Esau's Blessing: How the Bible Embraces Those with Special Needs

A fresh look at Biblical characters through the lens of disability.

Ora Horn Prouser shows how the symptoms of ADHD, depression, mental retardation, speech impediments, gifted learning, and physical disabilities appear in the Bible, and shows how the Bible teaches us how to respond with acceptance and compassion.

"Few books make one a significantly more sensitive reader of the Bible. Few books on the Bible make one a more sensitive person. Ora Horn Prouser's book does both, with the insight and grace of a scholar, a teacher, and a parent. Prouser's interpretations of Biblical stories and characters draw on what professionals have learned about special needs and challenges and provide new and humanizing perspectives on mostly familiar Biblical stories. Readers will be moved by the book and moved as they never were before by the Bible. They will never read the Bible-or anything else-the same way again. The book is essential reading for educators, parents, and students of Bible."

-Edward L. Greenstein, director of the Institute for Jewish Biblical Interpretation of Bar-Ilan University

"There is infinite wisdom and abiding compassion in the Bible when approached with a wise heart. Ora Horn Prouser is that sage­-resilient, loving, courageous. She opens our eyes to the special needs figures of old whom we come to know and love in the Bible, helping us to embrace and to see with clearer vision the special needs children and adults who deserve our respect and our attention today."

- Bradley Shavit Artson, author, The Everyday Torah

"A well-researched, respectful, fresh perspective on disabilities in Biblical narratives."

- Judith Z. Abrams, author, Judaism and Disability: Portrayals in ­Ancient Texts from the Tanach through the Bavli