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Ora Horn Prouser is
academic dean of the Academy for Jewish Religion in New York.
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Ora Horn
Prouser, who
speaks at the SJCC on February 20, says the Bible has much to teach us about
disabilities and inclusivity. Louise Rachlis reports.
While we sometimes see the issue of disability as “being of today,” says
Ora Horn Prouser, “it has been important for millennia.”
Horn Prouser, CEO and academic dean of the Academy for Jewish Religion
in Yonkers, N.Y., is keynote speaker at “Limping Toward the Promised Land: How
the Bible Pioneers Inclusion,” a Jewish Disability Awareness, Acceptance and
Inclusion Month event taking place Thursday, February 20, 7 pm, at the Soloway
Jewish Community Centre (SJCC).
She is the author of Esau’s Blessing: How the Bible embraces those
with Special Needs, as well as many articles about making the Bible speak
to existential concerns, specifically regarding ethical dilemmas and individual
growth.
The event is presented by Tamir and co-sponsored by the Jewish
Federation of Ottawa, JOIN (Jewish Ottawa Inclusion Network), Jewish Family
Services of Ottawa and Kehillat Beth Israel.
Horn Prouser told the Ottawa Jewish Bulletin that her interest in the
topic was piqued when her family was young.
“I was very involved in my children’s schooling, at the day school in
our area, where it was very clear to me that the children, even with minor
disabilities, were not receiving the services that were needed,” she said.
She began doing a lot of reading about disabilities like attention
deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), a condition in which a person has
trouble paying attention and focusing on tasks, and has trouble sitting still.
“I went to a lecture where the speaker said Esau was ‘impulsive.’ I
leaned over and said ‘Ha, Esau had ADHD.’ I put it together. I really was
joking at the time, but I loved that lecture and was thinking about the topic.
I realized that right there in the biblical text, the personality type has always
been there.”
Horn Prouser did further study, looking for other references in the
Bible to people differently involved. Disability studies was still relatively
new, she said, and not a lot of information was available.
“Once I started, it was very enlightening both from a scholarly point of
view, and then regarding the contemporary Jewish community, and what our
responsibilities are. It impacts on our communal priorities in terms of serving
all communities.”
Horn Prouser served as adjunct faculty at the Jewish Theological
Seminary for 20 years and has consulted on the development of Bible curriculum
through the Matok Torah Curriculum Development Project and the Day School
Hebrew Bible Curriculum Project.
In Esau’s Blessing, Horn Prouser looks at Biblical characters who
exhibit signs of ADHD, depression, intellectual disabilities, speech
impediments, gifted learning, and physical disabilities, and discusses how the
Bible can guide us in responding with acceptance and compassion.
Horn Prouser plans to begin her address in Ottawa by providing an
understanding of disabilities in the Bible and then move into “our
responsibility to the full contemporary Jewish community.”
“The text contains a fair number of characters with a number of
disabilities. It really enhances and widens our understanding of what it means
to be in God’s image in a beautiful way,” she said.”
“For example, Jacob the Patriarch was physically disabled after an
altercation and had a limp. When we study these texts in general, people will
think Moshe had a speech issue – but he had it his whole life. How did it
impact the rest of his life? Jacob continued to have that limp. We forget that
these characters are full individuals.”
She hopes to make her Ottawa audience “really feel that inclusivity is
deeply Jewish, and to be really proud of our ancient text… I hope it will make
people go back and look at the Biblical text they know and are already
comfortable with, and find new things.”
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