The Body While Working

by Andrew Evans

Near the end of Parashat Ki Teitzei, among a wide collection of laws governing our responsibilities toward one another, Torah gives a remarkably short commandment:

“You shall not muzzle an ox while it is threshing.” (Deuteronomy 25:4)

The image is simple. An ox works among the grain, threshing it, while the food itself is within reach. Torah prohibits the owner from placing a muzzle over the ox’s mouth to prevent it from eating as it works.

What strikes me about this command is its timing. Torah could simply have commanded the owner to feed the ox. Instead, the commandment recognizes that the ox has needs while it is working. Its hunger does not disappear when its labor begins.

Disabled people know something about having bodies whose needs refuse to conform to the boundaries we create between work and everything else.

There is an expectation in many workplaces that we should arrive having already taken care of our bodies. Eat before work. Schedule medical appointments outside working hours. Take medication without interrupting the workday. Rest after work or over the weekend. Whatever your body requires, take care of it somewhere else so that you can arrive ready to work uninterrupted. But bodies don't always cooperate with that schedule.

Some of us need to sit while doing work that others do standing. We might need additional bathroom breaks, access to food or water, time to take medication, a quieter environment, flexible hours, remote work, or periods of rest throughout the day. Some of us have fluctuating disabilities where what we can do Monday may be different from what we can do Thursday.

In these circumstances, an accommodation is not necessarily something that happens instead of working. It can be part of how we work. The Torah's prohibition against muzzling offers a powerful framework for thinking about this. A muzzle does not make an ox less hungry. It simply prevents the ox from responding to its hunger. Workplaces can create their own kinds of muzzles.

A disabled worker may continue through a meeting while desperately needing to lie down. Someone may postpone taking medication because there isn't an acceptable opportunity to step away. We might ration bathroom breaks, hide pain, push through sensory overload, or spend every evening recovering enough to return the next morning.

From the outside, the system may appear to be working. But preventing someone from responding to a need doesn't make the need disappear.

I am also struck by who receives this commandment. Torah does not command the ox to advocate for itself. It does not teach the ox how to explain its hunger more convincingly. The commandment is directed toward the person who controls the conditions under which the ox works. That distinction matters when we talk about disability and employment.

Disabled people are frequently encouraged to “advocate for yourself,” and self-advocacy can be an important skill. But there can be real consequences to disclosing a disability or requesting accommodations. Even during the hiring process, an applicant who needs an accommodation may have to disclose enough disability-related information to establish the need for it. Disclosure is a complicated decision. Legal protections do not magically remove ableism or the imbalance of power between an employer and someone who needs their job.

A disabled worker may wonder whether requesting an accommodation will change how their supervisor sees them. An applicant may wonder whether asking for an accessible interview will affect their chances of becoming an employee. Someone may technically have rights while also having very practical reasons to be afraid of exercising them.

Reading this commandment through a disability lens therefore cannot end with, “Ask for what you need.” The Torah places the responsibility on the person with power.

There is another trap I want to avoid. Workplace accessibility is frequently justified through productivity: accommodations help disabled employees become more productive; accessible workplaces retain talented workers; inclusion is good for business. Those things may be true, but disabled people should not have to demonstrate that meeting our needs will generate a return on investment.

Sometimes an accommodation allows someone to accomplish more. Sometimes it allows them to work with less pain. Sometimes it makes employment sustainable for longer. And sometimes even with every imaginable accommodation, a disabled person cannot produce at the pace our culture considers ideal. Our needs remain needs.

Perhaps this commandment challenges the idea that rest must always be something we earn after finishing our work. For many disabled people, the sequence is not work, then rest. It might be work, rest, work, medication, rest, work, recovery. Rest can be one of the conditions that makes work possible. And sometimes rest does not make us more productive at all. We still need it.

For workers in the United States, the Job Accommodation Network (JAN) provides free, confidential information about workplace accommodations and the Americans with Disabilities Act, including resources about possible accommodations and disability disclosure. Even outside the formal accommodation process, its resources can help us imagine possibilities for making work more accessible. But knowing what accommodations exist does not mean receiving them will be simple.

Ki Teitzei does not promise us an easy workplace. Instead, perhaps it asks us to reconsider what we believe an employer is entitled to demand from another person's body.

The ox is still threshing. The work is still happening. But Torah draws a boundary around productivity, that there are needs we are not permitted to suppress simply because suppressing them might make the work more efficient. Our bodies do not cease to be bodies when the workday begins.

Andrew Evans is a writer and educator whose work explores questions of meaning, community, and lived experience. Drawing on spiritual tradition, personal reflection, and social analysis, Andrew’s writing attends to the ways people make sense of their lives and responsibilities to one another.