Meeting Ourselves Tenderly

by Rabbi Lauren Tuchman

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I no longer remember when I learned the term “internalized ableism”. What I do remember is the profound recognition in the worst possible way. “Oh, so that’s what I’ve been dealing with. At least I’m not alone.” Internalized ableism is the slow, painful process by which disabled folks internalize and become conditioned to ableist stereotypes about ourselves. We come to believe the worst projections and to assume that the false core beliefs society reflects back at us are in fact true and immutable. The impact of this internalization is unquantifiable. I’ve been on a years-long journey of touching into this pain slowly but surely and working to undue the harm these false beliefs have caused me. A beautiful teaching I learned recently in Somatic Experiencing is that the skills we work on in that body-based modality don’t magically erase the conditioning but instead give us more space to meet it with gentleness and love as we recognize the patterns we’ve created over years that have gotten us to where we are. We can gently and lovingly thank and release the pattern as we gain more space in which to meet and work with the conditioning as it arises. My experience has taught me repeatedly that this meeting, releasing and finding more space isn’t a linear process. It’s dynamic, ever-changing and in deep relationship with the reality of life circumstances.

We encounter Moses in our parsha, Va’era, at a time of profound transition. Having been raised a prince in Pharaoh’s palace, disconnected from his Israelite ancestral roots, HaShem has given him the momentous task of leading the Israelites out of Egypt. Famously in Parashat Shemot, read last week, Moses demurs, asking the Divine to please send someone else, for Moses, in addition to being raised apart from his family has a speech disability. Utterly unphased, the Divine responds, in what have become my favorite pesukim in the Torah, “

And G-d said to him, “Who gives humans speech? Who makes them hearing or deaf, sighted or blind? Is it not I, G-d? Now go, and I will be with you as you speak and will instruct you what to say.” (Exodus 4:11-12 JPS translation with Rabbi Tuchman’s edits).

This brief, poignant dialogue brings me back to Genesis 1:27 where we find the Torah’s famous teaching that human beings are created in the image of the Divine. Though our sages have debated the precise meaning of this landmark idea, at its core is the notion that every single one of us has irreplaceable, inherent dignity, value and worth existing independently of anything we do or achieve in this life. We get to exist because we’re right here, right now. We don’t need to work for it, be a certain way, achieve a certain status. We are beloved as we are because we are endowed with this essence that we can never lose. The Jewish tradition affirms this daily with its invitation to us to say the “Elohei Neshama” blessing, affirming that the soul that the Divine placed within us is pure. It was created, breathed and fashioned in us, and is guarded without ceasing by the Divine every day of our lives.

Yet, we forget—or were never taught—this truth. This is why, I believe, HaShem brings this reminder back to us as the book of Exodus opens. And despite the Divine letting Moses know that he is accepted as he is and that the Divine will accompany him as he speaks, Moses is stuck. “Please, G-d! Make someone else your agent!” (Exodus 4:13). How familiar. It is so hard to trust that we will be supported. It’s so hard to trust that others have our back.

Two chapters later, Moses is still in this stuck place. G-d intreats Moses to go to Pharaoh, king of Egypt and demand that the Israelites be let go. Moses responds that when he previously tried speaking to the Israelites, they could not hear him, their spirits crushed by the harshness and inhumanity of enslavement. How, then, would Pharaoh possibly hear him? Besides, he’s not a man of words. Didn’t he explain that two chapters earlier?

(Exodus 6:11-12 paraphrased). In response, HaShem speaks to Moses and Aaron together. Here, one could posit that HaShem, as happened in the prior encounter in Exodus 4, gives Moses a reasonable accommodation. As Rabbi Dr. Julia Watts Belser beautifully explains in Loving Our Own Bones, Aaron becomes Moses’ re-voicer, an individual who repeats what a person with a speech impediment says for the benefit of listeners unfamiliar with the unique accent and quality of their voice.

I feel such deep compassion for Moses in this moment. It is so hard to trust in our belonging when we’ve received nothing but the opposite for decades. It is easy to empathize with a Moses who cannot be heard or heeded. Yet, the Divine is not easily dissuaded. Later in our chapter, we find a third episode, much like the second. The Divine instructs Moses to go to Pharaoh and tell him all that the Divine will say. Moses appeals to the Divine that he cannot do this as he is a person who does not speak readily (Exodus 6:29-30 paraphrased). The Divine responds in a like manner as before, reminding Moses that Aaron will be his re-voicer. The two of them will go together to Pharaoh and though Moses is in the role of “G-d to Pharaoh”, Aaron will voice the divine message. Moses does not need worry about being unheard, unheeded or ignored.

Disability Torah allows us to enter an imaginative place of possibility and empathy. How many of us have been harmed by ableist attitudes and actions to the point that we do not trust, on a foundational level, that ableism will ever end? Even though ableism is a function of the human mind and its tendency to cast aside and negatively relate to difference, do we trust that the future could be anti-ableist?  Of course Moses would demur, appeal to HaShem to find someone else. Even as the Divine creates us all in the Divine image—no exceptions—and even though disability is a natural part of the human condition, it makes so much sense that Moses would not trust in the Divine’s sincerity that he, too, is an indispensable part of creation. How could he possibly feel otherwise when society around him told him, day in and day out, that he was flawed, bad, did not belong? He cries out to the Divine: “Please hear me. I know you know and love me as I am. But how, exactly, other than trusting in you, can I possibly believe in your confidence in me? How many times need I explain I’m not a man of words?” (Rabbi Tuchman paraphrasing Moses)

This primal cry pulls at the heartstrings. My heart breaks for our teacher, Moses, and it breaks for all of us who have navigated this painful path. Yet, the Divine repeatedly offers a pathway forward. Moses couldn’t take it in but perhaps we can. And perhaps, our return to this year after year in our sacred Torah cycle is the Divine inviting us to open our systems up to different inputs. It is true that societal group think is powerful. And it’s also true that just because terrible, harmful ideas about disabled people are repeated doesn’t make them true. It is also true that these terrible, harmful ideas have real, tangible, life-or-death consequences for too many of us. And finally, it’s true that the Divine is having none of it. The Divine knows how the human mind is drawn to differentiating and categorizing, putting people in boxes and that’s just not how this works for the Divine. We’re all precious, infinitely beloved. May the Divine’s cry in our Torah be one we can hear and heed. We, too, matter, are whole and beautiful as we are. May we know that when we aren’t able to sense that truth, others—and the divine—can. May we be accompanied by an Aaron of our own when we just can’t navigate this path alone. May it be so.

Rabbi Tuchman is a Jewish educator based in the Washington, DC area. When not immersing herself in Torah from the margins, she can be found with a good book or delighting in the niblings in her life.