She Refused to Change Her Body: A Powerful Lesson in Self Acceptance

There are moments in life when a person is called upon to make a decision that redefines who they are. For Shaloma Rivka Levine, a stage performer and well known actress who is 137.5 centimeters tall, that moment came when she was a 13 year old girl. At the time, she was presented with a dramatic medical proposal: to undergo a long and invasive limb lengthening procedure using screws, a process that would require many months in a wheelchair and difficult rehabilitation, all in order to add about ten centimeters to her height.

In an honest conversation about unexpected beginnings, Shlomit Rivka shares the moment she was reborn as an independent person who refused to bow to society’s conventions, along with her empowering message for anyone who feels the need to apologize for who they are.

My New Beginning

“At the age of 13, I was offered a medical procedure that was intended to lengthen my limbs using screws over the course of a year, in order to add about 10 centimeters to my height. That entire period would have required a wheelchair and complicated rehabilitation.

“At that moment, I knew how to say: ‘You are not going to decide what beauty is, and you are not going to teach me how I should look. This is me, and I love myself and accept myself as I am.’ Even though the suggestion came from a doctor, and even with encouragement from my mother, I knew I would not do that to myself. That refusal, at such a young age, became a turning point and a kind of rebirth. At that moment, I chose to begin my adult life not from an attempt to satisfy the molds of the world, but from a place of staying true to myself.”

“I understood that I could not and should not change what Hashem gave me just in order to fit into a box that other people defined as ‘normal.’ I felt that if I gave myself up for the sake of a few extra centimeters, I would lose the most precious thing I had, my self acceptance.”

“The struggle during that time was not simple at all. I had to know how to stand my ground and explain to people older than me, including the doctor and my mother, that I was good exactly as I was. I discovered how much faith gave me strength and helped me understand the simplest truth, at least for me, that the way Hashem created us is what is best for us.”

What Did I Gain Along the Way?

“The greatest gift I received was the ability, through my own experience and that stubborn refusal, to show others that society’s model of normalcy is complete nonsense. Today, through my acting career and everything I do, I strive to influence women and girls to know how to love themselves. I want to show them that external standards of beauty are the shallowest thing there is, and that every person is an entire world. That transition taught me to walk with tremendous pride, knowing that this is how I was created, and this is what is best for me.”

“May we all find our own unique path, and may no one be able to steer us away from it. May we succeed in stopping apologizing for who we are, and stop trying to force ourselves into external molds that do not belong to us. One thing is clear to me: when a person understands that the way Hashem created us is the most precise and right thing for us, only then are they truly free.”