Mikva: Immersing New Dishes With Gloves
Question
Hello rabbi can one wear rubber gloves when toveling kilim Thanks
Answer
Shalom!
Thank you for your question!
As you correctly imply, when immersing new eating utensils and dishesin a mikva, there must be no “chatzitza,” interposition, between the mikva water and the dishes.
Before discussing gloves directly, let’s briefly discuss the general immersion procedure. Even one’s hands could theoretically be a chatzitza if one holds the dishes too tightly when immersing them. As such, when immersing dishes directly with one’s hands one should be sure to hold them very loosely. When this is done carefully we can assume that the water reached the entire dish at once.
Even better is to wet one’s hands in the mikva water first and then immerse the dishes (loosely) with one’s wet hands. Even more meticulous (though not truly needed) is let go of the dish for a split second and then grasp it again. So too, one can immerse it and then pass it to the other hand under the water.
Many people use a basket in order to immerse multiple items at once. These baskets are full of holes and open spaces and one can therefore be assured that the water reaches all the vessels at once. Even so, one should attempt to give the basket a bit of a shake when it’s in the water and not fill the basket up too tightly.
Based on the above, there would be no problem immersing dishes while wearing gloves if you can be sure that your grip is loose. One should also wet one’s gloves with mikva water before beginning the immersion.
Source
Taz, YD 198:27
YD 120:2