Bat Mitzvah by Cami Simonsohn

On April 11, Cami Simonsohn received her tefillin as a gift from her community and put them on for the first time before the shacharit service. On Saturday, April 13, on Shacharit on Shabbat, he read his aliyah with ease and confidence and received a shower of candy from his family, friends and other members of the community. In his commentary on the parsha Cami spoke to us about the relationship established between the rituals of purity and freedom, and the difficulty of reconciling security and freedom, making references to the poet Jorge Manrique and the novel The Tale of the Margaret Atwood's maid, among others. As Cami told us, she decided with complete freedom to celebrate her Bat Mitzvah now, thanking the NOAM youth group of ATID for the possibility of seeing Judaism as a tradition and a common history, and not just as a religion. Kol haKavod, dear Cami!