Weekly parashah: Vayiqra

My first homework was to write about the parashah Vayiqra.
I used to write about texts, painting, movies… in high school and university, but i never wrote about the religion and especially the Torah.
The wife of my Hebrew teacher insisted that we all tried to write something for a magazine online. That's why i said yes, i will write something.
I have a very little knowledge as you know, thus that was for me like climbing the mount Everest.
She was full of passion, and i was very happy to please her. She is very kind, generous and always helpful with Hebrew.

Old city, on his way to the Kotel, Yerushalayim, January 2015, ©emmarubinstein

That parashah is about sacrifices, and as being an almost vegetarian, that was very hard for me to read it.

I googled and found a few commentaries about that parashah. I found some Lubaba commentaries which explained the symbolic that made me feel better physically.

I sent my text to that woman and another rebbetzin. They are both Orthodox, wearing the wig.

The second one studies the Torah, and often writes about it. That's a person of huge knowledge.

I met her yesterday afternoon, after a class with her husband, to edit my text.

I didn't think that she had another job than to manage the Beth Midrash for women.

She talked on the phone about to leave her "cabinet" which means in French: lawyer office, accountant office, minister office or doctor office only.

In my class, none of the students knows my religious status. Why? I can't stand those looks, thus i avoid them by telling nothing. We are in the classroom for the same thing: to enjoy learning Hebrew and Judaism.

The only person who knows is my Torah teacher.

I felt, before meeting the rebbetzin who edited my text, that i had to spread the truth. That was weird. I met her once during an afternoon of study about Hanukah. I didn't feel special affinity with her. But i felt a deep kindness, and that she seemed to be a good listener.

Mea Shearim, Yerushalayim, January 2015, ©emmarubinstein

We sat in her office at the shul, and she thought that i was Jewish (because of my last name) but like if it was missing something. That's probably how i wrote the text which made her think that, or my style.

I hide my immodesty by keeping a fake fur scarf around my neck. I wear very colored tights and shoes with some black clothes. I am different from the other women. 

A student from my class told me the day before: "I like you a lot, you are farfelue*" (*airy-fairy). :-)
She knows that i am experimenting Judaism in many ways and shuls, like a bee gathering nectar and pollen. She doesn't know my personal Hasidic stories at all. Nobody knows at the shul, and you too, dear followers. :-)

I spread the truth, and she understood exactly what i felt.
She was sad to see the behavior of some Jews who reject strangers and converts. She was: "That's totally against the Torah". Those who refused to marry their children to converted, those who reject them, etc…
I told her that it was very hard for me to live as a Jew in Paris. We need more Jews, but they leave the country. To be a part of the community is not the best here.
She didn't give me advices, but her attention.
She was happy that i tried to write something. She was sorry that the weekly parashah was not the easiest one. I offered to write another one in two months, she agreed that i need a parashah with a story.
Man! She knew exactly which is the weekly parashah in two months. :-)
She will edited my text because we were short in time, and she will cosign.

I got back home and i googled her name to know what end the suspense of the word cabinet.
She is a psychoanalyst. I was not actually surprised. That's why she didn't give me advices except to avoid people who will reject me.
When i told her the story about my mom who didn't want me to say that my father was a Jew, she nodded her head like if she heard so many stories like mine: the trauma post-war…
I felt relieved by that Torah-py.

Mea Shearim, Yerushalayim, January 2015, ©emmarubinstein