Our ancestors, like all humans- were human. This is one of the wonderful
things about our tradition. We look to our ancestors not just for the
ideal, but for the complex, real humans who struggled, grew, and found
their voices. Joseph was a gifted dream interpreter and he missed social
cues. King Solomon valued wisdom above all else and sometimes
engaged in black and white thinking.
Moses- before he was Moshe Rabeynu, was a shepherd. He mostly talked
to sheep. But God was able to recognize who Moshe could be. God saw in
the shepherd, a leader who could free a people and lead them to a land of
promise. Moses claimed he didn’t have words- midrash says he had a
speech impediment – and yet in the end, he became a man of vitally
important words that we continue to live by today. Moshe needed to be
shown how to speak, and the more he used his words, the more he found
them. It is the same with us.
This morning, I begin with a story about Alex Gorman, who along with
his mother Judy Chinitz, is a proud member of Pleasantville Community
Synagogue. When Alex was diagnosed with autism at a young age, his
mother Judy was told he was “profoundly cognitively disabled,” with little
understanding of language or emotion.
Judy shares: “Alex spent his school years in programs for the profoundly
disabled, and despite my efforts as a special educator, I couldn’t teach
him academic skills or give him a way to express himself. For 21 years, I
felt I had failed. After he turned 21, I placed him in a daycare program,
believing his cognitive level was that of a preschooler. But in July 2019, I
discovered a method for teaching Alex to spell using a letter board—and
it changed everything. I realized his motor impairments had prevented
him from showing his intelligence. He had been reading since age two,
and his knowledge was far beyond what I ever imagined.”
Alex went on to pass the high school equivalency exam and was accepted
into SUNY Purchase’s prestigious screenwriting program. His blog is
entitled Speaking for Myself. After discovering how to help her son, Judy
went on to start Mouth to Hand Learning Center which serves over 80
students now. When I asked Alex to share his reflections for these High
Holy Days, he wrote:
“All of my life I’ve been locked inside a body that doesn’t respond to
the commands of my brain. When I was 25 and vegetating in
daycare, my mother heard of a technique to teach the non speaking,
to type for communication. Being my mother, she gave it her all, and
a few months later I slowly began to be able to type my thoughts.
“How did you stay sane?” she asked me one day. The answer I gave
her was only partly the truth. What I said was that I always believed
that one day she would figure out that I am smart. The whole truth
is that God could hear my silent prayer, begging for help. I had faith
that God would show Mom the path, and that she had the strength
to walk it. Faith in their love gave me hope while I waited. This Rosh
Hashanah has special meaning for me, since it is this year that two
of my dreams will come true. I start college soon, and in March I
will become a bar mitzvah. There is no one on this earth happier
than me to be able to say l’shana tova. And no one is more thankful
to God for my blessings.”
Alex- We are also so thankful to the Source of Life and to your amazing
mother Judy for your blessings – which are also our blessings. I want to
acknowledge you for your incredible resilience in living with challenges
that have kept you from fully expressing yourself. Thank you for
reminding us through your story that within each of us lies the potential
to lead, to contribute, and to be fully seen – by one another. Thank you
also for showing us how to have faith in God that we will be fully seen, in
this lifetime, that we will be known as God knows us. May you continue
to go from strength to strength as you prepare for school and your Bar
Mitzvah in March. I fully expect all of us to be there to celebrate!
For some of us, our gifts are hidden.
For others, it’s our challenges.
We all have places where we are afraid or held back from being the
amazing souls God created us to be.
Imagine a world in which each of us shows up for one another because
we are so enriched in the process of doing so.
Imagine a synagogue where each of us makes spiritual and psychological
progress every day and feels comfortable to be vulnerable, to grow and
where we can be ourselves.
Imagine a community where we stand for one another’s full
self-expression and leadership potential.
Our family has been blessed to be part of communities like this.
We had always appreciated our son Ari’s intricately designed mind and
uncanny empathy in which he deeply understands each human, and
remembers way more about us than we remember about ourselves. We
hadn’t realized that his rigidity about routines, anti-authoritarianism,
special interests and ability to self-occupy for hours on end, in which he
created worlds and told himself endless stories, ordered toys into perfect
patterns, memorized 300 places of pi…we hadn’t known that these were
signs that Ari is autistic. They were and are just Ari. Ari’s unique brain
synthesizes information more quickly than most. He was diagnosed as
autistic in 7th grade.
Ari is also a synesthete. Synesthesia is when your brain routes sensory
information through multiple unrelated senses, causing you to
experience more than one sense simultaneously. With his interest in
music composition, Ari first sees a colorful art piece in his head and then
writes it down. He imagines that most famous composers were probably
synesthetes. Ari has taught us so much about so many subjects from
Neuroscience to Classical philosophy to Japanese. He also teaches us the
beauty and joy in building a more compassionate, conscious, and diverse
world.
Ari marvels at how Jews must have been neurodivergent when they
invented Shavuot, a holiday where you stay up all night studying. He also
asked me to mention that an autistic person might not dress up for
holidays due to changes in routine and/or sensory issues.
Ari’s friend Liam joined us at the house last night. When I asked Ari and
Liam about whether they ever wished they were neurotypical, they both
gave a resounding “no!” Liam commented that as a neurodivergent
person, “I feel free. I am not inhibited by social norms. Rather, I am free
to be me, and to do what I want to do.” They are so blessed to go to
Flexschool (founded by Jacqui Byrne) which allows them to follow their
unique passions and to get support for their particular needs within the
context of a true community. Every school can learn from Flexschool for
shaping future leaders to face the opportunities and challenges of
tomorrow. It’s beautiful to see the sense of tribe among Flex students
where neurodivergence is the neurotypical.
I have a little taste of this sense of community on the Neurodiverse
Jewish Community Facebook group I started in 2021, which is quite
active most recently with an outpouring of responses to questions
regarding neurodiversity challenges, engagement and inclusion in Jewish
community. I will compile my responses. Here is just one by Rabbi Lily
Solochek:
The Torah of refrigerator organization
The world says to put the produce in the drawer, but if it goes in there,
we will forget it, it will mold, and no one will get fresh fruits or veggies.
The world says the condiments should go on the door, but the door is
home to the fresh veggies from our garden, easily visible and thus easily
accessible. The condiments go in the drawer, we’ll always go looking for
ketchup if we need it.
The rest of our home is like the fridge. We structure our physical and
mental space around our own needs, without caring what “we’re
supposed to do”. We don’t feel shame because we’ve built the world to
work for us, instead of constantly feeling sad that the vegetable drawer
has failed us, or worse, that we have failed. We set our home up so that
everyone can succeed, privileging the highest needs first, because we all
benefit when everyone is included.
In preparing this sermon, I discovered “Neurodivergent Torah” through
Rabbanit Dr. Liz Shayne, Director of Academic Affairs at Yeshivat
Maharat. She does not just read biblical characters as having
Neurodivergent traits. She invites us to see more deeply, for example,
“Moshe’s struggle to communicate in a new light: making oneself
understood and teaching people how to listen.” Neurodivergent Torah
doesn’t just discuss Abaye’s different approach to learning, but
articulates how his teachings reflect his identity. It looks at the story of
young Abaye who, when asked where God was, runs out of the beit
midrash to point to the heavens as a paradigm for a kind of scholarship
that thrives outside of rigidity.“
One of the profound challenges for an autistic person, especially those
who are socialized females, is masking in order to get by in a
neurotypical world.
Yom Kippur is connected to Purim. It is the “Yom” day; “k” like; Purim.
Yom ki Purim.
Rabbanit Payne wrote an important Neurodivergent Torah article about
Queen Esther, which means hidden. From the Purim story, we can learn
about how masking our true selves has its price.
Rabbanit Payne: “When neurodivergent people mask, we are constantly
monitoring every single part of our lives and remain in a state of constant
stress and vigilance. We may also end up filled with shame and self
loathing; if we only show our masked face to our friends, then no one
truly sees us for who we are. We might even believe we are unworthy of
love because those who love us do not know the real us and we worry
that if they learned who we really are in all our neurodivergent
messiness they would leave. Masking can lead to depression, anxiety, and
burnout and it can take us years to recover and to unmask. It takes
tremendous courage for us to be ourselves.”
Hester Panim – God’s hidden face- is connected to Esther hiding her face.
When humans mask due to societal pressures or fear, God’s face is
hidden. When God’s face is diminished, we are all diminished.
Today on Yom Kippur, the day like Purim, there are no masks. There is no
pretense. We get to taste what it is to be who we are and to be with
others, unmasked. We can then bring the embodied memory of this lived
experience into every day.
Just as biodiversity strengthens an ecosystem, so too does neurodiversity
enrich our human families and communities. Neurodivergent individuals
bring perspectives and strengths that are essential to solving the
complex problems we face in our world today.
Rabbi Charna Rosenholtz, founder of Shulchan, teaches: “We are at a time
when big changes are on the horizon. Old maps will not help us with this
new territory. As we strive to adjust to what is necessary for us, new
ways of perception may emerge. Exploring emergent cultures and
innovative ways of seeing the world might provide the necessary
medicine for an ailing world.”
Ari Wallach is a futurist and social systems strategist. He is the founder
and Executive Director of Longpath Labs, an initiative focused on
bringing long-term thinking and coordinated behavior to the individual,
organizational, and societal realms in order to ensure humanity
flourishes on an ecologically thriving planet Earth for centuries to come.
In Ari Wallach’s book Longpath: Becoming the Great Ancestors Our
Future Needs, he touches on neurodivergence as part of a broader
conversation about embracing diverse ways of thinking to navigate the
complexities of the far future. Wallach suggests that neurodivergent
individuals, with their unique perspectives and cognitive patterns, play a
critical role in solving the global challenges we face. Rather than seeing
neurodivergence as a deficit, Wallach views it as a vital asset, offering
fresh approaches to problem-solving, creativity, and collaboration. By
fostering environments that honor different ways of thinking, we not
only create a more inclusive society but we can also discover new
innovations and engage in long-term planning that is essential for
shaping a sustainable future.
Albert Einstein said, “We cannot solve problems using the type of
thinking that created them.” According to Wallach, Einstein meant that
we need to be accepting of all different ways of thinking.“
(Maybe Einstein was struggling to be accepted as neurodivergent! )
Just before Kol Nidre, Ari Wallach shared with me the parable of the
three blind men who walk up to an elephant: one touches the trunk, one
touches the belly and one touches the tail. They all have very different
ways of describing what that animal is. Right now when we describe our
problems, our issues, we’re only using one methodology which is a
“Neurotypical way” (ie just the trunk) but the reality is there are
elephants in the room. Neurodivergence will allow us to seize and see
better so that we can move forward as a species.”
On Yom Kippur – as we are all together – can we see a little bit more of the
whole elephant? The truth is, we aren’t all in the room, because this room
isn’t yet fully accessible to everyone.
On Yom Kippur, we are called to examine ourselves and our communities
for the sake of now and into the far future.
Are we creating spaces where every individual can show up as their full
self so that the issues and challenges of tomorrow can be met with our
greatest capacity?
Are we finding ways to recognize the potential in one another, to lift each
other up for the betterment of the whole community?
Neurotypical folks and neurodivergent folks: we need each other, but do
we know how to bring out the best in one another? It takes true
compassion and good communication to stay connected whatever the
nature of your brain, and especially in a Neurotypical-Neurodiverse
relationship!
Just before Rosh Hashanah we read parshat Nitzavim (Deuteronomy 29)
in which the people have evolved in their consciousness over 40 years of
wandering and are preparing to enter the land. 16th century Italian
commentator Obadia ben Yakov Sforno saw this moment as one when we
were of one mind1
. There is unity, and there are people of all sensibilitiesWoodchoppers and water drawers
– included in a covenant of mutual responsibility. The text includes those of us in the room and not in the
room, ancestors and future generations. This expansive vision calls us
towards a deep, time-space-unbound empathy, which we can experience
on Yom Kippur. The text inspires us to think into the far future which
Wallach talks about as “intergenerational empathy” in his book.
It is taught in the Zohar that the voice of Shechina herself speaks through
Moses. We are all Moses. When we embrace and are embraced for the
design of each of our own unique minds, we can embrace the unique
designs of the minds of our fellow humans, without shame or stigma. In
so doing, we find our words, and the more we use them, the more we find
them. When we find our words, we find our voice, and then we are free
l’mancha -for Your sake, the sake of the whole. Only together, with each of
us being who we are created to be.
Gmar hatima tova. A good seal on your Book of Life.
Discussion questions
- What resonated with you in this talk?
- What is your unique personal power, your greatness?
- What holds you back from full self expression?
- Do you have questions from this talk?
- What do you hope to bring to your communities and ask of your
communities in the new year? - Are there people in your life, perhaps earlier generations, who went
through life undiagnosed and who you imagine could have had an
easier time if they had support / awareness of their neurodiversity
1 בברית לעברך, Deut 29:11 you are all arranged in this order in order to signal your acceptance of the
forthcoming covenant. It is clear from Moses’ addressing all the assembled, that they were of one mind at
the time, all willing and eager to accept the covenant.