Parshat Beshalach: Unlearning Masking and Internalized Ableism
by Lev DePaolo
If you have ever come out as Queer, you know that coming out is not a one-time event. Many of us have to come out over and over again over the course of our lives. Every single time we meet a new person, we have to make a split-second judgement call—is this person safe? Is my job at risk? Is my life at risk? As a trans nonbinary person, I am acutely aware that these decisions are even more consequential in the current political climate.
As a neurodivergent person, I also move through the world making these calculations about self-disclosure both at work and in social situations, on two levels: both about my queer identity and my Autistic identity.
I am a high-masking Autistic person, which means that I have the ability to “pass” as neurotypical. As a child, I spent an enormous amount of energy observing and mimicking neurotypical behavior in order to avoid ridicule. Over time, I acquired the ability to blend in and fly under the radar. When I have my “mask” on, most people wouldn’t guess that I’m neurodivergent. Because I am so fluent at neurotypical behavior and communication, none of my teachers ever suspected that I was Autistic—I received an official diagnosis at the age of 30 when the burden of non-stop masking finally became unsustainable. To be clear, Autistic people should not have to mask—and many of us cannot—but I quickly learned as a child that I would be punished brutally by my peers if I didn’t learn how to blend in: to respect social hierarchy, to talk like my classmates, to suppress the ways in which I atypically expressed joy, like infodumping and stimming. My masking abilities were a privilege in many ways—I excelled in school, learned how to connect with my peers, and launched a successful career—but they came at a high price. I spent so much time trying to become “indistinguishable” from my peers that I learned to fawn instead of self-advocate, to sublimate my own needs at all costs, and to push myself to extreme burnout.
When I received my autism diagnosis, I started to connect with the community of Autistic self-advocates and experienced an overwhelming feeling of relief—I finally had context and vocabulary for many of the ways that I had always struggled. Procrastinating on a college paper until 2am the night before it was due wasn’t laziness or disorganization—I was struggling with executive function. Returning home from a day of work or an evening of socializing with a throbbing headache and overwhelming fatigue wasn’t exaggeration or dramatics—I was exhausted from sensory overload and the effort of maintaining neurotypical social scripts all day. I felt immensely grateful to finally understand that I wasn’t weak, lazy, or broken—I had assumed that the things I struggled with were hard or painful for everyone, but the reality was that I had actually been playing on “challenge mode.” However, these realizations brought me not only a sense of relief and understanding, but also a deep sense of grief for all the years I had struggled with trying to be “normal.” I mourned all the opportunities for genuine connection that I had missed because I was too ashamed of my real self to share it, even with the people I loved most.
In Parshat Beshalach, Moses leads the Israelites out of bondage in Egypt after generations of soul-crushing labor and enslavement. They are reluctant and fearful, and each time they face a setback, they blame Moses for taking them out of Egypt only to let them perish in the desert. The Israelites cry out, “Are there no graves in Egypt, that you have taken us away to die in the wilderness? Why have you done this to us, to carry us out of Egypt? “If only we had died by the hand of יהוה in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the fleshpots, when we ate our fill of bread! For you have brought us out into this wilderness to starve this whole congregation to death” (Exodus 16:3). Enslavement in Egypt was brutal, but the Israelites knew what to expect; in the desert, they had to grapple with uncertainty and fear of the unknown. Moses promised to lead them to freedom, but all they had ever known was bondage. They had lived their entire lives being told over and over again that they only had value for their labor—they couldn’t simply flip a switch and become free.
We learn in Exodus 13:17 that Moses led the Israelites on a long, circuitous path instead of taking a more direct route out of concern that they might panic upon encountering the Philistines and flee back to Egypt. A midrash from the Mekhilta offers another explanation: “If I bring them there now, immediately each man will seize his field, and each man his vineyard and they will neglect Torah study. Rather, I will keep them in the desert forty years, eating manna and drinking from the well, and the Torah will be absorbed in their bodies” (Mekhilta de Rabbi Yishmael, Beshalach 1:4). The Mekhilta suggests that if God had sent the Israelites on a more direct route, they would have taken on all the outward trappings of freedom—growing food for their own consumption, tending vineyards for their own use—but they wouldn’t have had time to do the inner work of becoming free. They needed 40 years for Torah to be metabolized into their bodies. They needed 40 years to learn how to be free in their bodies and their minds.
Learning how to unmask as an Autistic person is not a direct path, and although it is a joyful and ultimately liberating process, it is also rife with pain, self-doubt, and regret. Unlearning ableism is a life-long process. From an early age, we metabolize the message that we are only valuable for the labor that we produce; in order for Autistic folks to succeed, we learn to fit ourselves into narrow molds, suppress our Autistic traits, and ignore when our bodies and brains cry for rest. In Parshat Beshalach, the Israelites are gifted the commandment of Shabbat for the first time—they are instructed to gather one portion of manna on each weekday, but to gather double before Shabbat so they may cease all their labor on the 7th day. For a people who have only ever known forced labor, this is a radical statement: they have value beyond their labor; their rest is necessary, valuable, and holy. As I continue on the life-long journey of unmasking and moving towards authenticity as a proud Trans Autistic Jew, I will repeat this message: I have value beyond my labor. My rest is necessary. My rest is valuable. My rest is holy.
Lev DePaolo (they/them) is an Autistic and Trans nonbinary musician, composer, prayer leader, and Jewish educator. They currently study at Reconstructionist Rabbinical College.
