Dear Naomi,



You raise two different problems:

1. What is the significance of natural phenomena?

2. Why does the Torah — which is considered a Divine text — discriminate against the disabled, in contrast to what one could expect from “Divine” morality?



As to your first question, the basic and first mistake that most religious people make is treating G-d like a minister of health and of welfare. They attribute to G-d human roles and thus humanize and anthropomorphize divinity. The second mistake of the religious is that they attribute significance and Divine messages to natural phenomena. The Sages of the Talmud, in their innocence, thought that phenomena like a lunar eclipse — a natural phenomenon of the course of the heavens — is a message stating that evil will befall the Jewish people (Sukkah 29a).



If you remove these two errors from your heart and mind, your questions and doubts will disappear as well.



G-d is not the minister of health who concerns Himself with the healing and health of each person, and the existence and survival of the ill and infirm, as with other natural phenomena, bears no Divine message. The world goes on its accustomed way, and Man must investigate and examine the way which seems to him proper, without reliance on natural phenomena. In other words, just as ethics and morality have no impact on the laws of physics, so the laws of physics have no impact on a person’s decision about ethics and morality.

Parents of disabled or special needs children are just like parents of regular children. Both need to follow the values and morality which seem proper to them, with no connection to their child’s state of health.



As for your second question, why the Torah discriminates against the disabled: Here, too, your question stems from an assumption which is flawed in principle, that the Torah text is the words of the living G-d. We at Daat Emet have proven many times over that the Torah text is a human text, and as such was written in keeping with the spirit of its era, time, and place. Therefore it does not meet the universal, enlightened, and egalitarian ethical standards which do not discriminate between healthy and ill, between man and woman, between Jew and non-Jew.



Sincerely,



Daat Emet

Dear David,



Look at your words carefully and you will see how you, like the other religious people, are incapable of a true and deep soul searching of the text which you, in your innocence, believe is a Divine text. A cohen who has one eye larger than the other cannot serve in the Holy Temple, and you say it is because he is unsuited for the job. The very fact that you treat this person as unsuited for the job is discrimination. If the Israeli Knesset or any other democratic parliament rejected a cohen as member because of any disability at all there would be a huge outcry, though being a member of parliament is a representative position.

Perhaps the following example will make it easier for you to understand that the values of the Torah do not match enlightened morality: a man whose testicles have been damaged (testes crushed or organ cut off) cannot marry his Israeli love. Similarly, the bastard may not marry his Israeli love, etc.

Another thing. It is the way of the religious to change facts or redefine them to match their beliefs. The Sages have said “life and death are in the power of the tongue.” Discrimination and racism do not change simply because you have redefined them. I will use the words of George Orwell, “War is peace, freedom is slavery.” Does defining slavery as freedom free the owner of his criminal actions?



Sincerely,



Daat Emet