"Living with our dead" by Delphine Horvilleur: the reasons for an astonishing bookstore success

It begins with a funny yet very sad story.

Leaving the cemetery, January 15, 2015, where she officiated as rabbi (or rabbi, she accepts both formulations) at the funeral of Elsa Cayat, psychiatrist, psychoanalyst and columnist of Charlie Hebdo, murdered with Charb, Wolinski, Cabu and the others a few days earlier, Delphine Horvilleur was approached by the designer Jul, who whispers to her with a wink: "If the attacks continue, I want to reserve you for my funeral, that will make my mother very happy." whether it is you ... "

If the voice of this committed woman - she is one of the only female rabbis in France - seduces and appeases as much, her writing too.

“Living with our dead, a little treatise of consolation”, his 7th book, released on March 3, has already reached a circulation of 50,000 copies, and this is probably only the beginning, since it has continued to grow. rise in the top of sales and can be found next to the checkouts in many bookstores.

The author, 46, a former journalist who became a rabbi after extensive training in the United States, has a unique tone to touch her audience.

“RabbiDelphine”, his nickname on Twitter, has forged a link with a wider audience.

Thanks to a new approach.

"She dares to say really things"

Marie, a retiree, has been following her for a long time but particularly liked “Living with our dead”, offered by her daughter, and which she never stops lending.

“The title can be scary.

But it's not a sad book, she says.

It is between tale, exegesis and confession.

Delphine Horvilleur really says it right.

She's always been good at it.

The rabbi often takes the stage or tells funny little scenes.

During the funeral of Simone Veil, for example, where she officiated at the request of the family, next to the Chief Rabbi of France, she first stands in the courtyard of the Invalides, awaiting the speech of the President of the Republic, Emmanuel. Macron.

Next to her stands her friend Marceline Loridan-Ivens, very close to Simone Veil with whom she was deported to Auschwitz-Birkenau, while being her absolute opposite in many areas.

"Hey, if I light a firecracker right now, is that a problem according to you?"

»Slips him to joke the old lady, filmmaker and convinced sixty-eight.

“Living with our dead” is full of small details full of life, the unexpected and sometimes funny, at the heart of the most serious moments.

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Simone Veil told by her grandchildren

But the author also dares to talk about her.

When a man has to bury his deported mother alone, of whom he does not know so many secrets, Delphine Horvilleur is at first stunned by this loneliness, before forging a link with his own family history.

One of the book's most poignant passages is also a visit to the Jewish cemetery of a desecrated Alsatian village, which made headlines, where she (re) discovers her own lineage.

The essayist also evokes the loss of one of her best friends, victim of cancer.

History or current events become an essential conversation here where everyone brings their own experience, their pains and their sweetness.

The Bible for Dummies

Delphine Horvilleur therefore buried Elsa Cayat, Charlie's shrink, Simone Veil, but she also evokes Ruth Halimi, Ilan's mother, tortured by the Barbarian gang in 2006, who had her son's remains moved to Israel for avoid desecration.

Before becoming a rabbi, she was also in Tel Aviv where Yitzhak Rabin, Israeli Prime Minister who advocated peace with the Palestinians, was assassinated in 1995 by a Jewish extremist.

She tells these moments of history with her memories, her feelings.

In the chapter devoted to Simone Veil, Delphine Horvilleur looks back on her great fights for women and on the difficulties encountered by the former Minister of Health in moving the very masculine world of politics.

VIDEO.

Rally in tribute to Ilan Halimi, assassinated 15 years ago

And since not everyone has read the Old Testament meticulously or followed Talmud Torah or catechism courses, Delphine Horvilleur addresses a very large audience, far beyond any community, by shedding light on the present by biblical episodes that she recounts with great force, and often mischief.

Why did Moses, even at 120, refuse to die, and how did God convince him to drop the matter and make him see the Promised Land from the top of a mountain, the ultimate gift or negotiation before his last breath?

Madam the rabbi handles exegesis to perfection to make it more human.

Especially when she mixes it up with Jewish stories or jokes often involving… rabbis.

"A real consolation"

Marie, touched by the trials, took comfort in this reading.

“We're still in hiding.

We say

to ourselves

:

Death is not for us, it is for later

.

But the Covid has forced us all to face it.

This book is a real consolation, it can be good for everyone, explains the retiree.

In the Jewish tradition, which is not mine, to honor a deceased person is to say how beautiful his life could have been, it is to affirm with all his force that life must be lived.

It can be good for everyone.

"

Thierry, in his fifties, was also struck by the closeness of the author to her readers: “It was offered to me, I saw her as a media woman, I didn't really want to read a book on this topic. a little heavy.

And after the first story, I devoured all the others.

Even when it's very sad, there is always a little light that is priceless.

»Delphine Horvilleur knows how to smile, to soften, without ever losing sight of the seriousness of existence.

His first vocation was a doctor.

She dropped out of her studies, but still wants to be treated.

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“Living with our dead”

, by Delphine Horvilleur, Grasset, 222 p., 19.50 euros.