Washing hands occupies an important place in the everyday life of highly observant traditional Jews. An authoritative 16^th century law code lists some of the bodily acts that require washing: getting out of bed, leaving a lavatory or bathhouse, paring one’s nails, removing one’s shoes, touching one’s feet, engaging in sexual relations, etc. Though hand washing may seem trivial, it was seen as so important that this particular code includes a dire warning: “If someone performed one of these acts and did not wash his hands afterwards, then, if he is a Torah scholar he will forget his knowledge and if he is not a Torah scholar he will go out of his mind.”* Hands must also be washed before reciting particular daily prayers and before eating any meal that includes bread. In addition, some wash hands after a meal. All such ablutions are followed by the same blessing: “Blessed are You our God, Sovereign of the universe who has sanctified us with His commandments and has commanded us to wash hands.” For the second washing during the Seder we recite the same blessing.

Many of these customs derive from a larger set of ancient water rituals —ablutions — that were believed to restore the state of ritual purity required to enter the Temple.* To guard against impurity, priests in the Temple washed their hands and feet and on certain occasions completely immersed themselves in a mikveh, a pool filled with “living waters” from a freshly flowing stream. After the Temple had been destroyed, prayer developed as a substitute for animal sacrifices. It thus became customary to wash before prayer just as priests had washed before offering up sacrifices. Given the prominence of ablutions in Temple ritual, it’s not surprising that the only priestly rite surviving from that time — the Priestly Blessing — includes ritual washing. Members of the congregation who are descendants of the priestly tribe Kohanim remove their shoes. Levites, descendants of the tribe of Levy, then pour water over the hands of the Kohanim.* The Kohanim raise their hands in a special position and bless the congregation: “May God bless you and keep you. May God make His face shine upon you and be gracious to you. May God lift up His countenance upon you and grant you peace” (Numbers 6:24-26).

Traditional Jews still use a mikveh. Women immerse at the end of their monthly menstrual cycle and after the birth of a child. Men do so on the day of their wedding and prior to a son’s circumcision. In some communities men and women use the mikveh before holidays and the Sabbath. Conversion to Judaism also requires immersion, signifying the convert’s spiritual rebirth.

Prior to ritual immersion the body must be completely clean. Likewise hands must be clean before ritual washing. This highlights the fact that the primary purpose of these water rituals is spiritual, not physical. Although the ancient laws of ritual impurity did not equate impurity with immorality, certain biblical sources did draw these connections. Thus we wash not just to ready ourselves to serve God, but to symbolically cleanse ourselves of wrong-doing. “Your hands are stained with crime. Wash yourselves clean. Put your evil doings away from My sight. Cease to do evil . . .” (Isaiah 15-16). And we wash to dignify the body God has entrusted to us.

The spiritual purpose of immersion becomes readily apparent once you know that “mikveh” can also mean “hope” and that Jeremiah (17:13) calls God, mikveh Yisrael, “hope of Israel.” Immersion in the mikveh symbolizes bathing in hope, allowing God to completely envelop you, emerging re-born from living waters. Likewise, a detail associated with hand washing reveals its spiritual purpose. After washing, you raise your hands, fingers pointed upward. “Lift your hands to the sanctuary,” says the psalmist, “and bless the Lord.”*

As ritual washing occupies a prominent place in the life of a Jew, it plays a special role in the rituals associated with death. After leaving a cemetery, Jews customarily wash hands because of ancient beliefs that the dead impart impurity. And the dead also undergo an ablution called taharah, ‘cleansing,’ or ‘purification’. First the body is carefully washed, then it is held upright and 24 quarts of water are poured over the head.* As this purification proceeds, members of the burial society or chevra kadishah (literally, “holy society”) recite a verse from the Bible: “Then I will sprinkle clean water upon you and you shall be clean. From all your uncleanness and from all your idols will I cleanse you” (Ezekiel 36:25).* When we leave this world to return to God our body and soul should be as pure as when we entered it. “As he came out of his mother’s womb, so must he depart . . .” (Ecclesiastes 5:15).