She immersed fully three times, holding her breath as long as she could, at peace in the warm, natal waters that demanded nothing of her, no price of her body. The waters buoyed her up and held her in her oneness, her aloneness. In the waters of the mikveh women tried to bring themselves closer to a godly purity, but for Rina, alone in the water, it was when she felt most fully realized, almost redeemed. She displaced the water and the weight of her mattered; the water knew the curves of her body and the depths of her mind and held her without reproach: la’da’at, to know.
