This month, Jewish Disability Awareness and Inclusion Month (JDAIM) comes to a close. Throughout the month of February, we have been invited to think about access, belonging, and what it truly means to build a community where every person is seen, heard, and valued. As the month ends, the work does not. Inclusion is not a theme for one month. It is a sacred obligation that continues every day of the year.
For much of my life, reading has been an obstacle. Having been diagnosed with dyslexia, reading was a slow, frustrating, and sometimes painful process. The world I lived in did not feel like it was built for me. I worried that struggling with words meant that I did not belong. How could I be a leader? How could I be an educator? How could I learn and teach our sacred traditions?
There were many teachers who told me that I could never become a cantor because of my dyslexia. They believed the barrier was too great, that the work of reading, chanting, and teaching text would be impossible for me. I was committed to proving them wrong. Today, I use technology to help me read. Text-to-speech, digital tools, dyslexic friendly fonts, and adaptive resources helped me find my way into Torah, prayer, and teaching, and they have helped me feel included in spaces that once felt inaccessible.
Our tradition tells a story about who belongs. Torah has always been carried by people with varying abilities and strengths. Moses, our greatest teacher, described himself as “slow of speech and slow of tongue.” Yet, he became the one through whom Torah was given. The rabbis teach that Torah has many faces and many voices. Every soul stood at Sinai and received Torah in their own way.
In Jewish tradition, learning is not only about speed or fluency. It is about wrestling, returning, asking, and discovering. My dyslexia has shaped how I approach Torah, how I listen, how I teach, and how I notice what others might miss. What sometimes felt like an obstacle has become part of the way I encounter holiness. A difference or a disability does not define us, but it does invite us to see the world a little bit differently, and that perspective is holy.
As Jewish Disability Awareness and Inclusion Month comes to an end, may we carry this awareness forward. May we notice who is missing from our spaces and ask what barriers stand in their way. May we celebrate the diversity of minds, bodies, and ways of learning as reflections of the Divine image.
And may each of us remember that Torah is not reserved for a single way of being. Torah belongs to all of us, exactly as we are.
Cantor Lauren Blasband-Roth