“I will keep going to the mikvah. It’s not so bad. I even sometimes enjoy it—all that pampering, the long baths, the lovely soaps and creams afterward. And the mikvah I go to is so clean and pretty, and the attendants are friendly and not intrusive. They treat the whole thing so modestly. But all the rest of it … Why should having my period, which is such a natural thing for a woman, make me feel like an outcast, like I’m unclean, untouchable? It’s disgusting. I hate it.”

“Oh, finally, the good girl has reached her limit. Congratulations!”

“I don’t understand why you’re not shocked and disappointed.”

“Don’t you think women like me who are born into haredi families and grow up in that world have the same feelings about certain things? Especially some of the more stringent rabbinical decrees that were dreamed up in the Middle Ages? The lives of modern women are so removed from all that.”

“So what is the solution, Shoshana?”

“I’m not going there, even for you, my friend. As they say, consult your local Orthodox rabbi. But in your case, I’d say talk it over with your husband. He’s spent twenty years learning Talmud in kollel. If anyone can tell you what the true halachic limits are, he can.”

“But what if he takes a very hard line and won’t budge?”

“How much do you love him?”

“How wide is the ocean? How many stars are in the sky?”

Shoshana shrugged.

“But that’s irrelevant. It’s not a question of love. It’s a question of life. My life. It’s degrading! I can’t do this to myself! I became religious to live a higher, purer life. This feels like the opposite, like I’m turning into some woman in a mud hut, put in purdah because I’m menstruating. It’s primitive, and it’s ugly. I’m not doing that, Shoshana. Not because I don’t love God, or love my husband, or the Torah. But because I can’t do it and still be who I am. And if after knowing how I feel, Yaakov still insists on it, I don’t know how I’m going to feel about him and our life together.”

For the first time, Shoshana looked shocked.

“You understand? That’s the reason I’m terrified to talk to him about it, why I keep putting it off.”

“But not talking about it isn’t a solution either, my friend.”