Errata
To our deep regret, the wrong version of Abigail Uhrman’s essay was printed in the first edition of Righteous Indignation. The correct version is printed below. We ask that reviewers and commentators refer to this version of the essay.
—Or Rose, Jo Ellen Green Kaiser, Margie Klein
Editors, Righteous Indignation
Differently Abled: The Lesson of Rabbi Elazar by Abigail Uhrman
The other day in New York we were lucky enough to have sunshine and 75 degree weather. Since it was the first warm day in weeks, I took the opportunity to go for a walk in my neighborhood. As I made my way through Riverside Park, I passed a family settling down for a picnic. I noticed that they were enjoying the normal trappings of a picnic with blanket, sandwiches, and lemonade but, unlike other families at the park, there was something different about this one. Like my own dad, the father in this family was in a wheelchair.
I couldn’t resist feeling a little sad as I looked at them. I knew that this father couldn’t run with his sons to play catch or lie down next to his wife on the grass. They appeared perfectly content though -it was finally a beautiful afternoon in the city, and they, like every other New Yorker (or transplanted Californian) in the park that day, wanted to take advantage of the beautiful surroundings. The sadness was in me. Instead of accepting the happy family that I saw before me, I was busy thinking about how frustrated the father must get when he can’t help out around the house, how tired the mom must be with her extra responsibilities, and how uncomfortable the kids must feel when their dad can’t get into a restaurant because of the stairs leading up to the entrance.
You would think that my own experience of having a father in a wheelchair would have taught me not to make too much of a disability. My own dad, with his enduring strength, consummate optimism, and sunny disposition, wouldn’t want or need my concern. His disability is an inextricable part of him, but it doesn’t define him. And that other father with his wife and sons, he is also a whole person, deeply nuanced and complex; yet I couldn’t seem to transfer the awareness I have of my dad to this man. Instead, I was blinded by his wheelchair, incapable of seeing his full humanity, and reduced him to what he is not.
Most of the time, we judge others by assumptions we make related to their appearance. We look at people and assume we know their social background from their speech and their economic status from their clothing. With our labels, we create narratives about other people and suppose that we can deduce who they are, from where they come, and what they need. Martin Buber in I and Thou refers to this type of relationship between people as “I-It,” a relationship of utility in which we interact as members of pre-conceived categories. An “I-You” relationship, in contrast, is one in which we are able to see and appreciate the other with the totality of our being. “He is no longer He or She,” Buber explains, “limited by other He’s and She’s, a dot in the world grid of space and time, nor a condition that can be experienced and described, a loose bundle of named qualities. Neighborless and seamless, he is You and fills the firmament.” The other becomes an equal, of infinite value. Once free from the narratives we impose, we can discover holiness in one another, unearthing each other’s humanity and realizing God’s presence in the world.
At the same time, however, Buber acknowledges not only the reality of the “I-It” relationship but its necessity. The narratives we create serve a crucial function, allowing us to mediate and make sense of our lives. In a recent article in the New Yorker magazine, Jerome Groopman explores how these narratives can serve a life-saving function in the ways that doctors diagnose and treat their patients. “Most physicians already have in mind two or three possible diagnoses within minutes of meeting a patient,” Groopman argues. “To make diagnoses, most doctors rely on shortcuts and rules of thumb-known in psychology as ‘heuristics.’ Heuristics are indispensable in medicine; physicians, particularly in emergency rooms, must often make quick judgments about how to treat a patient, on the basis of a few, potentially serious symptoms.” Doctors’ reliance on labels can be essential to their practice and vital to their diagnoses. In our own lives, such narratives can be similarly beneficial, allowing us to be sensitive to the needs of others-opening the door for an elderly woman, helping a blind man cross a busy street, or giving food to the person on the street corner who is hungry.
Relying on such narratives alone, however, can be debilitating. “Just as heuristics can help doctors save lives, they can also lead them to make grave errors,” Groopman explains. “Many misdiagnoses are the result of readily identifiable-and often preventable-errors in thinking. Doctors typically begin to diagnose patients the moment they meet them. Even before they conduct an examination, they are interpreting a patient’s appearance…and tend to develop their hunches from very incomplete information.” Our narratives and generalities can also fail us and can lead us toward stigmatization or discrimination. We presume to understand people and what they need with little, if any, real information about their lives. Does that elderly woman want me to open the door for her? Does that blind man need help crossing the street? Is food what that person on the street corner wants? Are our assumptions sometimes insulting or hurtful? Our challenge is to employ the usefulness of these social narratives while retaining the ability to deconstruct them.
Looking to our rabbinic tradition, we can gain additional insight into how to navigate these issues. In Taanit 20a, the rabbis provide a case study of one rabbi’s journey and the ways in which the narratives described above are reflected in the everyday. Rabbi Elazar, after leaving the house of his Master, travels along the banks of a river, feeling much pride and joy for the wealth of knowledge he has acquired on this most recent visit. On his way, he encounters a “terribly ugly” man. The man greets Rabbi Elazar with due respect, for Elazar is a renowned scholar. In return, the rabbi responds with repulsion, “Is everyone as ugly as you where you come from?” Disbelieving the rabbi’s remark, the man replies, “Tell the Creator who made me what an ugly, empty vessel I am!” Upon hearing the man’s response, Rabbi Elazar immediately realizes his grave mistake: by insulting this man, he has insulted God. The rabbi falls to the ground and begs for forgiveness.
The rabbi’s reaction demonstrates one way we understand difference. Realizing the severity of his mistake, Rabbi Elazar seeks to make amends by prostrating himself on the ground. While his reaction to the man is now certainly improved, Rabbi Elazar still fails to demonstrate an “I-You” relationship to this other person. Instead, he produces a new narrative about difference that contains its own extremist distortions; the man is now somehow idealized or elevated, still different, not seen as an equal. Discomfort can prompt us to overcompensate. It can overwhelm us and impel us to further distance ourselves from the other and inflate, not mitigate, that which we perceive as different.
The story does not end there, however, because the rabbi’s lesson is not yet complete. In a surprising twist, after Rabbi Elazar’s heartfelt appeal, the man refuses to accept his apology. Unwilling to surrender so easily, Rabbi Elazar follows the man to his village in hopes that he will later be forgiven. As soon as they reach the village, the Rabbi is greeted by the townspeople, “Rabbi! Master!” Following the rabbi’s warm welcome, the man replies with disdain, “If he be a rabbi, let there be none other like him in all of Israel.” After some prodding from his neighbors, the man reluctantly agrees to forgive the rabbi, but only on the condition that he not act likewise again.
Immediately thereafter, the text shifts to the content of Rabbi Elazar’s teaching. He tells the villagers, “A man should be soft as a reed and not hard as a cedar.” This comment could be read as being about Rabbi Elazar himself, but it also addresses the man he has met. This man, capable of teaching the rabbi much about acting with loving-kindness, was himself flawed. Refusing to forgive Rabbi Elazar, the man was like a rigid cedar as opposed to a malleable reed. It is in this last exchange that Rabbi Elazar finally has recognized the full extent of their shared humanity-like cedar and reed, both are equally imperfect.
The story of Rabbi Elazar ends here. There is no prescription for how we are to emulate this teaching, no examples of how we can learn to see others in their wonderful complexity. Perhaps this is due to the difficulty of the challenge. We can never see people wholly separate from the narratives we impose upon them. Nor can we do away with such narratives: like emergency room doctors, we often need heuristics to understand our world and make sense of our reality. Yet, if we leave these perceptions of difference unquestioned and unchallenged, these narratives can lead to prejudices and destructive behavior.
As I watched that family at the park, I saw them as a both complete and broken, limited by their circumstances yet as free to enjoy the day as I was. As we all do, they carried with them previous challenges and ongoing pains. At the same time, they were fully present in this peaceful shared moment, enjoying each other and their lives. The narratives that thread through and eventually define us are real and more evident to others than we often admit. However, difference is not just about how we differ from each other but also about recognizing the range of complexity within any one person’s identity.
Our multiple narratives coexist within us and enliven each other in rich and meaningful ways. By grappling with what difference means, we begin to more fully realize not only the humanity of others but our own humanity as well.