Out of the 613 mitzvahs in the Torah, there are three that are considered the foundational block of observant Judaism: kashrut, Shabbat and taharat hamishpacha (family purity). While most are relatively familiar with the first two, the third — family purity — remains a bit of a mystery, often perceived as outdated, strange and even anti-woman. For local educator and relationship counselor Rochel Goldbaum, it is the exact opposite.
For decades, Goldbaum has been teaching kallah classes, in her communities, but also at retreats and seminars across the country.
A kallah class is something a Jewish bride undertakes prior to marriage, to learn about the laws of taharat hamishpacha. (There is a parallel class for Jewish grooms.)
Jewish family purity laws, like so much else in Judaism she says, are based on rhythm and cycles. For women, whose bodies are innately connected to cycles, “it works in harmony with her hormones, feelings and emotions.
“If we understand the world in a bigger picture, then [taharat hamishpacha] is the idea of synthesis and connection. For a couple, the rhythm of taharat hamisphacha means that they have part of the month where they press pause on the physical, intimate relationship, and they focus on the other aspects of the relationship. She goes through a five-step process, the last of which is the mikveh. She comes out of the mikveh. They unpause and reinstate the physical relationship. They are separating but then coming closer.
“The goal of the separation is the closeness, not the separation. That’s just a pathway to the closeness. Taharat hamishpacha allows both of them to appreciate the other and to be appreciated, to cherish and to be cherished.
“Taharat hamishpacha keeps you from forgetting that you are loved, that you love, that you’re appreciated, that you appreciate. It keeps your marriage on the front burner.”
In her classes, which run over the course of 10 to 12 weeks for 20 hours total, the laws of family purity are woven with big picture exploration of marriage: What is the goal of marriage? How can I benefit from marriage? She sums it up in a simple question: Where are you going?
“We start out, What is a Jewish marriage? Why did Hashem set up the world this way? What are we trying to accomplish through this?
“Once you know where you’re going,” she says, “everything is going to be a lot clearer and make a lot more sense. The rest is commentary.”
“Commentary” includes practical tips to maintain a healthy marriage and a relationship, as well as a healthy body. And that is where a core philosophy of Goldbaum’s comes in: self-improvement. Examining the self might seem counterintuitive when discussing marriage, which be definition is not an individual journey.
“I always say, ‘It takes two strong mes to make a we,’ so if the goal of marriage is to create a we, you want to have a strong me.”
For Goldbaum, “one of the goals of marriage is to become my best self through the existence of another. I’m not trying to fix him or rehabilitate my other half. I’m trying to become my best self.”
As a relationship counselor, Goldbaum sometimes encounters people who say following the laws of taharat hamishpacha is negatively impacting their marriage.
“I have a line,” says Goldbaum: “‘The issue is never the issue.’ Mikveh doesn’t make or break a marriage.
“A lot of the work that I try to do is getting to the root to find out what’s really going on, what story a person may be telling themselves.
“Marriage is a magnifying glass. It highlights whatever you bring into it. If you’re bringing in a bunch of problems and insecurities, it’s going to magnify that. If you’re bringing in love, compassion and caring, it magnifies that.”
Her goal: Marriages where both partners feel valued and appreciated.
Sometimes, women struggling with mikveh reach out to Goldbaum. Her first suggestion is that they learn more about it together. “How can you love something that you don’t know enough about? When you learn about a mitzvah,” she says, “you start to connect to it more and more. So you need to learn. And you’ll see that the emotions will change.
“That’s why I’m passionate about education,” she says.
Goldbaum brings decades of personal and professional experience to her work. She met her future husband, Yisroel Goldbaum, now Rabbi Yisroel Goldbaum and principal at Hillel Academy, during her post-high school year in Israel. After starting their married life in Lakewood, NJ, the family moved to Philadelphia, “which is where I started to blossom,” she says.
She worked at the Talmudical Yeshiva, better known as the Philadelphia Yeshiva, running its financial aid programs. But, she says with a chuckle, “When you are in a yeshiva and you’re capable, you end up with a lot of other jobs.”
“I started to grow in my role in the community as well,” she says. And when the community’s main kallah teacher moved, the yeshiva’s rebbetzin asked Goldbaum if she would consider stepping in. She didn’t accept immediately, but later that year, when the family was summering in the Catskills, Goldbaum met a kallah teacher who started training her. The rest, one might say, is history.
“I loved every minute of it and I became passionate about the topic.” But first, Goldbaum recognized, she wasn’t quite yet ready to instruct others and give them advice.
“I started to improve my own marriage and work on myself. Then I said, ‘OK; after a year of learning and growing into the person I wanted to be, I was able to really give that over to others.”
Goldbaum was only 28 years old, but in addition to having nearly a decade of marriage under her belt, as the daughter of a social worker, “relationships were in my blood,” she says. “I always loved to help people have better relationships.”
When the family moved to Ottawa, Canada, her work as an educator really took off. She became involved in outreach and started to teach women with little Jewish background about taharat hamishpacha and mikveh, eventually publishing two guides for what she calls “the divine system of family living,” one oriented to women with a strong Jewish education, the other for women who didn’t have that.
Speaking engagements, videos, classes and mikveh tours were all a natural outgrowth of her teaching.
The Goldbaums’ move to Denver eight years ago had a touch of serendipity. Not only because Yisroel Goldbaum grew up in Denver and always talked about the city. But Rochel Goldbaum had been invited by Aish of the Rockies to deliver a lecture on intimacy and shalom bayit. In the meantime, her husband was interviewed remotely by Hillel Academy. And when the school proposed an in-person visit, it overlapped with Goldbaum’s scheduled lecture at Aish.
“We came here together and I spoke and he interviewed and we both fell in love with Denver. And I guess they fell in love with us, too.”
The location also helped propel her career further. “Denver’s a hub. I’m in the center of the country and everything’s a direct flight. I’m on a plane every week, pretty much,” she says. Her children also aged out of living at home, which opened up Goldbaum’s schedule.
In addition to more speaking engagements, she expanded her work, including starting My Gift of Mikveh in New York, now running on its own, and CORE, a women’s group she co-founded with fellow Denverite Aliza Bulow.
And marriage counseling led to date coaching.
“I realized that if people were struggling in their marriages, I wanted them to make good choices when they were dating. If we can date productively and date effectively, then we can solve a lot of problems and prevent a lot of problems.
She calls her system the Directed Dating Approach.
“You can’t make good choices unless you have information. At heart, I’m a teacher, and I want people to have knowledge that they deserve. When you have knowledge, you can make great choices. That’s the way that I view everything that I do.”
She doesn’t want people to marry for the sake of marriage or out of societal pressures. “I want people to be in healthy relationships.
“People don’t make good decisions from fear and pressure. A lot of our daters today are acting and making decisions from fear and pressure. You want to make your decisions from ratzon, which means desire, and from knowledge. So that’s what I do as a dating coach. I help uncover their desire, and I give them knowledge.”
Her clientele isn’t limited to young first-timers.
She works with and has developed specific programs and approaches for what she calls an underserved constituency, those seeking remarriage, either because of divorce or death of a spouse. Goldbaum found that just as young people may be pressured, so too this demographic was pressured to quickly remarry.
“Maybe they’re grieving and they need three, four years to grieve and get their family in a good place before they start dating,” she says, which ties back into her focus on self-improvement, the “me” before the “we.”
“I didn’t want them to wind up in unhealthy relationships,” she says.
As a dating coach, she — and the 200 dating coaches she has trained — has a bird’s eye view that allows her to detect patterns and provide clarity. “I do a lot of turning on the lights for them along the way, a lot of connecting the dots.” Since she is not personally involved either as a matchmaker or a family member, “I have no agenda, I’m not emotionally involved. So I can offer objective direction and guidance.”
Goldbaum was raised in Englewood, NJ, the daughter of a former actor in New York’s Yiddish theater. (His debut role was Tevye’s six-year-old son in a production of Sholom Aleichem’s “Tevye der Milkhiker,” or “Tevye the Milkman.”)
Neither of her parents grew up with a Jewish education, but learned as adults and started their Jewish journey, eventually becoming observant, shortly after they were married.
While Goldbaum was raised observant and always attended Jewish day schools, a pivotal lesson she learned from her parents: the magic of Shabbat.
“My father used to say, ‘I don’t know how I ever lived without Shabbat.’” He called it his “lifesaver.”
“We’re very fragmented today,” says Goldbaum. “With phones, we’re always in three places.”
Like it was for her late father, who she describes as a “workaholic,” Shabbat “really keeps me going.”
While she doesn’t use the word workaholic to describe herself, Goldbaum acknowledges her packed calendar. But now that she works for herself, “when I want to clear space, I’m flexible,” whether for a date night or family hike.
Another key: She docks her phone by a deadline every night, outside of her bedroom.
“I talk to women and couples about creating space for your marriage, for your children. You have to carve out the time, because if you let it be organic, a hundred other things will pull you. But if you’re intentional about it, you can make it happen.”
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