Real Challenges Real Changes

Real Challenges Real Changes by Rabbi Dr. Eliezer Goldstock with his ayshes chayil Chana Tova Goldstock

We have had the good fortune of having a very close friend, Yitzy, who happens to be deaf. 

 

He will often show up at our house, on a Shabbos, unannounced and his intermittent visits while welcomed are usually a challenge for everyone who happens to be in the house at the time of his enigmatic and unexpected appearances. 

This is defined such because we all need to adapt to his presence, unlike any of our other, intermittent, invited, announced or unannounced guests. Yitzes arrival causes us to increase our attention and focus by employing a variety of adaptations and changes that allows for ‘his’ participation in the Shabbos socialization experience. 

For example when anyone is speaking with Yitz even though he can sign, few of us can sign well enough to make for a conversation that has any real meaning or depth. Thus, for example, when we are trying to gain his attention first we all need to remember that we will need to make eye contact or at least gain his attention using some physical cue or gesture in order for him to know that we want his attention to say something to him. 

 

This can be a bit cumbersome and I must, reluctantly but honestly admit that there have been times that it was some kind of relief when he did finally move on.  

While we consider Yitzy to be a friend, his presence requires an exceptional level of emotional, psychological, social, and intellectual investment on the part of everyone present and at every level. Our capacity to adapt to his many prerequisites is a level of commitment that is constant and deeply intense during the entire duration of his visits.

Much of the dynamic of our discussions whether on a light humorous level or a more in depth subject falls on the shoulders of my wife, Chana and I since everyone assumes that it is easier for us to interact with him than it is for everyone else that in actuality, couldn’t be further from the truth. Neither Chana nor I have not had any training in working or interacting with the deaf as individuals or in a community and yet since we have had the greatest exposure and involvement with handicap and disability of any of our friends, relations, or guests it will all fall on us to see to it that our friend is comfortable and remains involved.

Our relationship is one filled with an increased level of frustration because of all of Yitzy’s unique and specific special needs and exceptional demands that are necessary in order to remain a part of our complete family and Shabbos dynamic.

We are not required to be nice to him or even include him in our social or familial interaction simply because he is deaf, yet we find him to be genuinely friendly, funny and very sincere. He does, always, have something to contribute and is very engaging even if this interface is often quite exhausting.

We are confronting his limits with a whole new set of our own. That is he cannot hear and while not his fault we cannot overcome his inability to hear even with all of our so called abilities and that is frustrating for us and him.

When we observe a family going through the initial phases of facing up to a life with a child born with a set of handicaps or disabilities I am always reminded of this circumstance of our deaf friend/guest, Yitzy.

When we look at a disabled newborn the only context in which I have come to realize that we can ascertain a halachically correct response is to follow the Kesef Mishna where-in he observes that there is a case where a child may no longer be able to endure the strain of providing proper and appropriate parental care. For example we are suddenly confronted with the reality of an aging parent or parents and how will we respond to their need for care.

This is a situation where the mind of the parent has been so overwhelmingly compromised to the point that they are no longer able to have a relationship. In this specific case in the Gemora (Kiddushin) R. Assi leaves his mother.

The Raavad is disturbed by this abandonment more by the fact that he cannot believe that it is more possible that the parent can care for a child without monetary remuneration yet a stranger will do it for a fee.

Using this reverse kind of logic he concludes that the parent will not be able to freely speak their minds to a paid employee guardian however, with the real flesh and blood child they will not feel as restricted.

The Rambam says that there is in all probability a suitable substitute for the child caring for an incapacitated parent while the Raavad contends that there is no suitable substitute for a blood relative child when the question is the care of their own parents.

And the fact that the parents will not feel as comfortable around a stranger and thus this will inhibit the parent from truly expressing their own needs he concludes, will adversely affect the overall quality of the care of the parent. (Nishmas Avraham and Yoreh Deah 240:5)

These arguments primarily revolve around the differences in the professional care offered by a stranger versus the inexperienced (service) care provided by a child.

This is a classic disagreement between the Raavad (the idealist) and the Rambam (the realist) that offers a choice for the family to determine their specific level of limitations and abilities.

 

Thus we see that there may actually be a compromise solution that accepts both the idealism and the realism that offers families who are suddenly confronted with an infant born with a disability a choice to keep their children at home while simultaneously providing all of the requisite therapies and professional services and all at the same time still not compromising the level of care and development being offered to the child.

We all need family, and those of us fortunate enough to have a large family rely upon it to share the joys and burdens of being a member of that family. The fullness we all feel at having an extended family as well as a large natural immediate family gives us an identity, a sense of self, closeness, support, and variety.

It is exactly this access to the dynamics of a large family and therefore a family based communal life that is denied to the baby who is given away in the very beginning of life. How much more so does a retarded child need to feel this acceptance and the security that goes with it, rather than literally being lost, isolated, and rejected from the very first phase of life.

Just as having a friend who is deaf and who surprises us on occasion on a Shabbos or at a simcha and just as keeping a child born with Down syndrome can only enrich everyone’s experience that is a part of being together. 

By eliminating the myths, the fears, and the unknown, and then by further embracing, understanding and meeting the challenges head on, we all benefit.

No, it ain’t easy but it is worth it. As my dear friend Rabbi Yaakov Regensberg said when he and his wife Suri took in their third abandoned child born with Down syndrome, “when there’s room in the heart, there’s room in the home.”

Rabbi Dr. Eliezer M. Goldstock, and his wife of valor Mrs. Chana Tova Goldstock are the

Co founders of an all new project being developed in Jerusalem for adults who have Down syndrome, known as Machon Shira v’Zimra of Jerusalem.

איגוד הרבנים ד'אמריקא

Rabbinical Alliance of America (RAA)

 

www.hearttoheartamerican.org//