A less-abled boy hits a home run because the boys he's playing with let him win the game.
The story quoted above is 'Perfection at the Plate,' a work of Rabbi Paysach Krohn which appeared in his 1999 book, Echoes of the Maggid. Echoes is a 'Chicken Soup for the Soul' type work, described by its publishers as 'heartwarming stories and parables of wisdom and inspiration.' It is the fifth such tome in the Maggid series. Rabbi Krohn says that the story is true and that he was told it by Shaya's father, who is a friend of his. (The 'Chush' school mentioned in the piece is the Jewish Center for Special Education on Kent Street in Brooklyn, a school that caters to Yiddish-speaking children of Orthodox HasidicJews.)The true value of any inspirational tale lies not in its veracity (or lack thereof) but in its ability to move those who read it to improve some facet of themselves. As with many other glurges, we find this story's premise a poor one, and its message one likely to do more harm than good.What to make of an incitement to bestow upon the disabled a pat on the head instead of granting them acceptance for who they are, even when that means accepting the limitations placed upon them by their infirmities?The story of Shaya's grand slam positions the 18 boys who fooled the disabled child into thinking he'd done something miraculous as great-hearted lads who reached into the depths of their souls and therein found the kindness with which to lavish upon a less-abled youngster. We're supposed to look up to them and want to be like them. Yet to do that, we'd have to fail to understand the nature of what they did - rather than accept Shaya for who he was, they pretended he wasn't disabled. Were this story taken as the model for how we should all behave around the less-abled, those struggling with very real physical and mental shortcomings would never get to show off what they can do nor experience the honest praise of admiring teammates and co-workers for their actual contributions, because pity-driven exercises in make-believe would rob them of their every chance to be seen as actual people.Can a disabled child hit a baseball as well as a perfectly-abled one? No. But can that same child learn to work within his disabilities to the point of achieving real accomplishments he can take honest pride in? Absolutely. And that beats all the pity-driven home runs in the world.Said the father in the story, 'I believe that when God brings a child like this into the world the perfection that he seeks is in the way people react to this child.' This story counsels that 'perfection' be one of pity and dismissal of the actual person. And that can't be right.Barbara 'killed with kindness' Mikkelson
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