Wand in Hand, Justice in Heart
by ember wilson
Coming into myself throughout my adolescence, I always thought there was something wrong with me. Everyone around me seemed to move through the world with ease: completing schoolwork, remembering things, following through on daily tasks. Meanwhile, building executive functions felt like a mountain to climb, and I could never reach the top. I struggled to retain information, to feel successful in the more traditional ways the world told me I should. I often looked around and wondered, Why is this so easy for everyone else?
Recently another layer of challenges emerged: I was diagnosed with hip osteoarthritis. Suddenly, stairs became trials. Movement turned into a daily negotiation. Each day I lived with chronic pain felt like my body was being used against me, turning ordinary everyday activities into struggles.
And yet, just as my body was changing, something else began to shift. I started talking with friends and loved ones about what I was going through about my pain, my limits, my needs. These conversations cracked open a whole new world for me. One friend sent me a poem from Tonguebreaker by Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha, titled "Crip Fairy G-dmother." Reading it felt like magic:
We're here to tell you how we did it,
how we keep doing it.
We flourish the swords and wands of this artful way to live.
I am here to tell you that we know some of the best magic anyone knows.
We have already survived the worst things in the world...
Asking for help is the first and last spell you'll ever have to learn.
It’s the one everything else rests on.
It’s the simplest, hardest thing.
Those lines stayed with me. Asking for help, something I had been taught to fear to associate with weakness, was suddenly reframed as a sacred spell. A piece of survival magic. A form of truth telling. A kind of tzedek.
One of the most transformative shifts in my life came the day I picked up a cane. It was a quiet kind of coming out of my pain, once tucked inside, now announced with every step.
What was invisible now was visible to the human eye. And it hurt. Not just my body, but something deeper. The way people’s eyes shifted, the way space moved around me, as if I had crossed some threshold into otherness. At first, the cane felt like surrender. Dependence. Weakness. I hated that I needed it. I hated how the world saw me with it. But slowly, something softened. My first cane bloomed with pink flowers, an offering of beauty, defiance, drag. A way to say: this too is me. I began to see it differently: not a crutch, but a wand. A channel for strength. A spell of protection. A piece of armor and art, a sacred extension of my body’s truth. My cane and I are still learning from each other. But in reframing it as part of my power, I’ve begun to walk with a little more confidence step by step,visible,unapologetic, whole.
Parshat Shoftim opens with a charge that echoes with urgency:
צֶדֶק צֶדֶק תִּרְדֹּף – Justice, justice shall you pursue (Deut. 16:20).
The repetition of the word tzedek, justice has long fascinated commentators. Rabbi Bunim of Peshischa, a Hasidic master from the 18th–19th century teaches that the repetition of the verse pursuit of justice must also be just. Others suggest it points to different types of justice: external and internal. The justice we seek out in the world and the justice we extend to ourselves.
For so long, I measured myself by external systems of success: grades, productivity, ease. Shoftim invites me to ask instead: What if real justice means honoring our own lived experience? What if tzedek includes validating our struggles, adapting our lives with compassion, and creating systems that honor differences instead of erasing them?
The parsha also calls for the appointment of shoftim v’shotrim judges and officers:
שֹׁפְטִים וְשֹׁטְרִים תִּתֵּן-לְךָ בְּכָל-שְׁעָרֶיךָ- You Shall appoint judges and officers in all your gates (Deut. 16:18)
These “gates,” were later interpreted in the Zohar, not just as city gates but as “gates of the body and the soul.” This makes me think of the gates I pass through each morning when I wake up in pain. The gate of self-judgment. The gate of shame. The gate of worth. And I ask: Can I meet myself there with compassion? With honesty? With justice? How can my perspective of myself change how others approach their pain and extend to their needs?
Justice, for me, is no longer about fixing what’s “wrong” with me. It’s about honoring what is true. Making room for slowness. Making space for grief. Embracing new ways of being smart, strong, whole and holy in this world. I find that when I approach justice through this lens, it doesn’t just become individual but it becomes collective.
As we enter the month of Elul, standing at the gates of a new year, may we all be blessed with the courage to pursue justice in its fullest form, justice for ourselves yes, but also justice for ourselves as an extension of collective liberation for all.
ember wilson (all pronouns) is a trans, fat, disabled, white Ashkenazi human. Raised by the mustard flowers of the rolling mountains of Santa Monica, Calif., on unceded Chumash Land, they now call Lenne Lanape Land home, where magnolia trees, ginkgos and red maples offer shade. Their rich, lived experiences have fueled their passionate journey for justice for all bodies. ember is on a quest to explore Jewish texts, uncovering the hidden treasures of fat liberation and disability justice as a lifelong practice, one that nurtures the communities they serve. Guided by the wisdom of their ancestors, they envision a future full of juicy, joyful liberation for all.
