Meaning through Responsibility
February, 2018
I'm reading a great book by Rabbi
Jonathan Sacks called 'Not in God's Name; Confronting Religion and
Violence', In the book, Rabbi Sacks describes how as we gain
knowledge exponentially faster and faster, we seem to be losing our
sense of meaning. As we understand how things work, we lose our
understanding of why things work and why we are here.
This week's Torah portion is
Mishpatim. This portion describes many laws that we must obey. These
laws include things such as setting slaves free after 7 years to not
farming ones land for a year every 7 years. While these laws may not
be applicable to us today, I was reminded how important rules and
regulations are to giving meaning and importance to our lives. Our
Torah instructs us to do 613 mitzvahs in our life time. Tikkun Olam
tells us we are here to repair the world and make it better. All of
this tells us we are important, our family and friends need us, our
community need us and the world needs us. These responsibilities
gives meaning to our lives.
February
is Jewish Disability Awareness Month. As most of you know, Denise and
I are proud to be part of the Disability Community and active members
of the Disability Movement since it began in the 1960's. Great
Progress has been made. The world, especially in the United States,
is much more accessible to people with disabilities. There are great
laws protecting our rights. Educating children with disabilities is
now guaranteed right. Employment discrimination is unlawful. Millions
of dollars are spent annually trying to convince employers to hire
people with disabilities. Despite all this, over 70% of people with
disabilities are unemployed – the same percentage as when I grew
up. Across
the United States, 63 percent of students with
disabilities graduated from high school in 2014 — a
rate of graduation roughly 20 percent lower than the
national average. Among jail inmates, 40% of
whites and 55% of persons of two or more races reported having at
least one disability,
As I compared the civil rights
laws having to do with people with disabilities with the laws in the
Torah, I saw one striking difference. Whereas most civil rights laws
talk about what society and the government should or should not do
for people with disabilities, Torah laws talks about what people
should or should not do for God and society. Currently, for example,
there are laws that say that if people with disabilities cannot work
they can receive support services they need to survive. These paid
support services are not available for people with disabilities who
work. My attendant services costs over $50,000 annually. Few young
adults with disabilities can afford that and thus do not seek
employment. What if we had a law saying that all people are expected
to work to the greatest extent they can, and get support services
they need to do so? Another example might be that current law says
that children with disabilities should have an Individualized
Education Plan and support services needed to complete the Plan. What
if the law said that all children are expected to get the best
education they can, and get support services they need to do so?
Next
Friday evening, Temple Sinai's Access Committee is sponsoring a panel
with Jessica Lehman, Executive
Director of San Francisco Senior and Disability Action, Susan
Henderson, Executive Director of Disability Rights Education and
Defense Fund, and our own Rabbi Ruth Adar. They will be leading a
discussion about broadening our social justice narrative to include
disability rights. My hope is that in the near future, our social
justice narrative may change to set high expectation that all people
do their Tikkun Olam in a barrier-free environment with the tools and
services they need.
