Margalit Har-Shefi Says Public Scrutiny Felt Like Weapons, Marks New Book Launch

Margalit Har-Shefi has released a new book of interpretations and ideas on the Book of Leviticus, titled "Heveani HaMelech," and discussed it in an interview on Channel 7. She said the book grew out of both her personal struggles and a long process of writing, after years in which her life was consumed by public attention around the Rabin assassination and then largely absent from the media.

Har-Shefi described that period as one of growth mixed with pain. "We cannot hide that each wagon of trials brought a lot of pain," she said. Recalling the sudden media frenzy, she said, "I remember that landing when suddenly dozens of cameras were on me, I felt as if hundreds of weapons were pointed at me," adding that what others read as arrogance or detachment was, for her, a defensive attempt to hold on to the truth until it would emerge.

She said she felt defamed and publicly misrepresented. "They spilled my blood, spread false accusations against me, said things I never said, places I was never in, and did it in the most public way possible," she said. Even so, she added, she was sustained by the faith rooted in her since childhood that God directs events, even when they are hard. Her "charging stations" were prayer, Shabbat, Torah, tears, and conversations with people.

Har-Shefi said the pain never fully disappeared, because the issue was larger than her own case and continued to affect many others, even entire communities. From that reality, she said, the book on Leviticus was born. She explained that she could not have written it, or her other books, without personally enduring what she went through, and she sees Torah as transforming a person from brutishness to humanity in service of all creation.

She also described how she began writing after a moment of forgetfulness, when she blanked on a Torah insight about Parashat Shelach and realized she needed to write ideas down, even briefly, so they would not be lost. She initially wanted to publish anonymously to make the book easier to receive among Torah learners, but the Beit El publishing house said that was impossible, so she agreed to put her name on it. She said her goal is to make the laws, principles, and secrets of this difficult book accessible to modern readers.