Deuteronomy starts "These are the words that Moses addressed to all Israel on the other side of the Jordan.". That means it's time for a thread about Moses' words and voice from a disability perspective.

When Moses was first appointed by God at the burning bush, he was reluctant, and expressed several objections, most of which boiled down to: "I am not someone who others will listen to." At the end of the encounter, Moses makes this very explicit:

Ex 4:10 But Moses said to YHVH , “Please, O Lord, I have never been a man of words, either in times past or now that You have spoken to Your servant; I am slow of speech and slow of tongue.”

Sometimes this is read as a metaphor for anxiety, but I read it as saying that Moses literally had a speech disability. I think he'd learned by experience that most people categorically refused to listen to him, or even to interpret his speech as meaningful.

Before the Burning Bush, we have no record of Moses speaking to anyone and being listened to. Most things, he did without being described as speaking. The one time the Bible says he spoke, it also says that he was immediately rejected:

Ex. 2:13 When he went out the next day, he found two Hebrews fighting; so he said to the offender, “Why do you strike your fellow?”
Ex. 2:14 He retorted, “Who made you chief and ruler over us? Do you mean to kill me as you killed the Egyptian?”...

And when Moses fled to Midian and connected with a Midianite priest and his daughters, their words in that encounter are recorded, but his aren't. We only have his actions. He is said to have named his son, but is not said to have spoken to anyone directly and been listened to.

God tried to reassure Moses by essentially saying "I made you, and I know you can do this. I'll help you.". This didn't work — I think because maybe Moses was not actually insecure about his capabilities, so much as aware that others were not willing to treat him as capable.

Ex. 4:11 YHVH said to him, “Who gives man speech? Who makes him mute or deaf, seeing or blind? Is it not I, YHVH?
Ex. 4:12 Now go, and I will be with you as you speak and will instruct you what to say.”
Ex. 4:13 But he said, “Please, O Lord, make someone else Your agent.”

It's pretty common for disabled people who are worried about discrimination to be told "you can do it, I believe in you!" or "you care too much what other people think!" as though personal confidence will somehow erase the consequences of how others choose to treat us.

Another way of putting this is: Saying "we're all created in God's image" does not, in and of itself, teach people how to see disabled people as fully human. Our humanity is routinely mentally edited out. (And we do it to ourselves, and one another.)

Ex. 4:14 YHVH became angry with Moses, and He said, “There is your brother Aaron the Levite. He, I know, speaks readily. Even now he is setting out to meet you, and he will be happy to see you.

Ex. 4:15 You shall speak to him and put the words in his mouth—I will be with you and with him as you speak, and tell both of you what to do—
Ex. 4:16 and he shall speak for you to the people. Thus he shall serve as your spokesman, with you playing the role of God to him,

Ex. 4:17 and take with you this rod, with which you shall perform the signs.”

Here, God addressed the issue of needing to manage other people's reactions — without replacing Moses. God appointed Aaron to assist Moses in communicating, but still made Moses the leader.

And we see, in the beginning as Deuteronomy, that the people did, in fact, accept Moses's words as coming from him. They treated him as having a voice that mattered — even once they no longer had Aaron to make listening physically easy for them.

Today, disabled people are often treated as voiceless, both explicitly and implicitly. Last summer I was at an ADAPT and NCIL protest one day and a religious healthcare protest the next day, in which "the disabled" were described as "the voiceless" and "the least among us".

My speech used to be a lot less fluent than it is now, and my body movement used to be much more odd. People take me much more seriously now. People treat me as much more human. It's been useful, but disturbing. I've always been human.

There are very few communities today that are prepared to follow a leader who can't speak, who speaks or moves oddly, or whose speech is difficult to understand. Often, disabled people aren't welcome at all, and when we are, it's generally as part of an "inclusion" effort.

I am, at this point in my life, more often than not, regarded as the kind of disabled person who looks normal enough to be acceptable as a leader, at least, when the topic is disability. I wasn't always. I don't know if it will last.

I think it would be good for all of us to remember that Moses wasn't included, he led. He was not given a role to make feel included and welcomed, he led because he was the leader — and God was certainly not doing him any favors by putting him in that role.

"These are the words that Moses addressed to all Israel on the other side of the Jordan.". Moses didn't overcome his speech disability. Moses' people overcame their unwillingness to listen to him.

Unfortunately, this lesson didn't generalize. They didn't overcome their unwillingness to listen to *other* disabled people, and all too often, disabled people are treated as voiceless and ignored. We need to fix this.

Moses was the only person capable of being Moses, but he was *not* the only disabled person capable of leading. He was exceptional in many ways. Being competent-while-disabled is not one of them. That part's common. We need to start valuing it more.

However my body is or isn't working, I have a voice that matters. Whether or not anyone is willing to listen to someone who looks and moves like me, I have a voice that matters. So do you. Let's fight for a world that knows it.

/thread