Source: https://en.idi.org.il/publications/4052
Timestamp: 2019-04-22 08:31:04+00:00

Document:
The status of people with disabilities in Israel is tremendously changing, as it is throughout the Western world. This collection of articles seeks to examine the process that is taking place among the traditional Jewish community, drawing from the values and ideas presented by the Jewish legal system.
The status of people with intellectual disabilities in Israel is undergoing tremendous change, just like in much of the Western world. Recognizing alternative intelligences, various measures to create interpersonal communication and alternative expressions have helped the community understand that those who were once considered lacking in cognitive abilities and thereby to be removed from normative society are now part of a growing trend toward integrating people with special needs into mainstream society. Everyone is working together to make adjustments and accommodations for this community.
And what should we do according to Jewish law?
The present volume studies the classic Jewish texts that address the status of persons with intellectual disabilities and their integration into the community.
The present volume, which studies the classic Jewish texts that address the status of persons with intellectual disabilities and their integration into the community, faces a number of challenges. The first challenge is simply the presentation of the changes that have taken place in society, which now aspires (at least overtly) to maximum integration of persons with intellectual disabilities in all spheres of life. This trend runs counter to the practice of thousands of years, when the segregation and isolation of such people was almost taken for granted. This challenge is relatively simple, because it involves an organic process of the sort that confronts tradition on all fronts.
A more difficult test faced by the contributors is the conceptualization of persons with intellectual disabilities. Modifying how such persons are defined poses a challenge for every domain–the professional, the social, and the legal.
The Ministry of Social Affairs publishes an annual survey of the social services in Israel. Chapter 8 of the 2009 survey, which deals with persons with disabilities ,offers this historical picture of the social integration of the intellectually disabled (formerly known as the “mentally retarded”).
Society’s attitude towards the intellectually disabled used to be based on the medical model. Their disability was considered to be a medical problem and, accordingly, so were the solutions proposed. Treatment focused on therapy to help the victims develop and adjust to the environment. The prevalent medical approach maintained that the gap in learning and abilities stemmed from an organic injury to the brain. Consequently, it was viewed as an incurable disease. We can readily understand why the institutions that were created at the end of the nineteenth century followed the model of large hospitals. […] The medical approach called for placing the persons afflicted in institutions and providing them with physical medical treatment. In addition, those who were different and had disabilities were isolated from society in order to protect it from them.
The nineteenth century saw the start of a transition to a therapeutic approach; their placement in closed institutions was no longer seen as a desire to guard society against them, but as a way to protect them and permit appropriate treatment.
The scientific diagnosis of persons with intellectual disabilities views their mental limitation as a static condition and determines their status accordingly. Persons are diagnosed as suffering an intellectual disability if their intellectual age is significantly lower than their chronological age and their score on intelligence tests is more than two standard deviations beneath than the mean; that is, an IQ below 70. Every additional standard deviation below 70 is correlated with a more severe disability. The definitions employed by the mental health system classifieds the population by their test scores.
Unlike the social attitude described here, Jewish communities over the generations always integrated special people into their normal structures. There were no therapeutic institutions, and certainly no widespread notion that there could be a dynamic change in a person’s condition; rather, there was always an instinctive capacity for inclusion.
The study of halakhah involves the scrutiny of texts that link the wisdom of the generations with the world of the present. Any study of the attitude towards persons with intellectual disabilities, as found in the classic Jewish texts, must begin with a survey of the terminology applied to such persons by the rabbis over the generations.
The first stage of this conceptualization requires distinguishing persons with intellectual disabilities from those with mental disorders (halakhic texts refer to the latter under the general rubric shoteh, fem. shotah, pl. shotim). The muddling of shotim with persons who suffer from intellectual disabilities does an injustice to both reference groups and interferes with their appropriate treatment in all sectors of life.
Those who are feeble-minded (peta’ím, pl. of peti) in the extreme, who do not understand that matters are mutually contradictory and who are incapable of comprehending things as most people do, as well as those who are terrified, over-excited, and deranged, are considered to be among the shotim. This matter depends on the judge’s discretion, inasmuch as it is impossible to describe mental states in a text.
The later halakhic authorities (from the sixteenth century onward–the ahronim) understand the word peti (“feeble-minded”; the dictionary definition is “fool,” “simpleton”) here as parallel to “intellectually challenged” (see further below). That is, Maimonides’ definition of the feeble-minded assigns them to the more general category of the shoteh. It follows that halakhah classifies a person with intellectual disabilities as a shoteh, and that just as the shoteh is not bound by the precepts, neither is the he.
Another possible implication of the definition of an intellectually disabled person as a shoteh emerges in the rulings of Rabbi Moses Sofer, known as the Hatam Sofer (Hungary, 1762–1839).5 He assigns the feeble-minded to the talmudic class of the heresh or deaf person. The feeble-minded, like the deaf, have no role to play in society, at least so far as halakhah is concerned. However, because deaf persons can have some social relations among themselves (and with the hearing), they are distinguished in some respects from the shoteh. Thus the latter cannot marry, whereas the talmudic sages permitted the deaf to contract marriages valid under rabbinic (but not Torah) law ; and so too the intellectually disabled, according to Rabbi Sofer. A similar approach to the intellectual disabled defines them as shotim, but only for some purposes and not in every respect. They are still set apart from society, but some of their acts have legal validity, as expounded in the halakhic discussion of a person who is a shoteh for one matter only. This approach parallels the historical stage with regard to the status of the intellectually disabled in general society, which dates back several decades: they are not full-fledged members of society, but can develop and participate in certain respects.
The distinction between the peti and the shoteh is that the mind of the shoteh is disturbed and totally confused on some matter. But this is not the case with the peti, who is not totally confused about anything. On the one hand he is worse off than the shoteh, inasmuch as in other matters the shoteh is just as intelligent as other human beings. But the peti lacks a full intellect and does not understand anything as other people do. This is why it concludes with the statement that [the peti] is deemed to be a shoteh, meaning that he is ineligible to appear in court, but [otherwise] the designation shoteh does not apply to him.
And what Maimonides wrote in Chapter 9 of the Laws of Witnesses, that “those who are feeble-minded in the extreme, […] do not understand that matters are mutually contradictory and who are incapable of comprehending things as most people do, […] are considered to be among the shotim.” […] Now even though this man may not understand things the way most people do, he nevertheless recognizes that certain things contradict each other and can respond appropriately; and although he is somewhat unreasonable about what he wants, like “a deaf viper that stops its ears” [so as not to hear the voice of the snakecharmer– Ps. 58:5; evidently with a play on the words peten ‘viper’ and peti], and can be a stubborn fool–nevertheless he is not on this accounted among the feeble-minded mentioned by Maimonides. It seems furthermore that he [Maimonides] stated this only with regard to bearing witness, where one must testify about what has already happened, and we may be wary that what he imagined to be the case then really was not, and he replaced one thing with another, because sometimes such people do not recognize contradictions. How then can he testify now about what he saw in the past? But when we come to transact business with him, or in matters of divorce and marriage, and the matter is explained to him and we see that he has understood it–he is not a shoteh and is considered to be mentally competent in everything he does with clear knowledge in our presence.
Here we see how Rabbi di Trani differentiates the man in the case submitted to him from the general and restrictive definition of the peti as a shoteh. His distinction between the man and Maimonides’ peti has two parts. The first is the definition of the peti as someone who has no ability to communicate with his surrounding (severe retardation). The second is his limitation of the halakhic restriction on the peti to the specific domain of testimony, rather than every action. No doubt, the reason this case was submitted to him propelled him towards this conclusion. Were the man not allowed the legal status to take part in a valid act of halitzah, his brother’s wife might be chained to him and unable to remarry for the rest of her life. From the description of the man we may infer that he was moderate to low—functioning (responding appropriately and able to go shopping, but certainly not able to manage his own affairs).
But a person who is of settled mind and speaks rationally when he speaks, but does not understand practical matters as other people do–in any case, as long as he is not held to be one of those mentioned by the Sages in the first chapter of tractate Hagigah, in my humble opinion it seems that his actions are valid in all matters, because there must necessarily be some bound and criterion for the matters he is considered to understand and those he does not, inasmuch as there are some who understand little and some who understand a great deal, there are some who understand quickly, at age six or seven, and there are others who lag behind, and not all minds are equal.
First off we should note the distinction made here with regard to the man’s intellectual capacity. He can barely communicate with his immediate surroundings. He can manage only what is most familiar to him and has no ability to take the initiative. Somehow they were able to marry him off, but then his wife tricked him so she could obtain a divorce. The moment she had the divorce in hand she abandoned him and he found himself alone in his house. The questioner reports that he is acquainted with the man and knows that he has no idea of what divorce is and certainly did not intend to divorce his wife. After further examination he determined that the man is “like a beast.” Now he is asking Rabbi Heilpern to rule whether the divorce was valid.
Rabbi Heilpern’s halakhic inquiry is based on Maimonides’ definition of the peti, who is incapable of understanding things as other people do. From there he proceeds to the ruling by Rabbenu Jeroham (Jeroham ben Meshullam, Spain, ca. 1290–1350), as quoted in Joseph Caro’s Beit Yosef (§121), that the marriages of those whose minds are clear are valid, even if they are of subnormal intelligence. Rabbi Heilpern understands his source to be referring to a person who understands what he is told on some level. By contrast, a person who does not grasp matters as other people do is not of subnormal intelligence but a peti and, halakhically speaking, a shoteh.
Accordingly, even a peti who does not understand that this money is the crux of the marriage, his marriage is nevertheless valid. And even if he thought that he was giving her money as payment for her agreeing to marry him and that the essence of the marriage act is her oral consent, it is still valid.
This is a fascinating distinction. Rabbi Heilpern distinguishes basic functional capacity (the ability to buy and sell) from acts that require a high degree of conceptual abstraction (divorce). Even though the specific result is unfortunate (the woman is unable to remarry), we have progressed a further stage in the definition of persons with intellectual disabilities. They can be integrated into the community on the lower levels of life skills, those that do not require a high level of abstraction.
Another (but not necessarily contradictory) early concept for diagnosing persons with intellectual disabilities is found in the Talmud and the rishonim (the rabbinic authorities of the eleventh through sixteenth centuries)–an adult with the “mind of a child.” It is interesting because it recognizes that a person’s behavioral development may not coincide with his chronological age. This idea is in fact the underpinning for all the discussions in later centuries, running through the present day. All allow that children must be protected, are not held accountable for their actions, are not sovereign over their decisions, and cannot lead an independent life. But it is equally obvious that adults are autonomous and responsible, judged by and for their actions and decisions, and expected to live independently. The situation of persons who are chronologically adults but children in their behavior led the rabbis to search for a legal definition appropriate to their status.
Our Rabbis taught: A girl who knows how to hold on to her get [bill of divorce] can be divorced, but if she does not know how to hold on to her get she cannot be divorced. Who is meant by a girl who knows how to hold on to her get? Anyone who keeps her get and something else.
R. Johanan: “It means, a girl who keeps something else in place of her get” [should it be lost].
What is the meaning of “the two cases are the same”? – R. Hisda said: In either case the child can acquire possession for himself but not for others.
The line of reasoning here makes it clear that the criterion for judging the girl’s rationality is whether she can distinguish the get from another piece of paper. R. Judah framed this terms of the difference between a rock and a nut. If she is smart enough to toss away a rock but keep the nut, she has enough intelligence to acquire something on her own behalf, and thus to be divorced (by accepting the get) or married (by accepting a wedding ring).
Now let us see how these theoretical principles are applied in the real world.
Rabbi Simha expresses the urgent and essential need for his colleagues to study the matter in depth and find some way to permit the man to divorce his wife. The goal of his letter is to persuade them to join him on a rabbinic court that will permit the man to divorce his wife.
As noted above, the Talmud explains what is meant by the woman’s holding on to a bill of divorce in Tractate Gittin: “[If offered] a rock, he throws it away, [but if offered] a nut he takes it.” It is clear that a woman must have a rudimentary understanding and an ability to distinguish between two objects, or between an article of value and one that is worthless, in order to be deemed competent to accept her get. Rabbi Simha learns from this that an adult woman with the mind of a child “is deemed to be mentally competent in all her actions.” He proposes to his colleagues that if they do not agree with his opinion that a divorce is possible in this case, they will agree to waive the ban of Rabbenu Gershom and allow the man to take a second wife so that he can fulfill the precept of fathering children.
Rabbi Simha believes that if the woman accepts a piece of paper (in this case, the bill of divorce) in front of witnesses, the divorce is effected automatically. She need only understand that she is holding a piece of paper that she has to keep; its contents are immaterial. Rabbi Simha compares the woman’s ability to hold on to the bill of divorce (as simply a piece of paper) to the Mishna in Yevamot we have looked at above and its exposition by the Gemara in Gittin, which define the level of understanding required of the girl.
On this basis, Rabbi Simha asks his colleagues to join his opinion and permit the man to divorce his wife, since even though the woman would not understand the implications of the bill of divorce she could hold on to it for a moment.
We have briefly responded to our teacher Rabbi Simha about the woman who has gone mad. Be it known to our teacher that we have seen the son of Rabbi Samuel ben Azriel of Mainz, whose wife was unresponsive to her surroundings and a shotah, like the woman you have written about. He and his father came to the Council of Communities, where they interrupted the prayers and repeatedly pressed his inability to fulfill the precept of reproduction. He asked that the ban of the great sage Rabbenu Gershom be waived, but they were not willing to do so, saying that it was better to lose one soul than to corrupt the future generations.
From your words we understand that she lacks even the mind of a child, and you acknowledge [that such is the law] in the case of a girl. But because she is older, you say, the smaller measure of “throws away a rock but takes a nut” suffices, as you would prove from [the ninth chapter of tractate Bava Batra], that an adult of 20, even if he does not know the nature of commerce, has more power to sell his father’s assets than one who is younger than 20 and does understand the nature of commerce. But this is not so; for we say (B Bava Batra 156a) that “the law [is] in accordance with Giddal b. Menashya” that [a boy aged thirteen and a day who understands the nature of business transactions] may sell property inherited from his father even before the age of 20. And even according to the opinion of some of our rabbis, who interpret Giddal’s ruling as referring to his own property and not his father’s property, because of the contradiction between two different statements by Rava–if you consult the codification by Rabbi Isaac Alfasi you will see that the cases are not similar, because even if he does not understand the nature of business transactions, he is intelligent in all other matters. But one must say that if an adult woman does not have the mental capacity of a child, her status is less than that of a girl, because the latter already has achieved mental competence. It was our rabbis who instituted [that a woman who is mentally incompetent may not be divorced], to keep her from being treated as ownerless property–and we will not breach this boundary.
Rabbi Eliezer acquaints Rabbi Simha with a relevant precedent. A certain Rabbi Samuel ben Azriel wanted to rescue his son from a similar situation. The woman in that case was “unresponsive to her surroundings and a shotah,” meaning that she did not display the strange behaviors that would place her in the talmudic category of shotah. Rabbi Eliezer’s description of Rabbi Samuel’s campaign on behalf of his son is intriguing. The father traveled among the Rhineland communities, where he would interrupt the prayer services and appeal to the rabbis to waive the ban of Rabbenu Gershom. But the rabbis response was stern: “Better to lose one soul than to corrupt the future generations.” They were not willing to surrender to the tears of the distressed and grant an exemption from a provision that had been enacted to redress an unjust aspect of the institution of marriage.
According to Rabbi Eliezer, the minimum intellectual level for integrating a person into normal life is the mental capacity of a child. Rabbi Simha wanted to supplement this with a person’s life experience (chronological age), but Rabbi Eliezer disagreed.
Here Rabbi Eliezer arrives at the crux of the definition of the mental capacity a woman must have in order to accept a bill of divorce. He distinguishes between the bare ability to differentiate articles of value from those that are worthless (the rock and nut), on the one hand, and the more advanced capacity to understand the nature of business transactions, on the other.
From Rabbi Eliezer’s response we infer that Rabbi Simha would have made do with the lower level, the ability to distinguish between valuable and worthless objects, because the woman is already an adult. That is, Rabbi Simha wants to rule that even though, as a general principle, the intellectual bar required for a divorce is higher and requires comprehension of commercial affairs, in the case of an adult her earlier development is a sufficient condition. Rabbi Eliezer rejects this notion: as a matter of halakhah, the minimum capacity for a woman to be divorced is that she understands the nature of business transactions.
The responsibility for the woman’s safety outweighs the desire to find a solution for a man who is trapped in a marriage. Rabbi Eliezer holds that their duty to protect the woman leads him and his colleagues to be strict in this matter. Just as we do not allow a woman to be divorced against her will, neither do we allow a woman of unsound mind to be thrown out into the world. The man’s fate has been tied to the woman’s and her safety depends on him.
This definition can function in the reverse direction as well and apply to a person who is a chronological adult but lacks the mental capacity of a child. In such cases we must define the person’s actions in accordance with the laws that apply to children and take no account of his age.
As we saw earlier, Maimonides wrote that whether a person falls into the category of those “who are feeble-minded in the extreme” depends on the judge’s discretion. Rabbi Colon proceeds in the same direction and informs his questioner that it is impossible to define the status of such a person without actually observing him. Nevertheless, he expounds the law that applies to the issue at hand.
He goes about dressed and his clothes are clean, which is the opposite of one who tears his garments; he asked his father to mend his boots against the cold; he is smart enough to hold on to things; and can tell his father what he believes will be good for him–as when he told him that the Gentile had brought two pieces of leather to sell and he thought about making a profit; and he saves his money and remembers that he put his money in his strongbox, which is the opposite of losing what one is given; nor does he walk out alone at night, nor is he considered to be a person who sleeps in the cemetery. And even though his mind is not as clear as other people’s, in any case we can rely only on what the Sages said.
Rabbi Colon begins by associating the law of halitzah with the requirement that a person understand the nature of business transactions. Both the ritual and commerce require a certain degree of comprehension and capacity to make distinctions. Rabbi Colon then advances a more forceful argument, in which he draws an essential distinction between persons who show the symptoms of insanity and those suffering an intellectual disability that is not insanity. He adduces the story in Tractate Bava Batra (155b), in which a teenage boy’s relatives, hoping to have his sale of his father’s estate invalidated, tell him to throw date seeds at the rabbinical authority; as a result, the judge at deems him insane, because such behavior is not expected of a normal person. All the symptoms of insanity presented by the Talmud are examples of unexpected and inexplicable behavior. But the man in the case submitted to Rabbi Colon does nothing out of the ordinary. We have already seen how Rabbi Colon defined the basic principle, and his remarks merit repetition here.
But a person who is of settled mind and speaks rationally when he speaks, but does not understand practical matters as other people do–in any case, as long as he is not held to be one of those mentioned by the Sages in the first chapter of tractate Hagigah, in my humble opinion it seems that his actions are valid in all matters, because there must necessarily be some bound and criterion for the matters he is considered to understand and those he does not, inasmuch as there are some who understand little and some who understand a great deal, there are some who understand quickly, at age six or seven, and there are others who lag behind, and not all minds are equal. Thus you learn that we have only what the Sages stated in the first chapter of Tractate Hagigah as to who is accounted a shoteh.
The assertion here is that once a person is no longer considered to be a shoteh he regains the status of a normal person. There will always be a difference in people’s mental powers–“some who understand little and some who understand a great deal, […] and not all minds are equal.” This is one of the most important responsa that sever the classification of a person with intellectual disabilities from the laws of the shoteh and, on the contrary, invoke the talmudic principle that the “burden of proof falls on the claimant.” As long as it has not been proven that a person is incapable of participating in normal human life he must be considered to be the same as everyone else.
This is the challenge that faces us–not only to reformulate concepts but also to enlarge and frame our language so as to create a broad movement that perceives human beings as created in the image of God before they are thrust into the narrow conceptualization that fixes their place and how other people think about them.
1. Review of Social Services in 2009, Chapter 8 (online).
2. Haya Aminadav and Dalia Nissim, “The Sequence of Residential Services for Persons with Intellectual Impairment: Trends and Changes” (online).
3. Pioneering and important work in this field was done by Rabbi Moshe Mordechai Farbstein in his comprehensive study of the topic, Laws of Competency: Halakhic Inquiries and Clarifications relating to Competency and the Laws of the Shoteh (Jerusalem: Sha’ar Mishpat Institute and the Rabbinic Courts Administration, 1994/5) [Hebrew]. Many of the sources cited here were collected by Rabbi Farbstein, but my analysis differs from his.
4. Maimonides, “Laws of Witnesses” 9:10.
5. Responsa Hatam Sofer, Even Ha’ezer II, §2.
6. According to the Talmud, B Yevamot 112b.
7. Falk, Sefer Me’irat Einayim, Hoshen Mishpat 35:10.
8. Responsa ha-Maharit, Even Ha’ezer, §16.
9. New Responsa ha-Maharit, §20.
10. Responsa Oneg Yom Tov, §153.
13. Rabbi Elhanan Wasserman, Annotations on Tractate Yevamot (Jerusalem: Yeshivat Or Elhanan, 2002/3), p. 224, §66.
14. New Responsa ha-Maharit, §20.
15. I first heard this idea enunciated by the late Professor Reuven Feuerstein,shortly before his death, at a Feuerstein Institute conference on the about the marriage of persons with intellectual disabilities. After about an hour of discussion, Professor Feuerstein pounded on the table and scolded us: “I do not understand this discussion at all. We are talking about natural human rights, and a claimant who would deprive another of something in his possession must prove his case.” I do not know whether Professor Feuerstein was acquainted with Rabbi Colon’s responsum, but the spirit is certainly the same.

References: §2
 §16
 §20
 §153
 §66
 §20