. Just so much love and care and detail went into every single solitary decision. There's really a lot more to go to maintain this beautiful building and to keep going to finish the project to get involved in this type of mitzvah. The foundation of all blessings come from this very mikvah that we are sitting in today. I pray that everyone who's involved in it should be blessed and should see endless blessing and a lifetime of goodness. I want to promise each one of us that will come and support the mikvet that they will see a special blessing in their life. They will see Syata and B isem very soon we will be purified by Akadoshu himself and we will greet Mashiach all of us together. [Music]