CapAbilities
Anybody who knows me well, knows that I love the show “The West Wing”. In one episode though, I do not remember which one, President Josiah Bartlet (played by Martin Sheen) states “People have phenomenal capacity.”
Ain’t that the truth.
In this week’s parsha, parshat Shmot, we are given a small lens into the enormous capacity of people in the midwives’ bravery in not following through on Pharaoh’s decree to kill all Jewish baby boys. The midwives claim that the Jewish women are like “animals who can give birth before they [the midwives] even get there [to the delivery]”(Exodus:1:19). The Jewish population multiplies because of their bravery, and HaShem rewards them with houses.
In the second perek, an anonymous couple from shevet Levi has a baby boy, looks at him, sees that he is good/healthy, and hides him for three months.
After that time, his family is no longer able to hide him, so his mother does all that she could think to do, which is to put him in a basket and send him down the Nile River.
Don’t worry, the baby’s sister is on the sidelines to make sure that nothing will happen to him… And a few pesukim later, the baby’s compassionate savior is none other than Pharaoh’s daughter.
The boy grows up in the home of his parents, nursed by his mother, surrounded by his brother and sister, after which time he grows up, and is brought back to the woman who saved him. She names him Moshe because she took him from the water.
After some time, the boy grows up, and he goes out to his brethren; he sees their suffering and he sees an Egyptian man hit one of his Jewish brethren… Moshe looks around, and he sees that there is nobody watching him, he hits the Egyptian man, and he hides him in the sand.
The next day, two Jewish men are arguing, and Moshe asks them ‘ why do you hate your brother?’, at which point he is horrified to find out that these two men had seen him kill the Egyptian man and hide him in the sand.
Moshe runs away to Midyan because Pharaoh wants to kill Moshe after Pharaoh finds out about the dead Egyptian officer.
While in Midyan, Moshe find some women near a well, saves them from some aggressive male shepherds, and is therefore invited to eat with the women. As a reward for having saved his daughters, Yisro, the father of these women, gives Tziporah, his daughter, to Moshe as a wife.
Moshe then becomes a shepherd for his father-in-law, and one day, while shepherding his sheep in the desert, he sees a bush on fire, but it is not being consumed. He goes to look closer, and HaShem starts to speak to him.
HaShem tells him that He wants Moshe to take Bnei Yisrael out of Egypt.
Moshe then gives multiple excuses as to why he is not the man for the job.
Firstly, he says who am I to go in front of Pharaoh and take Bnei Yisrael out of Egypt?
HaShem counters that argument by telling Moshe that He will be with him.
Moshe then asks what he would say to convince the people… And Hashem gives him a script of exactly what he is to say “eheyeh shilachani aleichem”, “ I will be has sent me to you”. (Exodus: 3:14)
“ I will be” is a really interesting name for HaShem to give Himself.
Rashi elucidates on this pasuk that it means that HaShem Will be with Bnei Yisrael in the subjugation that they will experience.
HaShem then gives Moshe the plan to tell Pharaoh that they will go to sacrifice to their God for three days in the desert, explaining to Moshe that it will not be easy, but that HaShem will smite and punish the Egyptians until Pharaoh lets Bnei Yisrael leave; Bnei Yisrael will not leave empty-handed, and will get its due payment when it exits Egypt.
But just because Moshe knows what’s going to happen doesn’t make it any easier.
Moshe has a disability… And he is nervous about that, so again, he brings that up to HaShem. (Exodus:4:10)
I guess even back then, having a disability prevented people from getting the job…
And this is when HaShem brings out the big guns.
He is the one who gave man a mouth.
He is the one who makes Man mute, or deaf.
Or seeing or blind.
And that’s so powerful to me as a person with a disability…
Because HaShem emphasizes that it’s not about the physical stuff…
“Lo b’chayil v’lo v’choach ki im b’ruchi amar HaShem tzivakot” (Zechariah:4:6)
It’s about the spirit with which HaShem moves you.
Or doesn’t move you.
Because yes, Moshe had a speech disability… Whether that means a speech impediment, a stutter, or both.
He had help.
Aharon was his translator for all intents and purposes.
I need help in a different way… Not with speaking, but with other things…
People don’t understand it in an intimate way… not that they should, but they don’t understand it. They don’t understand the different types of help and that the help that is needed is constant and varied and private.
The same way that we never heard about Pharaoh going to the bathroom…v’hamayvin yavin.
My family members and I have the intellectual capacity to do everything that we want… just not the physical ability.
My family and I are some of the only people on Earth who have Juvenile Onset ALS.
It’s lonely because so few other people on Earth have this.
Most other people probably do not understand that it is incredibly expensive to maintain our family with all its myriad physical needs.
This is a link to a fundraising project that will help me and my family pay the people who help us:
