Reflections on Jewish and American Disability Law and on The God Who Makes All Things Good

Perhaps, the woman’s outrage was fueled somewhat by being American, by being able to compare our law with respect to people with disabilities to God’s. After all, in America, our laws do not allow discrimination against people who are disabled. We grant them access. We accommodate them. We invite them to work and have value. We call them equal and seek ways to help them emulate the lives of those of us who are not disabled. We allow them to share in our perfection. Or do we? Might one also accuse us, as the woman to Rabbi Yolkut accused God, of rejecting those whom we label in our laws “disabled”? Might one accuse us of rejecting these people as they are, and then seeking to accept them only as we might redefine them? Do we seek to remake these people in our own image when we should be helping them to find God’s perfection for them, helping them to find God’s image uniquely articulated in how He created them