Part 1:
I’m sitting in a classroom in my seminary in Jerusalem. I’m 17. Picture me with long curly curly hair, a black skirt that covers my knees and a kiki riki that covers my collarbones and elbows. Now picture 20 other girls that look exactly like that, studiously taking notes.
It’s about 8 months into my year of seminary where we spend all day in the rigorous pursuit of learning Torah, talmud, and Jewish law. Today, we are learning the Jewish law, halachot, of women.
My Rabbi, let's call him Rabbi Cohen, is teaching:
“The gemara in Shavuos daf lamed amud alef derives from a pasuk in devarim perek yud tes that women are not allowed to be eidim, be witnesses, in a Beit Din, a Jewish court of law.”
I feel a tightness in my chest and I raise my hand.
“Rabbi! So if a man kills a woman and me and another woman are the only witnesses, my testimony doesn’t matter? He can just get away with it just because I’m a woman??”
“Women are meant to be in the home, they’re meant to be in private life. It’s not tznius, not modest, for women to speak in front of a beit din,” he replies.
The tightness in my chest gets thicker. Inside I feel tears bubbling up, tears built up from so much hurt and rejection and pain. So many cases like this where women and queer people are relegated to the sidelines. How can a religion I love so much make me feel so bad?
Back then I was a woman. Today I feel more genderfluid - which just means that I wish I was Timothee Chalamet. Pronouns: chalathey/chalathem. Being genderfluid in Judaism is tough because there are just 2 genders: men, and people who sit behind men.
I run out of the classroom crying and I find one of my favorite teachers in her office. I confess to her my doubts about the religion. How I’m feeling inferior, second class, less than. Women are always behind, covering up, in the background. I don’t want to be in the background.
How can this be what Hashem wants? How can this be Torah?
She looks at me solemnly and she says,
“Rina the Torah is perfect. If you can’t accept it, there must be something wrong with you.”
And I believe her.
It is my last day of seminary. I say goodbye to Rabbi Cohen. I thank him for everything he taught me and I sincerely mean it. I am now dedicated to a life of being Orthodox. I feel the ol malchut shamayim, the yoke of heaven, on me and know it is my duty, my obligation, as a Jew to keep the halachot.
Even though deep inside I am so burdened by the weight of that yoke that I hate it. I hate that I’m Jewish. I secretly wish to find out that my great-great-great grandmother actually converted in a shtetl in Russia where they weren’t doing halachic conversions at the time and I’m actually not Jewish and therefore not obligated!
But in the meantime I believe with full faith that it is my duty as a Jew to follow strict halachic observance.