Think Before You Speak

During the summer of 1981, nine adventurers won our hearts and captured the headlines of that time. Five of them could not see, two had hearing disabilities, one had a cognitive impairment and the last had an artificial leg.
These intrepid nine conquered the dangerous snow-capped Mount Rainier. The amazing accomplishment of these people was a dramatic demonstration of the power of the human will to triumph over massive obstacles. It was also a much-needed reassurance to all who have various disabilities. The newspapers used the term “handicapped” to refer to the nine explorers. But was this the best way to describe them?
For the Jewish people, the holy day of Yom Kippur (Day of Atonement) is meant as a time of prayer and introspection, and an opportunity to ask for forgiveness for wrongdoing. There is one lengthy prayer in the liturgy, called the Confessional, which lists a litany of transgressions, including sins for betraying, scoffing, cheating, envy, besmirching a good name and unclean lips.
Since most of the transgressions mentioned in the confessional prayer deal with things that come out of our mouths, I’d like to re-examine the language that we often use to refer to people who cannot see, hear or walk. A person is not handicapped nor is a person disabled. A person has a disability.
The origin of the word “handicap” is Gaelic, referring to a person with a disability who had to stand on the street corner begging with his cup in hand. Handicapped is not a term to describe human beings.
People First Language seeks to put the person first and the disability second. People with disabilities are people, first and foremost. Here are labels they suggest we ought not to use and those that would be better to use:
Labels not to use: The handicapped or the disabled, The mentally retarded or he’s retarded, My student is autistic, She’s a Down’s baby, Epileptic, He’s crippled, Normal and/or healthy, Handicapped parking.        
People First Language: People with disabilities, He has a cognitive impairment, My student has autism, She has Down syndrome, A person with epilepsy, He has an orthopedic disability, A person without a disability, Accessible parking.
In one way or another, all of us are people with disabilities of one kind or another. Not all are physical and not all will be visible, but to be human is to have disabilities. To know that disabilities are the common lot of each and every one of us may make our own disabilities a little easier to accept.
One of the unsighted climbers explained the success of his adventure in this way: “We had a lot of help from each other on the trip.”
As we continue our own journey through life we never know what risks and obstacles each of us may have to negotiate as we deal with our own assortment of disabilities. We will always be able to succeed if we learn to continue to help each other in each other’s time of need.
Wishing you a year of fewer obstacles and reminding you always to think before you speak and be careful what you say! 
ED: NOTE: The author is Interim Rabbi at Beth Judah Temple, Wildwood. He may be contacted at: www.rabbiron.com or on Facebook: RabbiRonIsaacsLLC.