Creating Communities For the Whole Of Israel: A Dvar Torah for Yom Kippur
Creating Sacred Communities For The Whole of Israel: A Yom Kippur Drash
October 4, 2022 by
On COVID-19 and New Accessible Opportunities For Us All
May 11, 2020 by
New Accessible Jewish Paradigm shifts in the Wake of COVID-19
March 20, 2020
This week has been a challenging and uncertain one for our world. We know we’re in this for the long haul, that things are going to get worse before they get better. Many of us feel profoundly unmoored as mainstays of our lives are temporarily closing. The rhythms of our days feel off and knowing that we don’t know how long this will last, we don’t yet know when the structures of our days will return to what they once were. None of us have ever lived through something like this. We feel anchorless, directionless, and for the most vulnerable—including many people with disabilities and underlying health conditions—this time of deep uncertainty comes with a host of other unknowns.
The past two weeks have seen the proliferation of Jewish programming online. You can stream a synagogue service any day you choose, drop into a class or even attend a concert. All of this is done out of necessity for sure, but it is also coming from a deep knowing that people seek meaning, connection and solace. In the flurry of activity, something felt deeply discordant to me. The pace at which programming and even prayer books became available online was due to the fact that these things—accommodations, if you were—are now what the majority population requires. We structure our society to center and prioritize the needs of majority populations, even in this ever-shifting reality. We too often forget those on the margins, namely folks living with disability and chronic illness. I believe that this forgetting is because our communities of care—individually and communally–don’t often include us. We are not often seen as peers or equals. We tend to prioritize those needs and concerns that impact our lives most immediately and viscerally. Though the disability community is 20% of the human family, our needs are frequently deprioritized because the perception is that the needed accommodations and supports will impact a small number of people only—hence, not worth the time, effort and expense. When we have someone in our life who requires alternative means of access, we are more inclined to work towards that. Why? Because accessibility is no longer an abstract thing, it’s concrete. Many folks living with disabilities and chronic illness have been dealing with the impact of isolation for a long time. Many have been dealing with the indescribable pain of wanting to be in community and not being able to access it. Imagine what it feels like, now, to get that taste of access. For some folks, it’s for the first time.
For many people with disabilities, this newfound ease of access is accompanied by a host of complex feelings. Many yearn to return to in-person gatherings, even as we recognize the access we now enjoy to things we may not have ever had access to before. For some of us, the ease with which electronic publications became available online has caused some challenging feelings to arise around how quickly things can become universally available when the need feels urgent. As someone who is blind, digital accessibility is a key concern of mine. Though we have seen the proliferation of e-books from Jewish and mainstream publishers on Bookshare, Kindle and other distributors, getting digitally accessible prayer books has been a challenge that has often felt insurmountable. When advocating for alternate format production of printed materials, there are important considerations that must be sensitively navigated which go beyond the scope of this piece. Nevertheless, it is important for all of us to reflect upon the perception that many folks in the disability community have that our needs are simply lower priority, which can leave us feeling dispensable and unwanted in Jewish community.
Moshe Rabbeinu, our greatest prophet is someone who had a speech impediment of some kind. In Shmot/Exodus 4, G-d tells Moshe that he will lead the Children of Israel out of Egypt. Moshe demurs, citing his speech impediment. Immediately, G-d responds with a rhetorical question—who created you? Was it not I, G-d? Did I not create you in my image just like every other human being? Here is your necessary accommodation—your brother, Aaron will serve as your spokesperson. Disability is a natural part of the human condition. I believe that the reason the Torah names specific groups of individuals in G-d’s reply—blind folks, deaf folks, folks with physical and speech disabilities—is because G-d understands that we often forget that we, too, are created in the image of G-d. Disability advocates have often pointed out that the world was not designed for us. And that is due to the choices that we humans make each and every day to prioritize some over others. In this time of turning inward, we are being given an unparalleled opportunity to make a course correction. I pray we take it. G-d, through G-d’s retort to Moshe, reminds him and all of us that to build a mikdash—a sanctuary in which the Divine Presence can feel truly at home—we must structure our world so that we all can thrive as our best selves.
Many fear that once life returns to a semblance of normalcy, we will return to a world in which virtual offerings are fewer and not nearly as robust. What would it be like to use the gifts of this time—the gifts of out-of-the-box thinking and trying new things to shape a reality in which gatherings can exist in a variety of ways all at once? Let us remember and lift up the deep lived wisdom of the disability community for whom innovation has been the name of the game for generations. Let us learn from disability wisdom about emotional and spiritual resilience, being a problem-solver and creating community across geographic and spatial boundaries.
Ours is a tradition that revels in complexity and nuance. After the destruction of the Second Temple in Jerusalem in 70 CE, the rabbis, who were, at best, a tiny minority realized that the world they once knew was no more, gone overnight. How were they to move forward and preserve our ancient, precious tradition? Their solution was to make Judaism portable through the compiling and codification of the Mishnah and Gemara which we call the Talmud. Yet, the rabbis never forgot the world they once knew. Entire tractates of Mishnah are devoted to studying temple sacrifices. Entire portions of traditional liturgy are devoted to daily study of temple rites. Even as a new paradigm occurs, the old is not forgotten. Similarly, in our time, even as we yearn to return to our synagogues, houses of study and community centers, even as we yearn to enjoy Shabbat meals with others, even as we wonder what Passover will feel like this year, may we not forget the gifts newfound communal access and ways of thinking give us.
Reasonable Accommodations Are A Torah Value
January 21, 2019 by
The Book of Exodus introduces us to Moshe, our tradition’s greatest prophet and teacher, who many understand to be a person who lived with a speech disability. In Exodus 4:10-16, G-d informs Moshe that he will lead the Children of Israel out of Egypt—from slavery to freedom. Moshe balks at this tremendous pronouncement. Who am I, he asks, to lead this people? I am slow of speech and slow of tongue. Perhaps Moshe was feeling self-conscious, not able to fully grasp his own potential and greatness. Perhaps he was feeling not up to the task because of his background, living as he had in Pharaoh’s palace.
G-d’s response is powerful in its own right, a direct response to Moshe’s most obvious fear. Exodus 4:11-12 “And the LORD said to him, “Who gives man speech? Who makes him dumb or deaf, seeing or blind? Is it not I, the LORD? Now go, and I will be with you as you speak and will instruct you what to say.” (Translation Courtesy of Sefaria).
As a rabbi and someone who is herself blind, I am often asked about the theology in this passage. Truthfully, for many years, I understood this passage quite negatively. Does G-d countenance ableism, the structural, systemic and institutionalized oppression that many people with disabilities encounter on a daily basis? If G-d made me as I am, and the world presents so many limiting barriers to people with disabilities, how can I connect to a G-d like that? Is that not a punishing theology?
In answer, one need only read on. Exodus 4:13-16 “But he said, “Please, O Lord, make someone else Your agent. The LORD became angry with Moses, and He said, “There is your brother Aaron the Levite. He, I know, speaks readily. Even now he is setting out to meet you, and he will be happy to see you. You shall speak to him and put the words in his mouth—I will be with you and with him as you speak, and tell both of you what to do–and he shall speak for you to the people. Thus he shall serve as your spokesman, with you playing the role of God to him…”
Despite G-d’s faith in Moshe’s abilities and G-d’s willingness to offer what we call today a reasonable accommodation, Moshe demurs. Please, G-d, pick someone else! It is as if Moshe cannot internalize in his own soul what G-d is telling him. You are perfect, just as you are, because I made you in My image, just as you are.
I can empathize with Moshe’s mindset. As people with disabilities, far too many of us have been told no, you can’t do that, it’s not possible, it’s never been done before, and we often settle, grateful for what access we do have. That, however, is a false sense of gratitude, as though we must apologize for our very existence. For too many of us, with our histories of systemic exclusion in our Jewish communities, imagining anything different is too painful. Sometimes the barriers feel so formidable, and we’ve been told so often that we don’t matter, that we’re too difficult to accommodate that it is easier to walk away and disengage. What Torah are we losing, as am yisrael, when we turn our fellow Jews away? It is as if we take one look at a person with a disability and assume the return on investment, to borrow a term from business is low. But when we invest in all of us, as G-d demands of us, our spiritual return on investment will be so much greater.
G-d knows that Moshe is stuck as a consequence of the messaging he may have received and internalized, just like so many of us. I am the first blind woman in the rabbinate as far as I know, and I, too, find myself not believing things are possible to make accessible because of my own history of exclusion. Sometimes, the hard truth is that accessibility cannot be achieved. Many times, the missing ingredient is attitudinal and what is needed is out of the box thinking and a willingness to take risks.
Despite Moshe’s protestations, G-d knows that heis the right leader. No need to go consult anyone about cost or feasibility of a reasonable accommodation, I’m just going to go ahead and do what is right. Accommodations are foundational, not an afterthought. It’s a reminder to all of us that accommodations allow us to express our most authentic selves, just as G-d intends.