For those of you who are new to Shalva, allow me to share that while, as a rabbi, I am expected to quote chapter and verse, having grown up as a non-religious child of the sixties in Vancouver, I still love to quote a line from the Beatles: “We get by with a little help from our friends.”
Yesterday, on the International Day of Disabilities, Shalva’s friends and partners gathered to celebrate a journey I could never have anticipated, one that began 35 years ago in a modest Jerusalem apartment with six children and has since grown into a global force serving thousands across every stage of life.
At its core, Shalva is a lifeline for individuals with disabilities and their families, providing therapy, education, recreational programs, respite care, vocational training, and inclusive opportunities from infancy through adulthood.
Founded in 1990, Shalva moved to its current National Center in 2016, enabling us to expand dramatically while remaining true to our original mission. We have welcomed tens of thousands of visitors each year: professionals, dignitaries, and ambassadors from more than 45 countries who come to learn from our model. What began as a local initiative has truly become international.
Through the Shalva Institute, our expertise now guides communities worldwide as they learn how to develop Shalva-like programs, train professionals, and engage in collaborative research. From Novosibirsk to Frankfurt, Mozambique to Sao Paulo, Shalva’s influence is raising standards of disability care and shaping policy across continents.
Here in Israel, our commitment to innovation remains steadfast. This year, we opened the Shalva School for children with communication disorders on the autism spectrum. At the request of the Welfare Ministry, we launched a new Assessment Center providing comprehensive evaluations, a crucial first step for families seeking essential services and support.
And in moments of national distress, Shalva has served as Israel’s National Crisis Center for Persons with Disabilities, a role that took on profound urgency after October 7, when we housed and cared for more than a thousand evacuees.
My dear friends, I share these milestones with deep pride. They reflect what we have built together for the disability community: vital, life-transforming, hope-sustaining work.
But it is equally important to acknowledge the reverse: the profound lessons people with disabilities teach us.
Our deeper challenges require a change of heart
AT SHALVA, we learned early on that while many challenges are technical and can be addressed, the deeper challenges, the ones that shape how society sees, values, and includes people with disabilities, require a change of heart.
Our young volunteers experience this transformation within days. They quickly learn to look beyond disability and see ability. They stop measuring progress with society’s yardstick and begin measuring it with the child’s. A small achievement becomes a triumph, one that feels like witnessing an Olympic gold medal. And this truth applies to all children: Each is incomparable, unique, and deserving of celebration.
People with disabilities teach us vulnerability, the courage to be imperfect without apology. They teach us determination, the clarity of knowing what they need and pursuing it with positive stubbornness. They teach us presence, living fully in the moment without the constant distractions that dominate so many of our lives. They teach us emotional honesty, giving space to difficult feelings rather than running from them.
Perhaps most powerfully, they teach us to see beyond. Facades, titles, and appearances hold little meaning for them. They see the person, not the persona. For many of our volunteers, this is profoundly healing, allowing them to relax into authenticity in ways they never expected.
The more time we spend with these remarkable individuals, the more we realize that the gifts flow in both directions. We not only support them; they enrich and strengthen us. They teach resilience, ground us in what matters, and remind us that love can be both simple and sincere.
These past couple of years have tested the spirit of our nation. Israel’s current war has left deep emotional wounds still in need of healing. Yet we can take pride in knowing that Shalva fulfilled its national responsibility with devotion and dignity.
We have also become powerful ambassadors for Israel, sharing Jewish values, building bridges, and supporting vulnerable communities around the world. Even in hardship, we continue to illuminate what is best in us.
Our people have rarely known prolonged peace. We live with the tension between the world as it is and the world we yearn to build. But time and again, in our darkest hours, we find ourselves lifted by faith we did not know we possessed and surrounded by angels we did not know were there.
When life is shattered and replaced by a stark new reality, that is precisely when we must stand together and declare: You are not alone.
And that is what we, as a community, as a people, have done.
From the bottom of my heart, thank you for walking this path with us.
And may God bless you and bless Am Yisrael (the Jewish people), as only He can.
The writer is founder of Shalva, the Israel Association for the Care and Inclusion of Persons with Disabilities.