GUIDING INVESTIGATIONS
- How do the sources guide us to be proactive vs reactive in assisting people who are differently abled?
- How can having role models/representation in our sources of people with differences make an impact on those in our community who have differences?
- Do the sources encourage us to create an environment of: tolerance? acceptance? coexistence? open-mindedness? acknowledgment? or something else?
CORE SOURCES
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א"ר יוסי כל ימי הייתי מצטער על מקרא זה (דברים כח, כט) והיית ממשש בצהרים כאשר ימשש העור באפלה וכי מה אכפת ליה לעור בין אפילה לאורה עד שבא מעשה לידי פעם אחת הייתי מהלך באישון לילה ואפלה וראיתי סומא שהיה מהלך בדרך ואבוקה בידו אמרתי לו בני אבוקה זו למה לך אמר לי כל זמן שאבוקה בידי בני אדם רואין אותי ומצילין אותי מן הפחתין ומן הקוצין ומן הברקנין:
Rabbi Yosei said: All of my life I was troubled by this verse, which I did not understand: “And you shall grope at noon as the blind man gropes in the darkness” (Deuteronomy 28:29). I was perplexed: What does it matter to a blind person whether it is dark or light? He cannot see in any event, so why does the verse speak about a blind man in the darkness? I continued to ponder the matter until the following incident occurred to me. I was once walking in the absolute darkness of the night, and I saw a blind man who was walking on his way with a torch in his hands. I said to him: My son, why do you need this torch if you are blind? He said to me: As long as I have a torch in my hand, people see me and save me from the pits and the thorns and the thistles. Even a blind man derives at least indirect benefit from the light, and therefore he may recite the blessing over the heavenly luminaries.
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Rabbi Yehoshua ben Levi said: One who sees spotted people recites: Blessed…Who makes creatures different. The Gemara raises a challenge: One who saw a person with unusually black skin, a person with unusually red skin, a person with unusually white skin [lavkan], an unusually tall and thin person, a dwarf, or one with warts [darnikos]recites: Blessed…Who makes creatures different. However, one who sees an amputee, a blind person, a flat-headed person, a lame person, one afflicted with boils, or spotted people recites: Blessed…the true Judge, not: Who makes creatures different. The Gemara answers: This is not difficult. This, where Rabbi Yehoshua ben Levi says to recite: Who makes creatures different, refers to a case where the individual was spotted from when he was in his mother’s womb, since birth. While this, where one recites: The true Judge, refers to a case where the individual only became spotted after he was born.
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ADDITIONAL RESOURCES
1. Equality in people
(ג) הוּא (בן עזאי) הָיָה אוֹמֵר, אַל תְּהִי בָז לְכָל אָדָם, וְאַל תְּהִי מַפְלִיג לְכָל דָּבָר, שֶׁאֵין לְךָ אָדָם שֶׁאֵין לוֹ שָׁעָה וְאֵין לְךָ דָבָר שֶׁאֵין לוֹ מָקוֹם:
(3) He [Ben Azzai] used to say: do not despise any man, and do not discriminate against anything, for there is no man that has not his hour, and there is no thing that has not its place.
2. Modern Rabbinic commentary
Etz Hayim, commentary ed. by Rabbi Harold Kushner
The decency of a society is measured by how it cares for its least powerful members.
Rabbi Menachem Schneerson, letter regarding special education for Jewish children
For if any child requires an individual evaluation and approach in order to achieve the utmost in his, or her, development, how much more so in the case of the handicapped.
3. Multimedia sources
VIDEO: ELI Talk: Pamela Schuller “I am Here; Hear Me Bark: Comedy, Disability, and the Inclusive Synagogue”
https://elitalks.org/i-am-here-hear-me-bark-comedy-disability-and-inclusive-synagogue (13 min)
News article about Special Needs and B’nei Mitzvah
https://jewishweek.timesofisrael.com/8-lessons-from-a-spectacular-special-needs-bar-mitzvah/