What the Deaf Group Needs

By Yehoshua Soudakoff – Director, Jewish Deaf Multimedia

Dear COLlive reader,

THE PROBLEM:

Have you ever watched a tennis match from the sidelines? Basically, your head turns from one side of the court to the other as you follow the moving ball. It’s fun, but it’s also tiring. It’s probably because of the thrill of the game that you came to watch in the first place.

I am deaf, and so are many of my friends. A few of us have gotten together to learn Torah over the past few months, and we want to do something more.

With the help of R’ Motty Lipskier, we are planning on meeting at the Beis Medrash in Crown Heights for some motzei Shabbos shiurim. Everything will be conducted entirely in American Sign Language (ASL). I expect a few dozen to show up.

But guess what? If we try to cover a few Rashi Sichos by sticking to the source material, it will become a virtual game of tennis. Because we deaf people rely only on our eyes to process information, it would be a very tiring and drawn-out experience to have to shift one’s attention back and forth from the speaker to the text and back.

Here’s how such a session would go:

Me: “Rashi says in the first verse –”

All heads turn down to look at the open Chumash in front of them. One person looks at the refreshments table.

Me: “- that –”

More head turning.

Me: “- the – ”

Only half of the audience’s eyes are on me. The other half is looking at what Rashi has to say.

Participant #1: “Keep on going!”

Participant #2: “Wait a minute!”

Me: “– uh, Torah –”

Same situation, only the two halves of the audience have switched positions.

Me: “- should have –”

Participant #3: “WAIT! Which Rashi are you talking about?”

Participant #4: “I’m lost!”

Participant #5: “What is he talking about?”

Participant #6: “Back up, back up!”

Participant #7: “Did he explain the Rashi already?”‘

Good luck getting these people to come back for the next one.

THE SOLUTION:

Using a projector to project the source texts on a screen, I am able to go through the material word by word, with the entire audience following along with me. Nobody will have any reason to look down or away while I am speaking (unless they don’t find me as entertaining as the person sitting next to them).

We hope somebody reading this short article will be inspired to sponsor the costs (approximately $500) of purchasing a good projector and a portable projector screen for us to use in future shiurim. Partial donations will be accepted as well.

Do you think you have what it takes to help out? Please contact me at jas@jewishdeafmm.org.

Thank you!

P.S. If you want to see an example of a past shiur (minus the tennis match (and unfortunately, the source material as well)), click here.