This is based on a true incident, or as the Maggid might say, “A mayseh sheh hayah.”

North Miami Beach—The boy was sitting on the curb in front of the mikvah when Manny and Talia pulled up. They were there to toivel a frying pan and a carving knife in the keilim mikvah before these utensils could take their proud place in the Friedman kitchen. It should have been a quick drive for a routine ritual utensil dunk and then on to dinner at the local schwarma joint, maybe even a movie. But there was something so forlorn about this yeshiva boy.

He was sitting on the curb in his white shirt and black pants, with his tzitzis hanging out, looking like he had lost his last friend. As Manny walked up he noticed the boy’s wrinkled white button-down shirt was splashed with water in the front, and his sleeves were completely soaked up to the shoulders, with water dripping from his cuffs. In his right hand was a long stick.

“Hi,” Talia said to the boy.

“Hello.”

“I hope I’m not being too forward, but are you O.K.?”

“No, not really.”

A brief silence ensued. Talia sat down on the curb next to the boy.

“What seems to be the problem?” Manny asked.

“I lost my becher.”

“You lost it?”

“In the mikvah. I was toveling it, and I let go, and it sank to the bottom.”

“Is that why you have that stick?” Talia asked.

“Yes. I was trying to fish it out, but the mikvah is deep.”

It was true. It probably was not meant to be a philosophical statement on tevilat keilim, the ritual immersion of vessels, but when the Jewish community of North Miami Beach, Florida built their mikvah for keilim, they made it deep, and, thanks to the rainwater it collected, it was a bit murky. There was no way of visualizing the bottom of the cistern.

Manny and Talia walked inside with the boy to survey the mikvah and found what they expected. It was deep. It was murky. It was cold. The sun shone on the surface of the mikvah’s water from the open doorway and projected a ripple pattern on the walls.

Manny looked at the boy and at Talia and he smiled.

“What’s your name?” Manny asked.

“Yonie. Yonie Wasser.”*

“Yonie Wasser, where are you from?”

“New Jersey.”

“You’re a little far from New Jersey,” Talia observed.

“I’m dorming at Yeshivat Torat Emet,” Yonie said, pointing across the street.

“Well, Yonie Wasser from New Jersey, this is your lucky day. As fate would have it, this week’s parsha actually discusses the mitzvah of tevila, of ritual immersion. In Parshat Mattot, after Bnei Yisroel defeat the Midianites, Elazar the Kohen Gadol instructs the people to purify all the booty they took from the war. He says: Kol davar asher yavoh va’eish ta’aviru va’eish, vetaher ach bimei nidah yitchatah, vechol asher lo yavoh ba’eish ta’aviru vamayim. Everything that comes into the fire you shall pass through the fire and it will be purified, but it must be purified with the water of sprinkling. And everything that would not come into the fire, you shall pass through the water.

“Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch explains that the tevila of metal vessels is an expression of kedusha, of the moral sanctification of life, so that a Jew elevates the material enjoyment of his food through the mikvah process.

“So you see, Yonie Wasser from New Jersey, we’re going to utilize your sunken kiddush cup to elevate this moment. Stay here. I’ll be right back.”

And with that, Manny and Talia drove away (after dunking their pan and knife, of course).

Manny returned a few minutes later with a broom and a swimming pool implement with a net at the end (this is Miami, after all). With a few swishes and a lucky grab, Yonie Wasser from New Jersey had his becher back, pure and good as new.

Manny put his arm around the boy and gave him a squeeze. “Did you learn anything from this experience, Yonie?”

“Um, to keep a tight grip on my becher in the mikvah?”

“O.K., that will have to do for now. But I have a son-in-law in New Jersey who tells stories, and I’m sure he can make something out of this. I mean, it’s a mikvah story on Parshat Matot. What are the odds?”

“Whatever you say, Mr. Friedman.”

The boy returned to his yeshiva, and Manny Friedman flipped open his cell phone and dialed the Maggid.

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* Normally I change all the names to protect the innocent, but if you’re writing a mikvah story and the boy’s last name is Wasser, well, enough said. Thank you to my father-in-law, Dr. Morton Freiman for the story.

By Larry Stiefel