This question is a plea, as much as a question of Jewish law, and deserves recognition at the level of the heart as well as that of the head. So let me “put my cards on the table”, as an advocate for inclusiveness in the Jewish institutional world. In the congregation that I serve, we are visibly and vocally committed to welcoming people regardless of the differences that all too often hinder socialization. As a result, various differently-abled people have joined our congregation. It grieves us to hear the stories of subtle or overt rejection that they have experienced.
Theologically, the Jewish embrace of the differently-abled should start with an understanding of the meaning of being human, as taught in the opening chapter of Genesis. We are created b’tzelem elohim, “in the Divine image”. While there is a legitimate range of interpretations of that phrase, the main Jewish understanding is that it refers to a spiritual, not a physical, likeness that each of us bears to our Creator. Each of us! Male and female (see Genesis 1:27 and 5:2); Each of us! Swift of foot or slow of foot (Ecclesiastes 9:11), fluent of speech or dysfluent (Exodus 3:10), sound of gait or lame (Genesis 32:31-32). All the differences in abilities are matters of blessing. Some of us are blessed with greater bodily-kinesthetic intelligence than others; some, with greater mathematical, or verbal, or emotional, intelligence—but those blessings do not affect the fundamental equality of every human, because everyone, a son or daughter of Adam and Eve, is endowed with tzelem elohim.
Over the past forty years in North American society, signal progress has been made in first tolerating, and then truly embracing, our neighbors coping with a variety of physical and emotional challenges. But we can acknowledge that there is a particular obstacle to be surmounted when the challenge affects inter-personal relations rather than physical coordination. When they do not know that their neighbor is, in the words of the questioner, a “socially isolated Jew with Asperger’s Syndrome”, people are at risk of mis-identifying the source of the difficulties. They encounter the symptoms of inflexible, or stereotypic, or perseverative behavior, and, unthinkingly interpreting them as rudeness, they react defensively, with the result of deepening the isolation of their neighbor still more. The onlookers are wrong to do so, but they need to be helped, not castigated. They are mistakenly applying otherwise adaptive social behavior, in their ignorance of what is actually the case.
As in the early days of the mid-20th century Civil Rights and Feminist movements, the proper tool for combating the ignorance of the majority is “consciousness-raising”. This can take place at the institutional level, such as the “Disabilities Awareness Shabbat” that my congregation programs every year. But it also must take place at the personal level. The individual who deals with Asperger’s Syndrome—or his advocate, if that is appropriate—has a pedagogical task, to do his part to help his neighbor understand him better.
Since the diagnosis of Asperger’s Syndrome has progressed notably in recent decades, it stands to reason that many adults who might well have that condition have never been properly diagnosed, and who are consequently dismissed or even shunned for their behavioral exceptionalities. As a heuristic measure, I would recommend that all of us, when encountering a person whose behavior might fit the diagnosis of Asperger’s Syndrome, should entertain the possibility that our neighbor is not simply being socially less adept, but may in fact be coping, unaided by medical science, with a known condition. In the words of Rabbi Yehoshua ben Perachiah in Pirke Avot 1:6, “When you assess people, tip the balance in their favor.”
In writing these words, I am painfully aware that I have not answered one critical dimension of the questioner’s cry from the heart: the question of finding a soul-mate. I do not believe that there is a panacea for the problem of loneliness, which is, indeed, the very first thing wrong with God’s creation, by God’s own judgment (Genesis 2:18). Socialization groups and special education programs, starting in childhood, the efforts of the Jewish Family Service in communities where one exists, synagogue and Jewish Community Center initiatives all can play a constructive role. A particularly fine program is the Camp Ramah “Tikvah” program for tweens, teens and young adults. Alas, these programs, while critically important, will not work like magic.
But creating places of safety and acceptance, circles of concern, compassion and warmth, are in our power as a Jewish community to effectuate, and therefore, they are our responsibility.
In the words of this week’s Torah portion, “That which is hidden is for the LORD our God; that which is overt is our responsibility, and that of our children, forever” (Deuteronomy 29:28)
Rabbi Michael Panitz
Masorti/ Conservative
Sept. 15, 2014/ 20 Elul, 5774
