Growing up disabled and Orthodox in New York before the Seventies was not such a picnic. Having survived polio and using a wheelchair, I was excluded from shul, simchas, funerals. I couldn't attend Yeshiva (Jewish religious school). I was basically excluded from every aspect of Orthodox life. It hurt me, but more than that, it made me angry.So when I made aliyah six years ago, I wanted to make a tikkun, to fix that wrong. I wanted to make sure that disabled people here, especially young disabled persons, did not have to go through what I went through. So I used all the experience I garnered during my many years of involvement in the disabilities rights movement in the States to try to make life better here. I helped found Nechim Achshav, an organization for the disabled, run by disabled, and The Center for Independent Living. I also became a volunteer for Yad Sarah.
I first found out about Yad Sarah in 1989, when El Al crushed my wheelchair and the workshop here fixed it immediately. Then, I discovered Yad Sarah's accessible transportation service: "the Nechonit". They would pick me up at Ben Gurion and take me all over town, without having to suffer the indignities of getting 'schlepped' out of a cab. Almost five years ago, a year after I made aliyah, I met Adena, an occupational therapist at the exhibition center (Tezuga), while making mishloach manot for my Shul. When she heard about my professional background in rehabilitation, she suggested I come to check out the Tezuga. It was a great shidduch. It gave me a chance to get back into rehab. It had been twenty years since I was a rehab counselor and volunteering allowed me to do what I really missed: finding solutions to enable more independent living.
Also, the people with whom I get to work, Shani, Adena, Margalit, and the other volunteers in the department are just great. Not too mention all the great schmoozing that goes on, (when we have a second!) between the many different people who come to us for ideas, information, and assistance in making everyday living easier, more independent, and even fun.
What I try to do at Yad Sarah is to help people with any kind of special need, by giving them tools (a walker, a hoist, etc.), information (the name of a carpenter), or sometimes only some encouragement to go on and live as independently as possible. To me, this is what Yad Sarah is all about.
For me, 'chesed' is only the means; it's just the beginning, it's not the end. If you go shopping for me that's one thing, but if I make the supermarket accessible, and the sidewalk in front of the supermarket accessible, that's chesed plus. I had very encouraging parents. They provided me with the keys for independence. And those are the keys I want to pass on to other disabled people.
Here is one of my best Yad Sarah stories. The wife of a man who had a stroke came to the Exhibition Center. She was crying because her husband was going to be released from the hospital, and she had no idea of what to do. She was completely distraught. The therapist just told her that her husband will probably never walk again. I said, "Professionals, at very best, can give you a proper diagnosis, but they are not prophets. Only Hashem knows what's in store for your husband. You just keep your focus on today, watch his progress and daven to Hashem. We all cried, I then sent her home with the equipment that I believed appropriate for his needs. Two years later, I learned that this man danced at his son's wedding.
Such a tikkun could only have happened at Yad Sarah. This is why it is such a joy for me to a Yad Sarah volunteer.