Shabbat Nachamu – Shabbat of
Comfort
Parshat Va’et’chanan
God gives the Torah to all of
us, all of us standing together at Sinai.
We all hear it, young or old, hearing or hearing impaired. We all witness the wonder of God’s Presence, whether
we can see or not, somehow every last one of us heard and continues to hear
God’s voice.
This past Shavuot, the day
that we celebrate receiving the Torah at Sinai, I stood on the bimah with a
smiling, happy, and enthusiastic young man named Sean, a young man who was the
first student to become bar mitzvah from a special Hebrew school class for
children on the autism spectrum. Unlike
some other students who were at times reluctant to come forward and lead
prayers from the bimah, Sean always was happy to come forward. He loved to sing out the chorus of Veshamru. Even if he did not know a prayer, he liked to
stand up there next to me while I was leading.
Always full of joyfulness, he liked to speak about all the people he
wanted to invite to his bar mitzvah.
On the day of his Bar
Mitzvah, he and his brother Robbie stood together to lead Alenu.
I was so proud of how he
recited the Torah blessings, especially on that day, the day of matan Torah,
the giving of Torah.
The effort to create the
special classroom drew in Jewish families who lived as far as 30 minutes away
from the synagogue. Concerned about
their children who could not sit through services, unable to find Jewish
education programs in which their children could learn, they found their way to
my shul. They studied with a certified
teacher, each student had a teen aide in the classroom, and they joined
together with the rest of the school for special programs including the spring
Jewish song festival.
I think about Sean, Daniel,
and the other students in the class especially as 2015 is the 25th
anniversary of the passage of the Americans With Disabilities Act.
I think about the great work
that has been done for Jewish children and adults with special needs and the
work that we still have to do.
Our friends in Israel, in the
Masorti movement, have helped over 3,000 families to have a bar or bat mitzvah
with their children, 300 students a year, Participants include children with a variety of
physical and developmental challenges, such as cerebral palsy, Down Syndrome,
ADD-ADHD, autism, blindness, hearing impairments and learning disabilities.
And not only for Jewish
children – we still are searching for the causes of autism and scholars are
still developing more effective theories and methods for teaching children on
the spectrum.
This Shabbat, we read the
Shema and the Ve’ahavta as part of the Torah portion. And in the Shema we find it is not sufficient
for the Jewish people to love God with all our hearts, souls, and might. We also must teach our children to love God,
and to love our fellow human beings, by teaching them the mitzvot.
Veshinantam levanecha ve’dibarta bam…
Teach them to your
children.
The Rabbis tell us that our
students are called ‘children’, as it says, “The children of the prophets went
out from Beth-El to meet Elisha the prophet,”
they were not all children of prophets, they were the students, and
Elisha was their teacher.
All our children are our
students, and all our students are our children.
It is up to us to make sure
that all our children are able to receive a Jewish education.
Ve’shinantam comes from the
root le’sha’nen, to sharpen, and it suggests that we review the material with
each child until each child is able to learn the material – to repeat, and
review, in many different ways, until each child receives the Torah just like
all our ancestors did at Sinai.
In the Book of Proverbs,
Sefer Mishlay, we find a similar piece of wisdom, “Chanoch la’nar al pi darko,”
teach each child according to his or her way.
Rabbi Eliezer reflects on this, and offers, “If a child is trained in
Torah while young, he or she will grow with that wisdom and flourish.”
With all our students, but
especially with our students with special needs, we need to find ways to teach
them so that the seeds we plant in their souls will be lasting and will
flourish.
Allow me to share with you a
story that reflects a great starting point, a story much better told by Slovie Jungreis in her book 'Raising a Child With Soul'.
There was a league of Jewish
day school baseball teams here in a region of the tri state area. At one game, the two teams, in a tense
playoff situation, were tied going into the bottom of the 9th. The team at bat was sending up one of their
best hitters. With two outs, the team in
the field also knew that the next batter would be a young man with special
needs, who loved to play the game, but could not hit very well, or even run
very well. They knew if they would walk
the big hitter, they could get an easy out, send the game into extra innings. The pitcher did walk the batter, bringing up
the young man, who, smiling, took up the bat and stepped up to the plate. But instead of going for the easy out, the
coach came out to the pitcher, spoke to him, the pitcher turned to his
teammates, they knew what they would do.
The pitcher tossed a ball right down the middle of the plate and the
batter gave it a weak knock toward the mound – immediately the team in the
field, and the team in the dugout, shouted, “Run! Run!”
Again with a smile the batter slowly made it to first, rounded to second,
“Run! Go! You got it!” The cheers grew louder – he rounded 3rd,
toward home, touched the plate and all his friends cheered him for winning the
game – they didn’t think twice about the score, or the results, what was most
important was for them to give their friend confidence, to give their friend
the motivation to keep going, to keep trying no matter what the challenge.
Veshinantam levanecha – In these words we hear a call to action, a call to
action that over the next many months will turn from a call into action here in
our community, as we find ways to open our doors wider to students and families
with youth and adults with special needs.
May God grant us the
strength, wisdom, insight and courage to do this work together. Amen.
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