The Mikvah Diggers

I was looking through some of my old files recently and I came across this thing I wrote a while back. Unfortunately there are only about 15-20 people who will truly appreciate this and I'm pretty sure not more than 2 of them are reading this blog.
Oh well, I hope you enjoy it.

Fri. 8:07 am: they stood around waiting anxiously, How will he react? will he like it? Will he be upset? Will his reaction be as expected?

He walked down the dimly lit stairs, across the dank brick hallway, through the low doorway into the boiler room. A lone light bulb, hanging by a wire from one of the many pipes on the ceiling, revealed a gaping hole where the floor once stood. As he took in the scene before him a wide smile slowly broke out across his face, “you guys are crazy, absolutely nuts” he said “oh well, now that you started you’re gonna have to finish”

“Tzomoh lecha nafshi… lir’os uzcha ukvodecha “ sounds of the singing wafted out of the basement window shattering the quiet of the Wilkes-Barre night. As the Thursday night Farbrengen slowly dwindled down the conversation shifted towards the latest news, the remodeling of the Mikvah in Kingston. “how could they just shut it down?” asks a bochur. “yeah that’s just wrong” replies another, “it doesn’t make any sense, why do they have to gut the old one now if they aren’t gonna rebuild it until after they build the new wing?” “especially without warning” chimes in a third, “they could have told us before this week that they’re shutting it down tomorrow morning”

However the real question was how are the bochurim going to go to Mikvah? Scranton? Too far for anyone other than Pinye. The Susquehanna river? Too cold for anyone other than Pinye. (not to mention the legal ramifications) JCC pool? Too full that time of day. “don’t worry” said Pinye, “the Aibeshter will help” “Uri is working on getting a hot tub” adds Yirmi “if that works out we should have our own Mikvah in a few days”. however, most of the bochurim remain skeptical, Ber seemed to express the general feeling best: “oh sure, when I see the hot tub I’ll believe it”

Despair begins to set in. the only real solution is to have our own Mikvah, but when considering the cost that seems to be no more than a dream.

“You know” says Avi “we should dig a hole in the basement like they did in Russia.” “great idea” muses Chester “just don’t let the KGB catch you” “well its been done before” Pinye exclaims excitedly “for many years the Tzfas yeshiva had no Mikvah, hanholo was always telling the Bochurim that they are about to build it. Finally the bochurim decided they had enough, they decided to take matters into their own hands and got together one night and stated digging in the basement, the Hanholo decided they would rather it get done right and finally built the Mikvah.”

“Hey, we should do that here” says lefty turning to Avi, “what do you think?” “yeah I think it’s a great idea” answers avi “and where exactly do you plan to do it?” “oh we could do it anywhere” answers lefty, “we could do it right here” he says, pointing to the ground. Avi, on the other hand, doesn’t think Uri would appreciate a Mikvah in the dining room. “interesting you should come up with this now” comments Yirmi “mamosh hashgachacha protis, just this morning I happened to have been in the boiler room and I noticed that there is space about 5’ by 5’ without cement, perfect size to dig a Mikvah. In fact I spoke to Uri about it today, actually he says he likes the idea in theory but it seems too complicated.”

Avi & Lefty turn and look at each other, “shall we?” asks Avi? “I know where there is a shovel” answers Lefty “are you sure Uri wont kill us?”

After several minutes of discussing if Uri would like it or not Chester suddenly asks “what happened to Avi & Lefty?” “I think they actually went to start digging” answers Ber.

A quick walk down the stairs of the dorm finds avi and lefty in the boiler room digging a hole in the ground. Slowly reality began to sink in, we’re building a mikvah, we’re really gonna do it! “chevra we’re building a mikvah” the cry reverbrates throughout yeshiva, spreading like wildfire. “ay ya ya we’re building a mikvah” (t.t.t.o. throw him in the mikvah) the singing and dancing begins as the room begins filling up with bochurim. Cameras & a video camera appear. As the bochurim take turns with one little shovel and a few small buckets, a hole slowly starts to take shape.

Eli suddenly remembers that he still needs to do kiddush levana.

“uh, anybody know what we’re doing with all this dirt?” asks Avremel, pointing to the small pile of dirt in the corner which by now is occupying about ¼ of the room. “simple” says Ber “lets get some garbage cans, fill them up with dirt and dump them outside” Yanky is not as sure “yeah right Uri is going to kill us” “I don’t know” says Yirmi “I’m not taking responsibility for this one” “yeah if uri doesn’t kill us Mendy definitely will” adds Chester. Thankfully common sense prevailed and the dirt was hauled outside. “You know” muses Eli “there’s this really cool invention they came out with recently, its called a wheelbarrow”. At least price chopper is open 24 hours. A special thanks to those who sponsored the refreshments.

Many sore arms and strained backs later, the 2 corners that were filled with huge piles of dirt now contained… 2 huge piles of dirt. Dingel cant figure it out “in theory with the amount of guys we have here we should be able to shlep out the dirt faster than they could dig it out” nova disagrees “my back is already broken, I cant carry any more barrels right now”. as the night passes the crowd slowly dwindles down, the hole reaches the desired depth and all the free space in the room is now full of dirt. “we gotta get this dirt out of here” says lefty. Nobody seems to have much of an interest in schlepping more barrels of dirt. Chester has a better idea “why don’t we just throw it straight out the window?” Yirmi and Avi think that’s a great idea “you couldn’t mention that earlier?”.

“so what do you think Uri will say?” is the big question. the opinion is unanimous “he’s gonna laugh and say we’re crazy, he’s gonna think we totally went off the deep end.” Mendy on the other hand is gonna flip out. Pinny is going to be dancing for joy.

8:00am, the hole was finished, the dirt had been removed, many a cup of coffee was downed. Yirmi and Avi make use of the couches in the lobby to catch a few minutes of rest. Eventually Uri walks in “what's up?” he asks the guys “what’s going on?’ “uh.. um… I think you should check out the basement” stammers Avi “why?” Uri wants to know “what happened?” “I think you should just check out the basement first” answers Yirmi. Uri shakes his head in frustration and heads towards the basement. “I don’t think I could bear to go watch this” says avi “yeah neither could I” agrees Yirmi, Mordy, on the other hand, has no problem going down to see Uri’s reaction. Which brings us to the beginning of the story.

“Uri likes it” the word spreads like wildfire through the building as those in the yeshiva that actually got a little sleep drag their aching bones out of bed and into the shul for shacharis. After shacharis and a few long phone calls the verdict is out: we still need to dig another 3 feet down as well as expand the length three feet.

Half the yeshiva goes on a shabbaton and shabbos comes in real early in the winter. But still the guys manage to get a nice amount of work done. As soon as shabbos is out the guys get right to work. By now there are a few more tools to work with, instead of just one shovel and two little buckets there is a shovel (there were 2 briefly but one broke), a little gardening shovel, 4 little buckets and a sledgehammer. The work doesn’t get any easier as the hole gets deeper, by the time the guys get back from the shabbaton they barely recognize the place “wow you guys really dug a lot since we left” comments ??? of course they did have some extra help, thank you Gary & Shlomo. by now the guys in the hole could use a break but somehow manage to continue on working late into the night.

Sunday comes along and someone finally decides that a wheelbarrow and pickax would be a good idea. After an adventurous trip to home depot (what are you guys doing with that stuff? “oh nothing much we just have a couple of bodies we need to get rid of”)-not to mention a 45 minute search for the wheelbarrows, we go high tech: a decent shovel, a pickax and wheelbarrow. By now the digging would’ve really been moving along had we not been digging through thickly packed rocks, coal and clay with a little bit of dirt mixed in. luckily the hole reaches the desired dimensions before anyone gets a hernia.

well this is as far as I got. Maybe one day I'll finish it (yeah right, don't hold your breath)

to make a long story short the mikvah was eventualy finished. In fact, by now it's pretty nice.
iy"h I'll post some before and after pics if i can track them down.