Disability as Beloved by G-d

Sitting in synagogue, my heart directed towards prayer, when the d’var Torah (sermon) suddenly takes an ableist turn. Showing up to Torah study, having brought along a source sheet sent to me in advance only for the leader to change their material last-minute, leaving me to rely upon oral access alone. Opening up to a Jewish therapist about why, as a blind woman, I don’t say the daily blessing thanking G-d for “opening the eyes of the blind,” only to have their response be a lecture on Jewish law in which they tell me that I really should say this blessing because I should feel so grateful that other people can see (needless to say, I no longer have anything to do with this therapist). These are a few experiences I’ve had in Jewish community that left me yearning for something different.

Being a spiritual seeker is part of the human experience. Often, we reach out for connection and to know ourselves better through joining a synagogue or other Jewish institution, or by finding a therapist or showing up to a Jewish event in-person or virtually. Sometimes we find exactly what we’re looking for and feel a powerful spiritual bond – and often we don’t. While we know that many people experience barriers to Jewish life, people with disabilities tend to experience those in a magnified way.

When I experience this kind of spiritual disconnection, my initial reaction is to numb out and shut down. It’s a survival mechanism that I’ve honed over years of dealing with a very inaccessible world. I know deeply what it is to feel like I have to make a choice between my spiritual life and my sense of dignity as a disabled person. It is a radically painful place to be. I tried to shut down, deny, turn away from that place of yearning in me for years. As anyone who’s tried to shut down an essential part of themselves knows — and far too many of us have — it never goes away. 

Even though many people feel for their own soul’s wellbeing that they have to give up a piece of themselves, I have discovered over time, and with an incredible amount of ongoing personal work, that it is, in fact, possible to live in an integrated way. You don’t have to give up either your dignity as a disabled person or your desire for spiritual practice. Buoyed by my mentors and teachers, I developed an understanding of disability as beloved by G-d. 

For the last several years, I have been working with a friend and colleague, Rabbi David Jaffe. We had been in conversation for a while about creating a spiritual practice space centering disability wisdom. This year, through the organization Kirva, which he runs, we finally developed Disability Wisdom as Soul Care – a contemplative mussar (applied Jewish ethics) space for people with disabilities and allies.

In my own experience and that of many of my students, most religious communities do not feel immediately safe. When we try to share about the realness of our lived experiences — the joys, but also the difficulties — we are often met with a sense of overwhelm and disconnection in our listeners. Disability Wisdom as Soul Care provides an opportunity to study with a teacher and other students who “get it.” We’re not focusing on “inclusion” because it’s a given that we belong in spiritual community as disabled people. We’re not making existing structures imperfectly fit. We’re creating community that honors and holds the parts of ourselves that we have often had to turn away from.

Though the official focus of the class is practicing with specific soul traits such as joy and equanimity, that is not always the most important part of the experience. I’m finding that a primary motivation for most of my students is a deeply felt desire to be their spiritual selves without putting their disability aside or feeling unable to be honest with their experiences. Our sacred container allows folks to express vulnerabilities knowing that they will be met with understanding and love rather than pity and overwhelm.

This experimental space is in its pilot round and is imperfect by its very nature.

It is such an honor for me to be learning, deepening, and growing from and through this process. When we began recruiting for our pilot round, the response was overwhelming, demonstrating how deep the need is. People want to be known and to know themselves better and live lives of awakening, meaning, and purpose. I strongly feel that at a time when loneliness is a public health concern, this need, this human truth, is even more acute. It is my prayer that my small contribution to this will have a ripple effect in the Jewish world, even as the form of the space will inevitably change and evolve.