Thank you so much for joining me at my Bar Mitzvah. You might recognize me as the kid who reads the announcements at the end of services on Shabbat. It was awesome for me to be able to get in front of people and have some real responsibility in the service. I remember one woman who came up to me after the service and said, “You did a great job.” And I told her, “Thanks! And I have dyslexia.” So thank you Habonim Community for letting me be a young leader in the synagogue.
Thank you to everyone who made time in their week, coming from near and far to be here with me today. Thank you Jessica for teaching me how to read and chant Torah. Thank you to Rabbi Gelber for leading me in Torah learning. Thank you to my parents for helping to point me in the right direction, even when that direction was away from my iPhone. Thank you to my brother Ari for being a great kid brother. I want to remember those that are no longer with us like all my great grandparents. May their memories be a blessing. The great grandparents that I knew, Norman and Connie Schlaff, would have loved to be here.
My Bar Mitzvah portion highlights the beginning of the expansion of the Jewish people. In it, Jacob has his 12 sons that form the foundation of the 12 tribes of Israel. We always here about the ancestors that we have in common like Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob and, Sarah, Rebecca, Rachel, and Leah. We talk about these ancestors every day in the Amidah. But in this Torah portion, the family starts to diverge. In my portion, we learn about the 12 different sons that help father the 12 different tribes.
I know a lot about being different. I grew up not knowing I had language learning disabilities. I have ADHD, dyslexia (which is difficulty reading), and dysgraphia (which is difficulty writing). School was difficult for me. After 1st or 2nd grade, the teachers figured that I knew how to read and write and kept assigning more and more work without teaching any more skills. I did OK in school but it was really hard for me to keep up.
Last year I transferred to The Shefa School. Shefa is a Jewish day school focused on kids like me with language learning disabilities. It focuses on neurodiversity. Neurodiversity is the idea that all people think and learn differently. At Shefa, everyone has things that they are awesome at and things that they’re working on. The teachers know this so they teach all of us a little differently.
Before I started Shefa I didn’t understand what language learning disabilities were. I thought that dyslexia meant that you couldn’t read at all–like some people who have problems reading the label on a bottle of shampoo. But at Shefa, I learned so much and I wanted to share. For my bar mitzvah project, I created a website and made videos to explain language learning disabilities. I explain what dysgraphia and dyslexia are and what it feels like to have them. And then I explain what it’s like to get help and how Shefa helps kids like me.
In my research, I read the book Esau’s Blessing: How the Bible Embraces Those with Special Needs by Ora Horn Prouser learned that there are people in the Bible with learning disabilities. One of my learning disabilities is ADHD—Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder. This form of neurodiversity means I have lots of creative ideas and lots of energy but it’s hard to focus and I can be impulsive. I bet you didn’t know that some people in the bible might have had ADHD. We actually learned about one person in last week’s Torah portion.
I’m talking about Esau. ADHD was both a benefit and a problem for Esau. Esau was a Hunter so ADHD was a big benefit to him. He loved being outdoors and always moving. He was aware of every movement around him, no matter how small. However, Esau’s ADHD also has a big drawback: he wasn’t very good with time management and was very impulsive. If you remember, Esau is Jacob’s older brother who sold his birthright to Jacob for a pot of stew. How could he do this?! But this makes sense for a person with ADHD. He went out to hunt and didn’t think about lunch because he’s not good at planning. He’s also impulsive. So when he came home he was very hungry. He knew that Jacob was giving him a bad deal but that soup just smelled so good so he made the trade.
The Torah teaches us that even though everyone is different, we are all equal in the eyes of God. I’m so excited that the Torah shows off how important these differences are. Thank you all for joining me on this special day.
Shabbat Shalom.
Here’s the link to the website: blake.schlaff.com/bar-mitzvah-project