The Ageism Behind the Movement for Biden Not to Run Again

If young people tell you, “Build!” and Elders tell you, “Tear down!”,
listen to the Elders and not the young people.
Because “building” for young people is, in fact, tearing down,
And “tearing down” for Elders is, in fact, building up.

—Talmud, Nedarim 40a

The murmuring is getting louder that it’s time for President Biden to read the writing on the wall.  His approval ratings are in the gutter, and a plurality of Democrats—if a New York Times/Siena College poll is to be believed—think that he should not run for reelection in 2024. The fear is if Biden chooses to run for a second term,  his weak candidacy could pave the way for another Trump or Trumpian administration in the White House (G-d preserve us).

There is a reasonable conversation to be had here. Politics demands pragmatism and in general it’s preferable to be in power rather than the opposition. It’s even possible that Biden could become a much more powerful world leader (as opposed to the cliché of a lame duck) by not running again, unfettered by relinquishing the need to have a constant eye on the polls and 2024. Maybe, maybe not.

But one aspect of the conversation concerns me deeply: The deep strain of ageism that is framing the debate. And we should call it out.

We might expect nasty caricatures about Joe as senile from the President’s enemies on the alt-right and generally in the sewage of social media. Bloggers, FoxNews, and late night comics love to replay news clips of Biden looking confused or struggling to speak clearly. Sometimes these are real, sometimes they are completely fabricated.

But what do we make of the blunt headline of Michelle Goldberg’s Times editorial, “Joe Biden is Too Old to be President Again”?

And, for that matter, what do we do with this month’s Times/Siena poll, which found that the #1 reason Democrats don’t want Biden to run again is “he’s too old”?

I find it incredibly troubling. It’s also a reminder that ageism is one remaining bigotry that is absolutely acceptable, even among progressives. (Well, I suppose there is also that other one.)

If Biden is cognitively compromised, that is something the public has the right to know. (Some have argued that Reagan was showing the effects of Alzheimer’s while he was in office, and chose to conceal it.) Of course, it is also known that Biden has always had a propensity for misspeaking, and he has struggled with stuttering all his life—so to what degree are the charges of “senility” in fact cruel mocking of his well-known disability?

I’m not in a position to know, but of this I am confident: old does not mean disabled—and to assert otherwise is ageist. For that matter, Elderhood should be seen as a virtue for leadership, not a disqualifier. (Reagan, you may recall, had the most perfect response to this.)

And I am confident that saying a person is “too old to be President” is offensive to Jewish values.

After all, the Torah tradition makes the case over and over again that not only is Elder status not a liability; in fact, it is a qualifier for leadership.

There are plenty of illustrations of this. In the Torah, “the Elders” are a sort of kitchen cabinet who are gathered around Moses, to give legitimacy to his leadership (starting in Exodus 3:16, and then repeatedly through Exodus and Numbers). Moses, himself, is said to be 80 years old at the time of the Exodus, and even after decades of leading the people through the desert, “his eyes were undimmed and his vigor unabated” (Deut. 34:7). 

But the starkest example of this is found in the Book of Kings. After the death of King Solomon, there is a succession battle for leadership. Solomon’s son Rehoboam—a crude and entitled man—presumes he will be the next king. But the leaders of the Ten Tribes to the north have many well-founded grievances, which they present to Rehoboam before his coronation. Rehoboam consults the Elders of his father’s kingdom, seeking their guidance about how to treat the northerners’ petitions.

The Elders give Rehoboam sage advice, no doubt learned from experience. They tell him: If you respond to the people’s grievances today with empathy and sensitivity, they will be loyal to you forever.

Unfortunately, Rehoboam has another group of advisors—a group of young “best and brightest.” They tell Rehoboam to tell the northerners to piss off. And he follows their advice—in fact, he responds to them with vulgarity. No wonder the northern tribes go off and find a new leader; essentially, “anyone but Rehoboam.”

The result of all this? Civil war, and a tragic national schism which haunts Israel for the rest of the Bible—and, I suppose, for the rest of history.  That’s what happens when the wisdom of experience is cast aside. (All this is in 1 Kings 12.)

The point of this impromptu Bible study is: Yes, of course age is sometimes accompanied by cognitive and physical decline. But Judaism broadly takes another tack. Elders deserve attention precisely because they’ve seen and experienced more in their years than you have. The Talmud puts it this way:

Rabbi Yochanan used to rise in the presence of elders—even non-Jewish ones—exclaiming, “How many experiences have happened to these people!” (Nedarim 33a)

 
Look, maybe Biden should run again and maybe he shouldn’t. What I know is: Saying he’s “too old to run” is obnoxious, foolish, and un-Jewish.

Obviously age should not be the determining factor for leadership. I’ve known young geniuses and old fools. Sometimes Elders do experience cognitive decline. But the presumption from Jewish tradition—and most spiritual and cultural traditions around the word—is that an elder has, through her experiences, gained a perspective that younger people don’t have.

We might call that perspective: wisdom.

Photo credit: The White House By The White House - https://www.instagram.com/p/BEvzFGwFwc2/, Public Domain

An Antidote to Cynicism

Book Review: Dreams Never Dreamed, by Kalman Samuels (Toby Press, 2020)

We live in strange and cynical times. It’s an era of discord and polarization, on the precipice of what will be the nastiest, most divisive political season in American history, exacerbated by the centrifuge that is social media. It’s difficult to escape, but we should do our best to protect ourselves: Cynicism, after all, is spiritual poison.

The antidote to cynicism arrived in my mailbox in the form of Dreams Never Dreamed, a memoir by Kalman Samuels, the founder of Shalva, the Israel Association for the Care and Inclusion of Persons with Disabilities. It looks like a generic feel-good memoir, and to be honest, I was unprepared for how deeply and profoundly I was moved by the story of the Samuels family.

The book works on a variety of levels. It is an Erin Brockovich-style saga of perseverance against entrenched and moneyed bureaucracies. It is also the story of a husband and wife, and a father and son. And it is the diary of one man’s spiritual journey and faith.

Kalman Samuels was born Kerry Samuels, raised in Vancouver in a normative suburban Jewish lifestyle. He was a jock, an inquisitive pupil, and a student leader. In young adulthood, he traveled to Israel, where his intellectual curiosity and openness brought him into the orbit of baal teshuvah-Jewish outreach. Incrementally he left the promise of university life behind for the life of a full-time Talmud student. No doubt that some members of his former circles were dismayed. But part of the sweetness of this book is that, unlike other memoirs of people who embrace haredi (ultra-Orthodox) Judaism, Kalman’s writing is open and affectionate about his youth. He doesn’t seem to have any regret or resentment about his upbringing; in fact, his teenage skills as a golfer, for instance, will help build important bridges much later in his life. Like I said, there is no cynicism to be found here.

Given the remarkable experiences that befall Kalman throughout the years, it’s hard not to be drawn into his faith, and to sense that something behind the scenes is pointing the way for him. Time and time again, as he becomes one of Israel’s leading advocates for disabled children and their families, an angel seems to lift him over yet another insurmountable obstacle. I kept thinking of the biblical Joseph, who constantly reminds others that his successes are not his own, but attributable to G-d whose hand is hidden behind the scenes.

It is also to Kalman’s great credit as a writer that he never sermonizes and these religious details are never heavy-handed. Nothing about the book is conversionary. He simply shares the elements of his deep faith that are germane to the astounding story he has to tell. That is refreshing, too.

Kalman and his wife Malki began to build their family in Israel in the mid-1970s. In autumn 1977, their one year-old son Yossi received a routine DPT (diphtheria, pertussis, tetanus) vaccination that all babies receive. And that is the moment the family’s life changed. Later they would discover that the pertussis element of that batch of vaccinations was corrupted. Soon their sweet and alert boy would begin having seizures, and he was becoming blind. By the time he was three years old, they realized he had become deaf as well.

Yossi Samuels eventually would become known as the “Helen Keller of Israel.”

For Kalman and Malki, Yossi’s disabilities  launched a years-long battle in the courts against those who negligently—and ruthlessly—permitted the faulty vaccines to be distributed to Israeli families. Entrenched corporate forces and the Kafkaesque Israeli health system denied culpability at every turn. Kalman tells the story of his family’s pursuit of accountability in direct and compelling terms. The setbacks are excruciating. The denouement, when it comes, is exhilarating. 

Yossi Samuels and Shoshana Weinstock, in an image from the book.

The emotional center of the book is Yossi’s emergence into the world. Just as Helen Keller had a teacher, Annie Sullivan, whose painstaking efforts finally broke into her world, Yossi had a teacher named Shoshana Weinstock. Shoshana does the work of teaching Yossi by fingerspelling letters into the palm of his hand. Here is the moment of breakthrough:

In the course of one such lesson, Shoshana suddenly appeared at our house with Yossi, knocking loudly at our door, breathless with excitement. “He got it! He got it!” she cried. “His life has changed forever!”

Malki and I had no idea what she was talking about. We looked at his hands to see what he had “got.” “No! No!” Shoshana shouted. “He got it! He understands that I’m signing letters in his palm. His entire world has just opened.”
…
“We were sitting at the table in my house and I was fingerspelling the five symbols that spell the word ‘table’ [shulchan in Hebrew] into the palm of his hand, while his other hand rested on the table.” She continued excitedly, “I have done this for the past few lessons but Yossi didn’t respond. Today,” she said, “a smile suddenly lit up his face and he began to touch the table deliberately, and we both knew that he’d understood I was spelling shulchan. We did it over and over and he smiled again and again, touching the table every time. He has a new life. I can teach him all twenty-two letters of the Hebrew alphabet and give him language.”

We were all sobbing as Shoshana began to demonstrate on the palms of Yossi’s sister and brothers how to spell shulchan and how to sign the other letters. She told them: “You, too, are going to learn the letters, and you’ll at last be able to speak to your brother.” (p.94-95)

Excuse me for a moment, I have something in my eye.

Yossi’s widening horizons and development into a passionate, active young man is thrilling, to say the least. Just as inspiring, however, is Malki Samuels’s relentless vision. She is the catalyst behind Shalva. She knows firsthand how caring for a disabled child can be physically and spiritually exhausting for an entire family. The original vision was to create a center for children with disabilities that would provide love, care, and growth—and which would give parents a much needed respite, to focus attention on the rest of their families, or to reenergize themselves. These are lessons that could only come from parents who have experienced the challenges of raising disabled children themselves.

Shalva opens in the apartment building next door to the Samuels’ home. But this book is really about Shalva’s exponential growth, thanks to two factors: (1) Malki’s crystal-clear vision for what disabled children and their families need—which is not always in sync with what “the experts” believe; and (2) Kalman’s indefatigable, serendipitous, and often comic ability to make things happen or to raise the necessary funds. You root for them, even as you are certain that their efforts will be successful. (As Joseph would remind us, “Not me! But G-d…”)

The final battle is to find Shalva’s permanent home in central Jerusalem, on a vast campus with an amphitheater, public café, and an enormous array of amenities for the development or simple of joy of the children and their families. Shalva is even more than that: It’s a portal that welcomes visitors to Jerusalem as they enter the city from the west. For Jerusalem is not meant to (merely) be a place of politics and business. It is also supposed to be a gateway to more supernal dimensions, and that gateway is channeled through chesed / compassion and love. Do go visit the Shalva campus, it’s an essential part of understanding what Jerusalem is about.

And if you’re still not convinced, spend a little time with the astonishing Shalva Band. You’ll come around.

I got to know Kalman back in the 1990s, during my summers in Israel with Danny Siegel. Indeed, a chapter about Yossi and Shoshana is included in Radiance, the new anthology of Danny’s writing that I edited. Kalman’s book fills in lots of the gaps that I didn’t know and brings his story to a remarkable and heady fulfillment.

If you’re looking for a little inspiration—never maudlin nor cliched, but honest, touching and often very funny—read Kalman’s joyful, uplifting book. 

Quite simply, it’s the antidote to cynicism.

Hearing Without My Ears

Early each morning, the Jewish prayerbook prescribes a blessing for the wonders of the human body:

 בָּרוּךְ אַתָּה ה' אֱלהֵינוּ מֶלֶךְ הָעולָם אֲשֶׁר יָצַר אֶת הָאָדָם בְּחָכְמָה וּבָרָא בו
…נְקָבִים נְקָבִים חֲלוּלִים חֲלוּלִים

Blessed are You, O G-d, Ruling Spirit of the Universe, who has formed human beings with wisdom, creating us with countless holes and orifices.

It continues: 

שֶׁאִם יִפָּתֵחַ אֶחָד מֵהֶם או יִסָּתֵם אֶחָד מֵהֶם אִי אֶפְשַׁר לְהִתְקַיֵּם…
.וְלַעֲמוד לְפָנֶיךָ אֲפִילוּ שָׁעָה אֶחָת
.בָּרוּךְ אַתָּה ה' רופֵא כָל בָּשר וּמַפְלִיא לַעֲשות

If one of them should be open when it should be closed, or closed when it should be open, it would be impossible to exist or stand before You even for a single moment. Blessed are You, O G-d, Healer of All Flesh, who performs wonders.

That’s right, it’s the infamous Prayer for Going to the Bathroom, known as the Asher Yatzar. It’s a blessing of wonder and awe for our bodies that work as amazingly well as they do much of the time. It also indicates an awareness that when something malfunctions in these tiny valves, vessels, organs, and tissues, the whole system is impacted.

My teacher Professor Eugene Borowitz ז״ל used to say that he always considered the Asher Yatzar to be rather innocuous—and perhaps even an example of the Jewish overkill when it comes to saying blessings—until he developed a kidney stone. That’s when he realized that something no larger than a grain of salt could bring a healthy man to his knees, eyes tearing in pain. After that, he said, he finally understood this prayer, and its words became for him one of the most spiritually profound passages in the entire siddur.

For me, the problem is further up the body. The human ear is a miracle of delicacy and intricate sophistication. Sensations on the eardrum trigger vibrations on tiny bones in the middle ear (the malleus, incus, and stapes), which in turn stimulate the cochlea. The movement of the liquid in the cochlea sends signals to the auditory nerve, and the brain decodes these signals, providing hearing. I don’t think I can explain what happens in between each of those steps—why one signal sounds like an oboe and another like a fire alarm and yet another like my grandmother’s voice. Still, the whole marvelous system is sublime, and each of us carries this technology around in our head.

But years ago, an audiologist showed me an x-ray of the bones in my middle ear—and how they were gradually ossifying, and thus losing their sensitivity. They’re so small and located so far inside my head, the doctor explained, that I was not a candidate for surgery. My hearing was only going to get worse. It’s the family curse.

But on Thursday, I’m confronting the curse head-on. I’m headed to Massachusetts Eye & Ear for cochlear implant surgery.

The procedure takes place in two stages. On Thursday, they’ll implant a magnetic transmitter in my head, with the promise of setting off security detectors at airports for the rest of my life. A few weeks later, I’ll be fitted with an external processor (it looks like a hearing aid) that works in tandem with the implant. Effectively what happens is: these devices bypass my ear and send electronic signals directly to the brain, which the brain decodes as sounds. Hearing without using your ears. Unbelievable!

There is a long rehabilitation period. The surgeon, Dr. Felipe Santos, tells me that when the processor is switched on a few weeks after the implantation, I’ll notice an immediate impact (in my left ear—you only implant one ear at a time), but it will be far from perfect. Then, over a series of weeks and months, my brain will adapt to this new way of hearing, and it will get better and better.

It won’t be perfect, but perfection is a stupid standard to live by. It will be much improved, G-d willing, and will make me a lot more functional in classes, meetings (in Buber’s sense of the word), and generally, in life. It will mean an enormous difference to my family, whom my hearing loss impacts perpetually.

I’m anticipating the surgery with excitement and only the normal amount of trepidation and nervousness. I’m curious about voices and music will sound like when my left side is operational once again. They warn me that at first sounds will be “tinny” and “robotic” – I’m imagining the sounds of voices through a vocoder—as my brain learns how to hear all over again.

Despite all the reading and preparing that I’m doing, I’m not 100% sure what to expect—but I’m going to ride this like a roller coaster, and hold on tightly.

But a few things I do know. We live in an unbelievable, breathtaking time, when technology can restore a lost or damaged sense. And I know that I’m astoundingly fortunate and privileged—that this technology is not readily available to millions or billions of other people around the globe, and that the appropriate response to that is radical gratitude.

And I know one more thing: in a few days, when I say the Asher Yatzar, it’s going to have all sorts of nuances that I never knew were there.

It’s going to sound different.

Invisible Disability

Who gives a person speech? Who makes a person mute or deaf, seeing or blind?
(Exodus 4:11)

So when you see your neighbor carrying something, help him with his load
And don’t go mistaking Paradise for that home across the road.
(Bob Dylan, “The Ballad of Frankie Lee and Judas Priest”)

My hearing loss began to manifest itself around the time I was thirty-eight. It probably was screwing up my life for a while before I really began to notice that I couldn’t hear people sitting across the table. Or, as those of us who are accomplished in the art of self-denial might eventually realize, perhaps not everybody in my life was mumbling all the time.

Thirty-eight was pretty much the age my Dad was when he started losing his hearing, so maybe somewhere in the back of my mind I had an ominous awareness that this might be coming. 

But I didn’t totally lose my (well-attuned) sense of absurdity. The first time I went to an audiologist, it was with a big gulp, and the sudden slam of reality when she told me the diagnosis. “Give it to me straight,” I said to her. “Does this have anything to do with playing Metallica really loud in the car?” 

“How clear can I make this?” the doctor replied. “It has nothing to do with that. It’s just your crappy genes.”  I thought about this for a minute, recognized a small victory, and pumped my fist and replied, “Yes!”

I tell that story because I’d hate to think I’ve lost my sense of humor about stuff that can be quite upsetting. And because for the rest of this piece (and a few more to come) I want to record some observations on my experiences. It’s therapeutic for me to write, and I’m glad for my friends to understand it all a little better. And if someone else can relate to this by seeing herself or himself in this saga—well, all the better.

(1)  Hearing loss is an “invisible disability.” That is to say, when you encounter such a person, they don’t necessarily look disabled. I don’t use the word “deaf” to describe myself, mostly because I’m not totally deaf; hearing aides make me functional. So I’ve got to explain to people—many times a day—that I’m hearing impaired.

Competitive suffering is always a bad idea (for individuals and for communities), so I won’t compare one disability with another. But when I’ve needed to advocate for myself and others, I’ve often thought, “If I came into this room in a wheelchair, you would bend over backwards to accommodate me. Why must accommodating someone who’s hard of hearing be so difficult?”

That’s the nature of the invisible disability. People can’t be expected to respond or adapt to it until it’s explained to them. And everyone needs to be trained to be far more sensitive to that which is hidden. Other common invisible disabilities include: people with acute anxiety, or living with constant pain, or who have an eating disorder, or depression, or countless other disabilities that are not readily apparent, but make navigating daily life so challenging. 

More than that, you need to remind people—even loved ones—that they have to adapt, because that which is invisible is so easy to forget.

(2)  Hearing aids suck. I should be a bit more grateful; after all, I really couldn’t function without my hearing aids. But here’s the thing that it took me a while to learn, and even longer to explain to family and friends: hearing aids are just aids, that’s all.

Here’s what I mean. As a long-time wearer of eyeglasses (since first grade; I’m hardcore), you realize that glasses or contact lenses give you back 20/20 vision. But for reasons that I still can’t quite articulate, hearing aids are just aids; they don’t give you “20/20 hearing,” so to speak. Batteries die, they get clogged with wax, and even when they’re fully operational… they’re only satisfactory, not great. 

(The fact that they’re a fortune, and insurance companies for some godforsaken reason don’t cover them, is a different rant.)

(3) So you learn to adapt.  When I walk with someone, I make them stand on my right side, since that ear hears better. When I enter a room for a lecture or meeting, I try to sit strategically—close to the speaker, or in a place where I can favor my right ear.

But it gets more difficult. As I’ve felt my hearing degenerate, I’ve compensated in other ways. Take the phone (please). I haven’t held a phone to my ear in years. I put on the speaker, and try my best to hear it. If it’s a really important call, I get into the car, turn on the Bluetooth, and crank the volume. Just ask the neighbors—they’ll tell you how effective this technique is.

A few years ago, I got an adaptor that sends my phone via Bluetooth straight to the hearing aides. This was pretty good at first. (I told my mother-in-law Paula, “Your voice right now is going directly into my head. Which is, of course, every mother-in-law’s fantasy.”)  But that adaptor no longer suffices, because I haven’t just lost volume, but also accuracy. So it doesn’t matter that the volume is turned up to 11; it has become harder to differentiate words.

(4) I used to say “I don’t fake it.” When I was new to all of this, I insisted that I never pretended to hear something that I didn’t. I’d patiently ask people to repeat themselves; I’d explain that I don’t hear well.

All I can say is, those days passed a while ago. I fake it all the time. I’m neither proud nor ashamed of that; it’s simply a survival technique. After all, how many times can you ask people—a waiter, a salesperson, a classmate—to repeat themselves? Eventually, you move on; this isn’t a new game show, “How Long Can You Stand It?”

And so, in more and more conversations I satisfy myself with “getting the gist of it.”  Which can probably suffice at a cocktail party or backyard barbecue. It’s less satisfactory at a parent-teacher conference. And it’s really a problem, say, when you’re a rabbi and you’re visiting someone in a hospital bed.

Faking it carries its own risks, of course. When you’re following 40% of what someone is telling you in a crowded, noisy room, you put on a serious, sober expression, and hope that the other person didn’t just say, “My sister had triplets.” You smile, and hope they didn’t say, “My uncle had a stroke.” 

(5)  Music is heartache. Those who know me know that music is one of the primary pleasures in life. I have a perpetual soundtrack in my head at any given moment. Music stores (there’s a thing that used to exist that you can tell your grandchildren about) have always been my favorite hangouts.

But the nature of hearing loss is that you lose certain frequencies more than others. So music sounds weird, unfamiliar. Here’s a case in point: I know the repertoire of the Grateful Dead backwards and forwards. So imagine how disorienting it can be to have a song come on the radio that I’ve heard a thousand times—and not be able to recognize it or make out the lyrics. This has started to happen more and more often, and it’s very disorienting and more than a little heartbreaking. (And spare me your snide comments, like “See? There is a bright side!” I’m trying to make a point, but there’s always someone who wants to rag on Jerry and the Dead…)

So I share these notes with you, because maybe it will help you with your own load. If you’ve experienced some of these challenges, know that I’ve been there too. If you’ve got someone in your life who struggles, maybe this can give you a bit more understanding.

As for me, the time has come to do something about it, because it’s really grown to be quite intolerable.  More on that in the days ahead.

"Disability" Redux

[I wrote this piece about disabilities about seven years ago, when I was learning how to confront my hearing loss. Since then my hearing as deteriorated, and it impacts every class I teach and every interaction I have. As you may imagine, it’s terribly frustrating. I felt like returning to this essay, to see how I still feel about the sentiments I wrote in 2012. And I’ll have more to say about this subject in the weeks ahead, so it seems like a timely revisit.

Instead of just reposting the piece, I’ve added some contemporary glosses by a noted scholar. (Not the same ‘noted scholar’ who commented on Woody Allen’s legendary Hasidic tales, but perhaps descended from him.)]

Disability

The angel wrenched Jacob’s hip at its socket…
The sun rose upon him as he passed Penuel, limping on his hip…
Jacob arrived  שָׁלֵם [whole] at the city of Shechem.
(Genesis 32:26, 32; 33:18)

All of us are damaged in some way; it’s a fundamental part of being human. Also human is the way in which we confront our brokenness; the gracefulness with which accept our imperfections.

[GLOSS: When I originally wrote this, some of my readers objected to the word ‘brokenness’ as being harsh and implying a value-judgment. There’s a stream of thought among disabled communities that one should “embrace” her or his disability. But “brokenness” is precisely what I mean. When I consider what has become of my hearing, “broken” and in need of “fixing” is exactly how I feel about it.]

My personal disability is rather awkward because it plays itself out so publicly in my life – in the classroom, in meetings (in Buber’s sense of the word), in our sanctuary, and even across a hospital bed. I started losing my hearing a few years ago, at exactly the same age when my father began to lose his. It began to impact my effectiveness in my work. I would get frustrated, angry at myself. I even had a moment of “bottoming out”, to use the language of addiction and recovery, when I sat in the front row for a lecture of which I heard practically nothing. It rocked me deeply.

[GLOSS: What I thought was “bottoming out” was just the beginning. It’s become commonplace for me to attend a crowded party and not be able to hear a thing, or stubbornly go to concerts and strain to recognize songs that I know really well.]

For a short while I felt sorry for myself. Then I started visiting audiologists and figuring out how I was going to move forward. Hearing aids help, although to my chagrin and frustration they have remained “aids” and have never given me 100% of the hearing I’ve desired. This was particularly frustrating, because of all our cherished senses, hearing is especially precious to me. You who know me know that for me listening to music is one of life’s deepest pleasures. The diminishment of that pleasure is a serious heartbreak. 

[GLOSS: That observation was important. I still can’t really explain why contact lenses give me 20/20 vision, but hearing aids don’t deliver “20/20 hearing”, so to speak. Family and friends of hearing-impaired people need to understand that.

All of us have fears that awaken us in the middle of the night, when the day’s distractions have dissolved away. Lately mine is the prospect of what my hearing loss will be like when I’m 50, or 60, or beyond. Will I move from “hearing-impaired” to full-fledged deafness? Will I be able to function at my job? Those are real fears I carry in my soul, with some degree of anguish.

But these days those fears don’t slow me down. Quite to the contrary. I’ve become more and more comfortable with saying to students in my classroom, “This is what I’m working to overcome. This is my disability. What’s yours?”

[GLOSS: Some days I feel the early optimism of this piece fading. But I have never been shy about announcing that I’m hearing impaired. It’s become quite standard for me to open a class or launch a speech with a disclaimer about my disability. Not in a self-pitying way… just to clue people in.]

In fact, I find an enormous amount of strength coming forth from our tradition. Personal prayer has become far more intense since I’ve come to grips with my disability. The morning prayers, for instance, contain a remarkable passage that reflects on the body’s delicateness: “You have made the human body filled with tiny holes and orifices… If one of them were opened when it should be closed, or closed when it should be opened, we wouldn’t be able to stand before You for even a moment.” When I reflect that my hearing loss stems from the ossification of the miniscule bones in the inner ear, I share the wonder of the siddur’s poet. It’s a daily miracle how much works so well!

[GLOSS: Still true. And yet… I look at the birchot ha-shachar, the daily blessings of awe that are found early on in the Jewish siddur. We bless G-d for being pokeach ivrim, “the One who gives sight to people who are blind,” which of course is meant as a spiritual metaphor. Why doesn’t it say mashmiya chershim, “the One who causes deaf people to hear”? Especially since “to hear” – as in the Shema Yisrael – is such a crucial metaphor in the Jewish prayerbook? I’ll write more about this soon, but I’m curious if you have an insight about this.]

In the Torah, many of our ancestors carried some sort of brokenness. Isaac was blind; so too, perhaps, was Leah. Jacob’s leg was wrenched in his wrestling with the angel; perhaps he limped for the rest of his life. Most famously, Moses stood before G-d at the burning bush and said, in essence, “Why would you choose me to speak before Pharaoh?  After all, my lips…” The Torah is enigmatic about Moses’s shortcoming: Did he stutter?  Did he have a disabled palate? Or was he merely terrified of public speaking? It matters—but not as much as G-d’s response to him, which is, in essence, “I don’t make mistakes. I’ve called you to do a job, to speak truth to the power that is Pharaoh. And if you trust Me, then when the time comes we’ll find the words, together.”

[GLOSS: A partial list of disabled people from Jewish tradition (note the surprising absence of deaf characters):
Isaac – blind
Leah – “weak eyes”
Jacob – walked with a limp
Moses – speech impeded
Samson – blind
Ahiya the prophet – blind
Rabbi Yosef (Nedarim 41a) – blind
Rabbi Sheshet (Berachot 58a) – blind
Levi (Ta’anit 21a) – could not walk
The Maggid of Mezeritch – walked with a limp
R. Simcha Bunem of Peshischa – blind
… I know there’s so many more. How many can you add to this list?]

I have no delusions (trust me) of being a Jacob or Moses or Isaac or Leah. But I study their life-stories and try to learn their lessons. Isaac found the words to bless his children. Leah went on to find love and, if you believe the midrash, she also found her sister. Jacob, even with his limp, is still called shalem, “whole” – a poignant reminder that these finite bodies are mere containers for the infinity in our souls. And Moses, G-d’s servant and partner, spoke through damaged lips the words, “Let my people go.” He even found the strength and confidence to lead a people through the wilderness.

I imagine that each of them felt sorry for themselves when they first confronted their disabilities. Maybe their communities supported them in their struggles (maybe they didn’t). But eventually, each of them found a way back to Life; to saying: This is Who I Am. No longer will it hold me back, but I’ll offer myself, anew, in all my brokenness, to do what I was designed to do all along. In faith and tradition and the love of others, I will find my strength.

This is my brokenness. What’s yours?

[GLOSS: Corny ending, perhaps. But something cool has happened over the years: when I talk about my disability, I’ve found that students of all ages have opened up. Some have come to me and said, “I’ve been faking it for years; I’m going to make an appointment with an audiologist.” Even more gratifying are those whose hearing is fine, but who make the connections to their learning disability, or whatever. Here’s to each of us sharing our own vulnerabilities, so that “maybe more can come out of their hiding places” (to borrow a line from a Danny Siegel poem).

Disability

The angel wrenched Jacob’s hip at its socket… The sun rose upon him as he passed Penuel, limping on his hip… Jacob arrived  שָׁלֵם [whole] at the city of Shechem (Genesis 32:26, 32; 33:18).

All of us are damaged in some way; it’s a fundamental part of being human. Also human is the way in which we confront our brokenness; the gracefulness with which accept our imperfections.

My personal disability is rather awkward because it plays itself out so publicly in my life – in the classroom, in meetings (in Buber’s sense of the word), in our sanctuary, and even across a hospital bed. I started losing my hearing a few years ago, at exactly the same age when my father began to lose his. It began to impact my effectiveness in my work. I would get frustrated, angry at myself. I even had a moment of “bottoming out”, to use the language of addiction and recovery, when I sat in the front row for a lecture of which I heard practically nothing. It rocked me deeply.

For a short while I felt sorry for myself. Then I started visiting audiologists and figuring out how I was going to move forward with my problem. Hearing aids have made a difference, although to my chagrin and frustration they have remained “aids” and have never given me 100% of the hearing I’ve desired. This was particularly frustrating, because of all our cherished senses, hearing is especially precious to me. You who know me know that for me listening to music is one of life’s deepest pleasures. The diminishment of that pleasure is a serious heartbreak. 

All of us have fears that awaken us in the middle of the night, when the day’s distractions have dissolved away. Lately mine is the prospect of what my hearing loss will be like when I’m 50, or 60, or beyond. Will I move from “hearing-impaired” to full-fledged deafness? Will I be able to function at my job? Those are real fears I carry in my soul, to some degree of anguish.

But these days those fears don’t slow me down. Quite to the contrary. I’ve become more and more comfortable with saying to students in my classroom, “This is what I’m working to overcome. This is my disability. What’s yours?”

In fact, I find an enormous amount of strength coming forth from our tradition. Personal prayer has become far more intense since I’ve come to grips with my disability. The morning prayers, for instance, contain a remarkable passage that reflects on the body’s delicateness: “You have made the human body filled with tiny holes and orifices… If one of them were opened when it should be closed, or closed when it should be opened, we wouldn’t be able to stand before You for even a moment.” When I reflect that my hearing loss stems from the ossification of the miniscule bones in the inner ear, I share the wonder of the siddur’s poet. It’s a daily miracle how much works so well!

In the Torah, many of our ancestors carried some sort of brokenness. Isaac was blind; so too, perhaps, was Leah. Jacob’s leg was wrenched in his wrestling with the angel; perhaps he limped for the rest of his life. Most famously, Moses stood before G-d at the burning bush and said, in essence, “Why would you choose me to speak before Pharaoh?  After all, my lips…” The Torah is enigmatic about Moses’s shortcoming: Did he stutter?  Did he have a disabled palate? Or was he merely terrified of public speaking? It matters—but not as much as G-d’s response to him, which is, in essence, “I don’t make mistakes. I’ve called you to do a job, to speak truth to the power that is Pharaoh. And if you trust Me, then when the time comes we’ll find the words, together.”

I have no delusions (trust me) of being a Jacob or Moses or Isaac or Leah. But I study their life-stories and try to learn their lessons. Isaac found the words to bless his children. Leah went on to find love and, if you believe the midrash, she also found her sister. Jacob, even with his limp, is still called shalem, “whole” – a poignant reminder that these finite bodies are mere containers for the infinity in our souls. And Moses, G-d’s servant and partner, spoke through damaged lips the words, “Let my people go.” He even found the strength and confidence to lead a people through the wilderness.

I imagine that each of them felt sorry for themselves when they first confronted their disabilities.  Maybe their family and friends supported them in their struggles (maybe they didn’t). But eventually, each of them found a way back to Life; to saying: This is Who I Am. No longer will it hold me back, but I’ll offer myself, anew, in all my brokenness, to do what I was designed to do all along. In faith and tradition and the love of others, I will find my strength.

This is my brokenness. What’s yours?