Just the Way You Are
An interview with Rebecca Sigala
By Penina Taylor
Researcher Brené Brown was launched into fame in 2010 when her TED talk on the topic of shame touched such a nerve that the video went viral. It’s a topic that resonates with each and every one of us because it’s part of the human experience. But what made her message even more compelling is that it was coupled with the concept that we need to learn how to love ourselves and to not only recover from devastating mistakes and poor choices but to accept them and to see the imperfect parts of ourselves as being exactly what makes us perfect.
This message, that being imperfect, different, or “out of the box” is the essence of perfection and is perfectly beautiful, especially in the context of Judaism, rests at the core of my vision for Unorthoboxed. And so for our very first feature, I wanted to interview someone who really embodied that message through her life and her work.
Although the list of possibilities was huge – there are really so many amazing women out there, doing incredible things, and balancing their uniqueness with a commitment to Torah – one woman definitely stood out. Rebecca Sigala, boudoir photographer and body positivity advocate, in so many ways embodies both the women we represent and the women we hope to become. Stunningly beautiful on the outside, her inner beauty is so excruciatingly bright it completely eclipses the external. She is young, and yet wise beyond her years, having discovered not only how to have that inner peace that we all strive for and yet eludes most of us, but how to impart it to others. She is not only comfortable with her own self, although she readily admits that it’s something she works on constantly, she helps other women to become comfortable with themselves and to see the beauty that their imperfections add to, not subtract from.
As a woman old enough to be her mother, I left our interview stunned and in awe of who had just sat before me on the screen, and in that moment I knew I had made the right choice.
I started the interview by asking Rebecca about her relationship with Judaism. She giggled in response, as that’s not as simple a question as it seems at first blush. Rebecca grew up in a Conservative Jewish home in Minneapolis where she was very connected to her Jewishness. In high school she created a JSU (Jewish Student Union), and wanting to grow in her connection to her Judaism, sought out a learning partner through Partners In Torah, a program that pairs people who want to learn more about Judaism with those who volunteer to teach.
As a result of her learning, she began to become more connected to the spiritual side of Judaism. And so, after high school she came to Israel where she studied at a seminary in Tsfat. Searching for that magic something that would fix all her problems, she jumped in at the deep end and looking back now realizes that in her excitement she took on more than was actually good for her and who she was.
Rebecca refers to her relationship to Judaism as a journey, which at times has meant being stricter or less strict in a variety of areas. But she is quick to point out that Shabbat, Kashrut, and spirituality are important to her and Yehoshua, her husband of 13 years. She is careful to mention that people are complex and she doesn’t want to put a label on her Judaism, that her relationship with Hashem is growing and ever evolving.
Both Rebecca and her husband are artistic, which probably explains why they settled in Tsfat after getting married at a young age. At first, Yehoshua was the photographer and Rebecca, with a background in fashion, worked with him doing styling, and assisting him with the creative elements of the photoshoots. The more she worked with her husband, the more she realized that he was telling a story through his work, and that really appealed to her, so she started learning the technical side of photography,
So how did she end up doing boudoir photography? Rebecca and her husband had been doing mostly events – weddings and bar mitzvahs, and the like – when she came across this thing called boudoir photography. She instantly felt drawn to it because it involves a combination of so many creative elements, but also, the luxury aspect of it. So many women don’t take the time to pamper themselves, and really feel beautiful.
After doing a test shoot for a few of her friends, she decided to create a Facebook page and the response was incredibly positive. Women wanted boudoir sessions where they could not only be pampered, but get to see themselves in a new light.
You might think that women who would want intimate photos would be secular, used to being undressed to some degree, and to seeing themselves in more of a sexual light. But Rebecca says that half of her clients are Orthodox – religious women who are used to dressing modestly. So I asked her why religious Jewish women would want such a thing when the only people that would ever see the photographs are the women themselves and their husbands.
Rebecca responded that therein lies the beauty of what she does. What is so empowering about the boudoir experience is that it’s something her clients do for themselves, not for anyone else, even their husbands. During our interview Rebecca recalled one of her early clients who was nervous about her session, but by the end of it was feeling very free and open. She told Rebecca that the session made her feel like a woman – that she had never really connected to that femininity that she had inside of her, and she was actually in tears.
It was that moment, Rebecca says, that helped her to see how transformational the boudoir sessions could be. That they could be a way for women to see themselves in a different light, and in some cases, to create a space for healing.
Rebecca says that the world – our parents, our faith, our community, the media – is constantly bombarding us with these messages telling us we are supposed to be a certain way. They want to literally box us in! And we think that in order to be loved and accepted – to be “okay”, we have to conform to those messages. But in many cases, they contradict each other, which just adds to the confusion of what it is we actually need to be. The boudoir sessions give a woman the opportunity to explore different sides of herself and do something that is a little bit outside of her comfort zone but in a safe and private environment.
In this regard, Rebecca says, secular and religious women are the same – the woman is in complete control of the session and what is being photographed, and it’s about having the space to express yourself in a feminine and sexual way. For religious women who dress modestly in their everyday life, opportunities for this type of expression are rare and it can be extremely powerful.
Rebecca recalls in her early days being stopped on the street by a woman who said that she wanted to tell her something about the work she’s doing. Not knowing where the woman was headed, she started to get a little nervous but then the woman told her, “You’re doing avodat kodesh (holy work)”. That message has really stuck with her, that her work is a sacred endeavor and she wants every session to be as unique as the woman herself – that she feels it is aligned with her own values and that she is empowered by it. There’s no contradiction between one’s relationship with Hashem and one’s relationship with their own body. We are both spiritual and sexual beings and it’s okay to explore and celebrate that.
She does find though, that some women have experienced a sort of religious “trauma”, having grown up in religious communities that don’t know how to talk about bodies and tzniut. There’s a lot of shame around our bodies and sexuality, but the distinction between privacy and shame is either blurred or completely non-existent. In some community cultures, even just getting undressed and looking at your body is forbidden, and with a boudoir session, women get to explore themselves in a healthy way that is in a private and safe space.
Does she get a lot of haters from the Jewish community? She says in the beginning she did. Now that she’s been doing this for eight years, not as much. She has been accused of being a pornographer, and she’s gotten phone calls telling her what she’s doing is not okay. But interestingly, as she’s honed in on her mission and the importance of what she’s doing and stepped into that vision, she has gotten much less flak. And her Facebook community currently has over 3,500 women, many of whom started out skeptical but have grown to become supporters, and in some cases, clients.
When asked about a transformational story, she spoke about a client who had experienced sexual abuse as a child, had been on a healing journey, including therapy, and her boudoir photography session was the next step on her healing journey. Rebecca recalls how fully present and free she was during the session.
Recently, Rebecca’s online presence has shifted focus from being focused solely on boudoir photography to include body positivity and self-acceptance. I asked Rebecca about that, and she explained that over the years as she worked with hundreds of women, she’s realized that every single woman struggles with body image. She says she’s never had a single woman come to her that didn’t have some story or insecurity about her body. It’s unfortunate and she wishes she could say differently, because she looks at these women and thinks, “You are just so beautiful, how can you not see it?” But then she realized that even though she can see other women as beautiful, and she can have so much compassion and love for their bodies, she doesn’t do the same for herself. That realization started her on her own self-love journey. The healing that she personally experienced was something she wanted to share with other women – to help them learn how to love their own bodies, exactly how they are, and not feel like they have to change anything.
This desire to have an impact gave rise to her creating a body positivity course which she now offers online. The course, Rebecca says, encompases everything that she values, and incorporates all the things that she has learned over the years, not only from her own journey, but from the women she has worked with.
You do not need to change anything about your body, you are amazing, you are beautiful and you are worthy, exactly how you are.
– Rebecca Sigala
Rebecca says it’s been incredible to see the women who take her course go from, in some cases, self-loathing thoughts to looking in a mirror and actually liking what they see. That transformation is incredible to witness, and that drove her to create even more content focused on body positivity. She wants to disconnect the idea that the way that we look is equal to our worth as a human being.
She also likes to point out that our bodies are always changing – as we have children and as we age – changing, yes, but really evolving. Our bodies evolve as we evolve as people, as we become the people that we are meant to be. Every stage is beautiful.
Her message to women is simple and to the point, “You do not need to change anything about your body, you are amazing, you are beautiful and you are worthy, exactly how you are.” And her goal is to help women to be able to see themselves that way.
Rebecca Sigala lives in Israel with her husband and three children but is available to travel. For more information, you can contact Rebecca at rebecca@rebeccasigala.com
Photo credit: All photos in this article are by permission of Rebecca Sigala