Kirva – To develop a training program for Jewish community educators and leaders with disabilities to prepare them to facilitate Jewish learning experiences that integrate disability Torah, community building, and spiritual growth.

What was the inspiration for this project? 

Disability Wisdom As Soul Care grew out of our desire to create spiritual spaces for Jews with disabilities. We draw upon Mussar—applied Jewish ethics – and Chassidut—applied Jewish mysticism. Bringing these together creates an authentic and holistic path of spiritual practice that can support us as we continue to live in a world that deprioritizes the wisdom, humanity and lived experiences of Jews with disabilities. DWASC aims to show Jews with disabilities that they are welcome, just as they are, in Jewish space.

What practical outcomes do you hope to see in the Jewish community as a result of your training? 

Kirva’s work is about bridging the gap between the inner life of practice and the outer work of making this world a dwelling place for the Divine. We cannot do that if we continue to marginalize and exclude. By using disability wisdom to understand Torah and justice work, we hope to undo the ways in which Jews with disabilities continue to be on the fringes and instead help integrate this population and their distinct voices.

What is Diversity Torah? Can you give an example? 

At DWASC, we hold that Torah is revealed in its fullness when all voices are heard and received. Just as we each received revelation at Sinai, we also, as a famous Midrash teaches, received that revelation in a manner we could uniquely understand. As such, we hold that the Torah emerging from DWASC and spaces like it is a missing piece of revelation. To receive Torah in its beauty and fullness is to embrace the missing pieces. Examples of this are DWASC’s understanding, with great indebtedness to Rabbi Dr. Julia Watts Belser, of Shabbat both being a radical act of rest but also a radical affirmation of our inherent worth and dignity. We are not what we “do”, but instead we are precious as we are because we are created in the Image of the Divine.