In recent daf yomi passages, the Talmud talks about applying Sabbath and other Jewish laws to disabled and injured people. For instance, the mishnah forbids the wearing of a single sandal on Shabbat (lest it end up getting carried, which would violate the carrying rules). Yet it makes an exception that allows wearing a sandal if one foot is wounded. (bShab 60a)
Later, a mishnah deals more pointedly with accessibility for the physically disabled. Specifically, it deals with leg prostheses for a single amputee and for a double amputee. The mishnah also deals with a person whose legs have atrophied (per Artscroll, “stump-legged” per Soncino). This person is not permitted to use a [non-wheel] chair w/leg supports on Shabbat (though arguably w/arm supports, Rashi). The subsequent gemara also refers to walking with a cane. (Shab 66a)
Besides the rabbinic concern with carrying prostheses on Shabbat, the Rabbis debate whether the disabled could use the supports to enter the Temple courtyard. (It was a hypothetical question after the 70 CE destruction of the 2nd Temple, which Jews will be commemorating soon).
Autism spectrum (etc).
Wanted to mention this post w/links from On the Fringe (al tzitzit) about Jewish parents with autism or other disabilities. BTW, this same section of Talmud discusses ways to handle melancholia. (66b) See also my previous post w/comments.
A helpful bibliography on Judaism and disability, at the Disability Social History Project, covers both physical disability/access and mental illness.
Good shabbos,
Kaspit כספית
[1] In typical fashion, the Rabbis argue over whether the sandal protects the wound or goes on the unhurt foot. It’s rather funny, as is the argument over tying one’s shoes – with a wry punchline about the Rabbi who ties both at once. Also, did you notice the legendary persecution due to the hobnailed sandal? The same trick of a backward footprint is told in a funnier and hyper-clever context in the story of R. Joshua b. Hanania vs. the wise men of Athens (bBechorot 8b).
I’m interested in the notion of change in law as technology changes. If we start with the disqualification of kohanim in parashat emor if they have a broken leg and then clearly there is a change – not in the specific category, but in sensitivity to the issue – in Shabbat, it would seem that there is halachic basis for change in our attitude toward these issues with changes in technology. Raises some interesting possibilities as technology changes.
Posted by: Anonymous1 | July 25, 2005 at 02:43 PM