Faith and Spirituality

As we gear up for a light-filled holiday of menorahs with dripping candles, dreidels spinning in our surroundings, songs sung in our synagogues and homes and gifts getting wrapped for our loved ones, I want us to stop and think about another key aspect: food that we will prepare and/or share with family, friends, colleagues, and neighbors.

Our traditional “go-to’s” for this holiday tend to be: latkes dolloped with applesauce and/or sour cream; chocolate gelt and babkas; and, more common in Israel, suvganiot (jelly-filled donuts).

Anthelme Brillat-Savarin once said, “you are what you eat.” Yet how much do we think about our fellow Jews among us who are unable to eat what ‘we’ eat?  While the dietary restrictions of kashrut are culturally ‘accepted’, other dietary restrictions – in place to prevent painful or potentially life-threatening physical responses – are far less accepted. [continue reading…]

An amazingly talented Jewish filmmaker with disabilities, Aaron Wolf, has created a terrific film, Restoring Tomorrow, that will be a PBS special this Sunday night at 7:30pm (PST) in select cities. The filmmaker, Aaron Wolf, is a wonderful storyteller and a mensch. The film is about Jewish renewal, hope, and how we connect our past with the present and future. Aaron is involved with RespectAbility’s Jewish and Hollywood work in LA, and is a wonderful partner and role model. Please read this piece below that he wrote and tune in on Sunday! [continue reading…]

Shalom friend!

I hope you had a great Thanksgiving! With so much goodness to go around, here are several very important invitations and updates:

1. We would love for you to join us for our holiday party on Wednesday, December 4^th, from 4:00-7:00 PM. Food will be kosher and you, your family and your friends are all invited. Please RSVP here and we look forward to celebrating with you!

2. We’d love for you to participate in the 10th annual Jewish Disability Advocacy Day (JDAD) on Capitol Hill on Tuesday, February 4, 2020. RespectAbility is joining with the Jewish Federations of North America, the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism, and the Jewish Disability Network. Last year JDAD, which has space for almost 300 people, still sold out months in advance – so sign up early!

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In this week’s Torah portion, we read about the death of Sarah, but more importantly we read the most fascinating exchange around the purchase of her grave plot. The people of the land on which Abraham finds himself greatly respect him and venerate him. As such they are very eager to give him the plot that he wants for free. They make no bones about the fact that they are doing favors for someone that they believed to be “a mighty prince in their midst.”

Abraham refuses this generosity, and insists on giving market value for the property. The choreography of the scene could not be clearer. They are so awed by the opportunity to do something for such a prince that they wish to do it for free, just to show respect. He not only pays, but bows low to make sure that his indication is that he means to give equivalent respect in return.

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As we prepare for Shabbat, I’m so pleased to share with you that the Project Moses website is live, at www.respectability.org/projectmoses, and that we are accepting applications. With that excitement, I’m asking for your help. For those who have not yet read about it in a previous Shabbat Smile, Project Moses is RespectAbility’s new leadership program to train talented, civic-minded Jews with disabilities to join a leadership cohort in the Los Angeles Jewish community. It is made possible by the generosity of the Jewish Community Foundation of Los Angeles and other funders. We are recruiting for our first 36 participants. [continue reading…]

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A CHAI Works-South participant preparing lunch at The Rashi School in Dedham, MA.

“It’s awesome to see our participants smiling when we’re at a volunteer site,” said Bri Nichols, a Program Coordinator for JF&CS CHAI Works. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen a frown!”

CHAI Works is a community-based day program for adults with disabilities offered through Jewish Family & Children’s Service. With locations in Waltham and Canton, CHAI Works helps participants become more independent, pursue individual goals, and experience the gratification of meaningful, productive activity throughout the week.

Volunteering in the community is an important and popular part of the CHAI Works experience. “It gives the participants a sense of pride…it’s a way for them to give back,” said Nichols. “Volunteering is all about upholding the dignity of the participants.” [continue reading…]

At the beginning of the holiday season, Rabbi Daniel Dorsch delivered a sermon from his brand new, inclusive sanctuary at Congregation Etz Chaim. Read his entire sermon, republished with his permission, below.

I met Anna (not her real name) for the first time when I was a chaplain at Columbia Presbyterian Hospital in New York. I was a rabbinical student at 25, and she was a 21 year old college student, sucking a lolly pop lying in bed, and a patient at the hospital.

Not an uncommon question for an awkward, new chaplain, I sat down in her room next to her bed, and asked what brought her there. That’s when Anna began her story by showing me that she didn’t have any legs. And she told me she was in the hospital because someone had died and left her all of their organs for a multiple organ transplant, which she desperately needed to live. The lolly pop it turned out, was not for fun; it was medicine to help improve her chances of the transplant taking. [continue reading…]

Many of us spend time leading up to the high holidays helping congregations and organizations prepare to fully respectfully welcome Jews with disabilities into our communities and rituals. Most of the training is good, and the organizations are almost always earnest. Hence, we can get really optimistic and expect that everything needed will be implemented. And yet, as much as we are excited about the idea of how inclusive things will be, we must also always be aware that they will not be perfect every time.

When Yom Kippur ends, and people start taking stock of the inclusion efforts at their synagogue for the holidays, there will be stories, probably at every congregation in the world, where inclusion did not happen the way we might have wanted.  There will be mix-ups, misses and unanticipated situations. [continue reading…]