This Shabbat, our synagogue featured a program on behalf of Yachad, a truly wonderful organization dedicated to Jewish individuals with disabilities.

As reported to me by Mrs. Manhattan, the Yachad representative addressed the congregation about the importance of accommodating people with disabilities on a communal and institutional level.

I agree.

In fact, it is such a good idea that we hope that our communal institutions - most notably, our synagogue which featured this excellent program - will respond by trying to be even slightly responsive to the concerns of families dealing with disabilities. Imagine that!

Dealing with autism is famous in its necessity for "doing-it-yourself" with respect to treatment and support options. One might have thought that our synagogue, led by a rabbi whom we love and respect deeply, might be somewhat proactive with respect to certain issues with which we need to deal. (Actually, we'd settle for them being somewhat reactive.) Living here long enough, we thought we knew better - yet we've still been shocked at the non-responsiveness we've encountered from our communal institutions. (We have, of course, received much support from certain individuals.) I won't go into too much detail - as some of the people in question will hopefully be reading this - but the ideals in the address delivered by the Yachad representative bore scant relationship to the reality we (and many other families we know) encounter on a daily basis. One might say that it's a finely-tuned machine for forcing families dealing with disabilities to move elsewhere.

It's nice to have an annual Shabbat program devoted to raising money and consciousness for the disabled, but it's nicer to try to integrate those ideals on a regular basis. Many families would be thankful.