NEW YORK, NY — The release this week of a series of letters penned by the Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, of righteous memory, has shed new light on the Rebbe's focus on the special qualities of each and every individual.
Correspondence Reveals Rebbe’s Focus on Individual’s Innate Potential
NEW YORK, NY — The release this week of a series of letters penned by the Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, of righteous memory, has shed new light on the Rebbe’s focus on the special qualities of each and every individual.
In the letters – which were published on Chabad.org and deal with how society in general and the Jewish community in particular should approach people with developmental problems – the Rebbe urged health care professionals and families to recognize that, far from suffering from a disability, such individuals possessed unique abilities to grow and affect the world around them.
“If any child requires an individual evaluation and approach in order to achieve the utmost in his, or her, development, how much more so in the case of the handicapped,” the Rebbe wrote to Robert Wilkes, assistant program director and chairman for the Region II Council for Mental Retardation in Brooklyn, N.Y., in 1979.
Using the common term of the era, Wilkes had inquired about the advisability of establishing group homes for “retarded Jewish children.” The Rebbe responded that above all, care must be provided with the knowledge that all individuals were different. Just as important, asserted the Rebbe, was the necessity of recognizing that children with special needs could learn and grow.
S and B
LEIBELEH!!!! Sei Forte!!
menach
Leibele I love your minkiye hat.