At 23 Rivka (not her real name) encapsulates in her very person the mosaic and paradox that is the Jewish people. Actually, Rivka is her real name but not her original name, her given name is Ravid (necklace) but when her brother went to Rav Kanievsky to ask for a bracha for her, the Rav added the name Rivka. The name felt foreign to Ravid so she went to speak to Rav Kanievsky’s daughter, Rebbetzin Kolodetsky, who said that she didn’t have to keep Rivka, it was just a suggestion because the letters are similar. But Ravid now Rivka said, “Who am I to second guess Rav Kanievsky?” And kept the name.
It all started when Rivka was 19. Well, it actually started before, when her older brother became haredi, but that didn’t have an impact on her. Before the army, Rivka spent a year at Mechinat Amichai at Kibbutz Kramim in the northern Negev, where both boys and girls attend and among them was a smattering of what is termed dati lite kids. They offered two Kabbalot Shabbat, one for secular with guitar et al. and one for religious, which was à la Carlebach.
Like so many others before her, Rivka was enchanted with the Carlebach minyan and she felt very connected to it. “It felt like I was part of the Exodus from Egypt.” That was the beginning of her journey to authentic Judaism.
Later, when she served in the army as a sergeant, she was exposed to many national religious soldiers, with whose quality and refinement she was very impressed and she felt this was the truth. She also had a national religious boyfriend and the combination of the Torah of Israel with the land of Israel was the way she decided she wanted to live.
After her army service, and an additional year in intelligence in the regular army, she spent a year at Midrasha and is about to start a law degree at Ono College, a haredi college with separate classes for women.
“My mother raised us to independence, all of us,” Rivka says, which certainly plays itself out in the fact that all three children have taken a different path. Her older brother is haredi and her sister is secular. Amazingly independent, Rivka lives in an apartment with roommates in Jerusalem and works long hours as a waitress to pay her way through school. When she had more time, she studied ballet in a dance school for religious girls. In between, she tries to fulfill the blessing Rav Kanievsky gave her to marry and start a family.
Rivka’s mother also took an interest in Judaism and attended classes with her daughter and became shomeret Shabbat. To add to an already colorful family dynamic, both her sister and brother (both married) are albino. Her father is out of the picture.
Rivka wants to become a lawyer for a non-profit that would allow her to help the unfortunate and leave her time to devote to her family. She consulted with a rav who said there would be no problem finding a position with fewer hours than in a law office because she believes that the home and family come first. “Hashem will help me,” she says confidently.
Rivka’s friends are waiting for this newfound religious phase to pass, but Rivka is happy where and who she is, combining her love for Eretz Yisrael with Torat Yisrael.
“Ein lanu eretz acheret” (we have no other land), Rivka says. One of her classmates from high school, Omri Tal, Hy”d, was an officer in the armored corps of the IDF and was killed in the recent Operation Protective Edge in Gaza. “This really brought home to me what we are living for, not only saying that we have no other land but sacrificing for our land, whether it’s with our lives in war or by building new settlements or even just by living our day-to-day lives in Israel and of course by learning the Torah.”