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Overcast Disabled advocate cheers growing Jewish inclusion
5 Towner recalls that G-d put Moshe to work despite his speech disability
What if — because of his speech impediment — Moshe never accepted the task to lead the Jews out of Egypt?
Award-winning author Chava Willig Levy of Woodmere, a polio survivor, uses the episode to illustrate what she calls a biblical precedent that people with disabilities have enormous potential to impact society.
“When G-d said to Moshe, ‘I’m tapping you to lead my people out of Egypt,’ Moshe [countered], ‘No, you’ve got the wrong guy. I’m disabled myself’,” Levy said. But G-d gets angry at Moshe for doubting himself, and asks, “Whom do you think gave you that mouth?”
Levy’s anecdote introduces a concept that frames an ongoing Jewish communal discussion on the inclusion of people with disabilities.
“There is Judaism, and then there are Jews,” she says, reflecting on the dissonance between the religion’s principles of universal inclusion and what Jewish society actually looks like.
Levy was among at the attendees of the Ruderman Family Foundation’s first conference for Jews with disabilities who are self-advocates. The event, in Manhattan, brought together distinguished lawyers, rabbis, writers, teachers and community activists whose successful careers, undaunted energy, and full lives counter longstanding misconceptions about people with disabilities.
The convening of disability self-advocates is “an important step for our community in understanding how we can become a more just, inclusive and welcoming society for everyone,” says Jay Ruderman, president of the Ruderman Family Foundation. Ruderman, whose foundation is dedicated to increasing such awareness, believes seeking “the advice of those people with disabilities who have been impacted the most by being excluded from our Jewish community” provides the best way forward for the community.
Levy chronicles her journey in her popular memoir, “A Life Not With Standing.” Para-lyzed at age 3, she recalls a happy childhood despite her frequent visits to the hospital, her inability to attend school until age 9, and the many other limitations on her livelihood.
