If You Could Speak My Language

by Kochav Yehudis

A note in methodology: This parshat was interpreted/re-written using my personal method of Memory, Research, Re-write, a method I am developing into a course about writing one’s “self” into meaningful narrative in the Torah and beyond.

There are some who might say it is presumptuous of me to re-imagine a Torah narrative. I posit that this is what the communities made most vulnerable by oppressive, colonial, capitalist symptoms are forced to do; the systems are not made for us. We are the ones who most clearly see the world’s brokenness, and so we most clearly hear the call to get creative and make something new. Years ago, in the midst of my conversion process, I first read Parshat Balak. The story of the she-ass, beaten for her attempts at communication, spoke to me.

As an autistic person, I am no stranger to seeing things others do not, to finding the bee sleeping under the flower, to spotting an error others miss, to finding solutions others don’t think of. I am also no stranger to being misunderstood, to over-explaining only to have people misinterpret my tone, my words, my meaning. And I’m one of the “lucky” ones; I am white, and I speak in a way most people find “normal” and “acceptable.” That is to say, with my mouth and with “good diction,” rather than with sign language, an assistive device, or less normalized mouth sounds. So often, those who communicate with these methods are treated as second class citizens or less-than-human. Can an AAC device, or sign language, be articulate? The dominant, ableist culture doesn’t think so. 

These issues are compounded when an autistic or otherwise disabled person is in a Global Majority or BIPOC. Ableism got its roots in white supremacy after all, and many of the Black folks whose lives continue to be taken by police terror are also autistic or otherwise disabled. Most hauntingly for me, there are institutions where the very body language of autistics and other disabled folks is treated as cause for abuse, and those held captive in such institutions are subjected to cruelties not dissimilar to those the she-ass suffers at Balam’s hands. Again, this abuse and terror is more likely to be weaponized against BIPOC disabled folks.

I, as the she-ass in Parshat Balak, have had my mouth opened by the Divine. But we are all made in G-ddess’ image, and that means G-ddess herself communicates in many ways, if we can open ourselves to hearing the message. I believe in the Divine not as static, but ever changed by us and ever changing us in turn, and that therefore living beings make up the Divine. To hear divine messages, we must learn to listen - and I mean really listen - to each other.

CHAZZAH

Once there was a she-ass whose name was Chazzah. Her name meant to see, or perceive, for she could see what others so often missed. Chazzah could not speak. Well, she could speak, but not in the way that humans could understand, and so she was known as a dumb beast. A burden. A beast of burden. But her prayers, she was satisfied, reached G-ddess’ ears anyway. And Chazzah did so love to pray. 

Chazzah liked to imagine that G-oddess had ears like hers, long and upright, twitching and sensitive. You see, the fact that she could not speak in the way that humans understood had led them to think that she could not understand them. But Chazzah did. And she understood that they thought she was stupid. That her world was smaller, her imagination less creative, and her concern for danger less well-developed than theirs. 

“If you could speak my language!” Chazzah thought to herself sometimes, quietly, in the stables. 

Now, not everyone is dextrous enough to climb canyons, but Chazzah was. She was nimble and quick and the man she carried - his name did not translate into her language, and so she called him only “the man” - could never have made the trip without her. Rarely had she met a man who so clearly could not see what lay in the path before him as this man she had carried and kept safe for years.

Chazzah was someone who had kept her eyes open from the moment her mother first licked them free of birthing fluid, and so her vision was excellent. She saw the angels in the path, and she knew it would be death to brush against them. She tried to turn back, but the reins were yanked. She tried to stop, and was beaten toward moving again. She did not understand. What was she doing wrong? Surely the man could see or sense that there was danger? Surely, as his trusty mount, it was her job to keep them both safe, and he must realize she had good reason for not going forward? Why did he beat her then? Unless he couldn't see…

That must be it, because the man was beckoning her forward, leaving her sore in his urges to march toward death by heavenly sword. Chazzah would not condemn them both to that fate, and so she tucked in her hooves and laid down. The clearest way she could think to say, “We cannot go any farther.” 

But the man did not understand. He beat her harder still. Chazzah, in agony, wondered at the irony that she should be in the beauty of an angel and yet in such pain. And so she sent up a prayer to G-ddess. “Please let him hear, please let him know.” 

The beating did not stop, and Chazzah brayed again and again “Why do you beat me?!” Why, why, WHY? Why do you beat me when all I have done is nothing but keep still, lie down, save you?!”

The sounds coming from her mouth did not change, but abruptly the man stopped. As though his ears had been opened.

“Do you speak?” He questioned Chazzah. 

And then he looked ahead in the path, and started, and dropped to his knees. It appeared his eyes had been opened too, for, Chazzah surmised, he now saw the angel in the path now, and that their glory would burn away any mere flesh and blood beast. And were not the man and the she-ass both beasts in the end, made of the same stuff?

Another voice spoke then, though Chazzah heard it not with her ears, long and fine and skilled though hers were. She heard it in her heart, even as the man did, and she knew it to be the voice of G-ddess.

“Why did you not listen when your mount lay down? Has she not been a good and loyal mount, never yet steering you wrong?”

“I…I did not understand -”

“You did not try to.” came the quiet condemnation. “The language was unfamiliar to you, and so you dismissed it outright. I have opened your ears, just briefly, to the fullness of what the she-ass has to say. But be warned - this clarity will not last. It is up to you to hold to what you have learned, to learn your mount’s language, and to trust her judgement.” 

The voice addressed Chazzah. “What would you say, while this man’s ears are open?”

Chazzah was ready to be heard. “My world may not be yours to understand to its fullest, but it is no less worthy than yours. When I stop, it is because there is something worth stopping for, though you may not see what it is. When I turn in the path, it is because the path is blocked, though it may not be in a way you recognize. And when I lay down in the dirt it is not to cause you trouble. It is because I cannot go on.” 

Chazzah’s voice faded back into braying. The little, important voice in the heart quieted. But the lesson was not forgotten.

And from then on, when Chazzah spoke her subtle language, she was heard.

Kochav Yehudis (she/they) I am an autistic Ashkenazi lesbian deeply invested in multidisciplinary work, multireligious ritual, theater (and other) artistry, homemaking, storytelling, and cultural research, seeking the path of the Hebrew Priestess. My dream and calling is to connect people to the most honest story of themselves through artistry, scholarship, and ritual. I believe deeply in the body as a source of the Divine and want to open access to that embodied connectivity for others. As a settler, I hope, pray, and fight for Indigenous sovereignty from Palestine to Turtle Island and beyond. I am driven in this and all of my work by the Jewish concept of tikkun olam; I perceive the world is broken, I perceive the world is beautiful, and I commit to sacred repair. I believe great change starts closest to the heart. I live out my values in a sacred multi-religious partnership with my wife Olivia. You can see more of my work, hers, and our work together at cosmic-well.com.