Before today’s message, a reminder that my class on Judaism and Medicine starts tomorrow night. Please join us for minyan at 7, followed by our class from 7:30-9:00. I will be co-teaching tomorrow with Dr. Joshua Schor and we will be discussing Jewish Medical Ethics and practical issues surrounding end of life care.
In honor of Jewish Disabilities Awareness month (February), I invite you to read and watch the following:
1. Click here for a link to the Jewish Disabilities Awareness Facebook page
where you can watch a video from Congregation Beth Shalom in Minnetonka, Minnesota about the ways that their community has endeavored to become a welcoming and inclusive place to all.
2. Read the article below about what to say, and what not to say, to individuals with a physical disability. Below is an excerpt. Click on this link for the entire article.
Of course, becoming more attuned to the concept that all human beings are made betzelem elohim, in God’s image, is not a one-month-a-year endeavor. As we take some time to focus on this issue as a community, let us ask ourselves what more we, as Congregation Torat El, could do to strengthen our work in this area.
Over this past year, we have worked to make our building more wheelchair accessible, by installing an automatic door on the sanctuary entrance of our building and putting a ramp in our sanctuary leading to the bima. Thank you to those who made these improvements possible. We continually work with our religious school students, always working to ensure that those with special learning needs have a successful experience in our school and throughout the bnei mitzvah process.
There is certainly much more we could do to make our spiritual home welcoming to all and our members increasingly sensitive to these issues. If you have any suggestions, thoughts, or ideas, I would love to hear from you.
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National Disability Awareness Month: The Best Compliment Is No Compliment at All by Marry Pleshette Willis
…I am married to a man who is disabled, although I’ve never defined him as “dis-anything,” which is why it’s always a shock to me when people single him (and me) out for his disability rather than for our respective accomplishments. Just the other day, a woman at a dinner party whom I hardly know said, “I think you are so amazing. I really admire what you do.”
What I do (among many things) is live with and love a man who broke his neck in a surfing accident two months before we were to be married 42 years ago. I stood by him, not because I am a saint or particularly brave, but because I was in love with him — a vibrant documentary filmmaker with a smile that could melt the polar icecap, great politics and an unerring ability to make me feel good about myself.
I’ve struggled for a long time to explain why remarks that are often well-meaning are so offensive to me, why singling me out for being married to a man who’s disabled diminishes rather than enhances my place in the world. The only thing that makes my husband different is his difficulty walking, which has worsened (like most people with age). He’s gone from a cane to a walker and now needs to use a wheelchair or electric scooter when we go out. When we use the wheelchair, I have to push; when he’s on the scooter, I walk alongside him. We don’t feel very different from other couples who go to the park, to restaurants or to the movies until someone makes an earnest, but ultimately gratuitous, remark. More upsetting is when they address me but ignore my husband (in his presence), like the airline clerk who asked me where he would be most comfortable or the man, probably the same age as my husband (late 70s), in the park who asked in a jocular tone: “How’s the young man doing?”……
So what do you say to someone who’s handicapped or to his spouse/partner? More times than not, you say nothing. Or you don’t say anything you wouldn’t say to someone who isn’t handicapped. Rather than an unsolicited expression of sympathy, the woman at the dinner party would not have offended me if she’d asked me a direct question: “How do you travel with a wheelchair?” or “What do you do when the bathroom is down a flight of stairs?” Or even “Is your husband in pain?”….
So for those who are tempted to tell me how amazing I am, I hope they’ll understand that the best compliment is no compliment at all.