Read more
Zusatztext “Sometimes shocking! sometimes heartbreaking! sometimes very funny! Reva Mann’s story is a fascinating glimpse into a hidden world.”— Elle “Mann tells her story with genuine humor and self-deprecating wit! winning the sympathy of even disapproving readers. Mann’s coming-of-age story speaks directly to young people struggling with questions of family! faith and identity.”— Booklist “A gripping book! harrowing and devastatingly honest! as well as an important book.”—Naomi Alderman! author of Disobedience! winner of the 2006 Orange Award for New Writers Informationen zum Autor Reva Mann lives in Jerusalem with her three children. From the Hardcover edition. REPENTANCE How do you know if you have succeeded in repenting fully? You find yourself in a similar situation where you sinned in the past but now you do not sin. the Rambam, Hilchot Tshuva (Laws of Repentance) I stare through the library window at golden sunlight reflecting off white Jerusalem stone and long to be outdoors soaking up a tan. I want to head down to Tel Aviv Beach, strip off my baggy clothes, stretch out on the sands, and take a break from the rigid daily practice of soul-searching, prayer, and study required of us at the seminary. It is scorching hot and I imagine how cooling the Mediterranean waves would feel against my skin, how they would wash away the perspiration that is gathering on my scalp and dripping down my neck. But I know that sunning at the seaside is a pleasure from my old life, the carefree secular existence that I have willingly exchanged for the absolutes of ultra-Orthodox Jewish doctrine. Now I must keep strictly to the modesty laws and not reveal my body in public. Yet even though I pray and perform the mitzvot daily, I still find myself longing to wear blue jeans or worse, a bikini. The bikini I brought with me when I moved to Israel is now stuffed into the back of my wardrobe, but I doubt it would still fit me anyway. I have put on weight gorging on the kugel served at every Shabbes meal and the plates of cakes and sweets at all the engagement parties and weddings which are part of my new life. My slim body is now encased in a layer of blubber, and I hardly recognize myself when I stand naked in front of the mirror. My once flat stomach is protruding over formerly shapely legs that now melt into one another at the thigh, and chubby pads of flesh conceal what used to be high cheekbones. I have lost my looks. In the two years since I moved here from London, I have changed from a skinny, sexy girl to a dowdy matron. Luckily, the extra pounds are well hidden under the religious uniformlong, shapeless skirt, high-necked, long-sleeved shirt, and thick stockingsthat I wear even in this August heat. I know I am comfort-eating, substituting food for sex, chewing and swallowing for kissing and caressing. I feel a constant need for the solace of foods, even forbidden foods like succulent pink lobster flesh, for which I still have a craving. My gaze wanders to the far side of the library, past the lines of shelves housing the Five Books of Moses, the Prophets, the Talmud, the Midrash, and other scholarly texts to where Mrs. Hillman, my idol, role model of the holy Jewish woman, is sitting reading the Zohar. Nicknamed “Hilly” by us girls of the Light of Zion yeshiva, married by an arranged match and the mother of fourteen children, she is unbothered by outward appearances, never notices the cornflakes stuck to her wig or her mismatched clothes, and devotes her life to teaching Torah. There is an ethereal quality about her that makes her seem disconnected from the material world. I imagine she lives in the world of Yetzirah or even Malchut , the higher worlds she has taught us ab...
