{"id":5710,"date":"2024-09-16T16:38:30","date_gmt":"2024-09-16T14:38:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.jewishlife.co.za\/new\/?p=5710"},"modified":"2024-09-16T16:38:30","modified_gmt":"2024-09-16T14:38:30","slug":"distress-call","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.jewishlife.co.za\/new\/2024\/09\/16\/distress-call\/","title":{"rendered":"Distress Call"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Through Different Eyes<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

Unsophisticated, yet powerful<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

By: Rabbi Shishler<\/h5>\n\n\n
\n

\u00a0\u201cThe shofar stirs us to compose a terse, heartfelt message to our supernal father.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

How do you send a distress signal? Native Americans used clouds of smoke and WWII soldiers Morse Code. Shaina uses WhatsApp. She always has a trick up her sleeve. A few weeks ago she proved that, despite her verbal limitations, she is a communications whizz. We are fortunate to take our granddaughter to school in the mornings with Shaina. They both insist we play the same kiddie songs on the way, and Shaina gets her niece laughing in the car every morning. When we arrive at school, things get tricky. Shaina impatiently tugs at her seatbelt while we unbuckle our granddaughter from her car seat. Naomi wasn\u2019t quick enough for Shaina\u2019s liking that Wednesday, so she sent an SOS to her backstop, Tali.<\/p>\n

Tali was Shaina\u2019s incredible school facilitator. Shaina would rush to hug her every morning as she walked into class. Her eyes light up if we tell her Tali is coming to visit. When Naomi took too long to unbuckle our granddaughter that day, Shaina phoned Tali. Unfortunately, Tali didn\u2019t see her call. Undeterred, Shaina sent a voice note: \u201cHi Tali. Come!\u201d Tali initially assumed that Shaina was letting her know she was on her way to school. She only realised later that it was a cry for help. Mom was delaying her at the car, and Shaina wanted Tali to rescue her.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Shaina\u2019s message is cute, a little bossy, and brilliant. We shoot off WhatsApp messages without thinking. The process is trickier for Shaina. She cannot read, so sending a WhatsApp message requires serious planning. First, she needs to bypass the security passcode on Naomi\u2019s phone. Then, she locates the WhatsApp icon \u2013 easy for us, impressive for a neurologically challenged kid. In the app, she scrolls through the messages until she sees Tali\u2019s face. She double-verifies that she has the right contact by listening to voice notes in the chat. Satisfied she has the right recipient, she selects \u201cRecord\u201d and composes her message.<\/p>\n

Shaina\u2019s distress signal was a complex operation.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Shaina aces the WhatsApp process, always verifying contacts before messaging or calling. Our children overseas often wake up to missed video calls, accompanied by half a dozen terse messages along the lines of, \u201cHi. Miss you. Love you.\u201d Sometimes, her messages include notes of a song or one of her quirky facial expressions.\u00a0One of her favourite tricks is to locate my contact on WhatsApp and video call me from the next room (or the couch in the same room), yelling \u201cCall!\u201d if I don\u2019t answer quickly enough. Halfway through the chat (where you only see her eyebrows), she unexpectedly hangs up. A moment later, she calls back, laughing.\u00a0<\/p>\n

They say that the problem with stereotypes is not that they are untrue, but incomplete. Society boxes kids into categories like typical and atypical, abled and disabled. Shaina consistently proves that people are nuanced, and atypical does not mean unskilled. Shaina\u2019s phone escapades remind me of the shofar. Unsophisticated, yet powerful, it stirs us to compose a terse, heartfelt message to our supernal father: \u201cI miss you. I love you.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Tali eventually came to help Shaina from the car. No doubt,\u00a0Avinu Malkeinu<\/em>\u00a0will respond to our call for His help, even if we feel our prayers are less cogent than they should be.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Through Different Eyes Unsophisticated, yet powerful By: Rabbi Shishler \u00a0\u201cThe shofar stirs us to compose a terse, heartfelt message to our supernal father.\u201d How do you send a distress signal? Native Americans used clouds of smoke and WWII soldiers Morse Code. Shaina uses WhatsApp. She always has a trick up her sleeve. A few weeks ago she proved that, despite her verbal limitations, she is a communications whizz. We are fortunate to take our granddaughter to school in the mornings with Shaina. They both insist we play the same kiddie…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":5711,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[93,99],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5710","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-93","category-september-2024"],"gutentor_comment":0,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishlife.co.za\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5710","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishlife.co.za\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishlife.co.za\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishlife.co.za\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishlife.co.za\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5710"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishlife.co.za\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5710\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5712,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishlife.co.za\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5710\/revisions\/5712"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishlife.co.za\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5711"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishlife.co.za\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5710"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishlife.co.za\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5710"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishlife.co.za\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5710"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}