Join Rabbi Lauren Tuchman for a 6 part class looking at what Judaism has to say about the role and agency of people with disabilities in the Torah and Talmud. As Jewish Disability Awareness and Inclusion Month begins, many of us will be thinking about the place of Jews with disabilities in our communities. This conversation is not new—it has been a part of our tradition from the very beginning. Many of our most foundational values about disability can be found in some famous and some not-so-famous narratives in the Torah and Talmud which involve people we might identify as having disabilities today.

In this six-session course, we will do a close reading of a different story each week, first by reading the text and secondly through commentaries on that text, including the texts of our lives. We will be doing a close reading of narratives including but not limited to Jacob’s stealing Esau’s blessing, Leah’s story, and the story of the ugly man in Taanit 20AB in the Babylonian Talmud. We will examine stories in which people with disabilities are not merely subjects but agents in their own lives, often times changing the status quo.

What lessons might we take from these narratives today?