Were I so inclined, I could make the argument that this time of year—the nine days from the beginning of Av and specifically the fast of Tisha B’Av—are surprisingly suited to a very particular kind of autistic person. The custom observed by many to refrain from listening to any music minimizes sensory overload. Some of us will just forget to eat and drink for an entire day anyway. Any excuse to avoid wearing uncomfortable shoes, when all shoes are uncomfortable; to sprawl on the floor rather than sit still in a chair; and escape from taking a shower when showering is a sensory nightmare is practically a gift. And, of course, I do not want to discount the deep relief of knowing that no one in shul will be wearing perfume when you are sensitive to smells.
I suspect, dear reader, that if you are autistic and reading this, you are probably either laughing or screaming at the absurdity of suggesting that this time of year is easy for us. For all that I have invented the perfect autistic Jew for Av, I remain skeptical that this person actually exists. While it is true that some of us may appreciate the lower seats or the freedom from ambient noise that we cannot tune out, others will be distressed by those sensory changes and the restrictions on the height of their seat or the music that helps us regulate. Moreover, the actual prohibition on eating and drinking is much more likely to be perceived as intolerable, especially for those of us who already struggle with food and regulation. The problem, however, is that this might be a sign of the restrictions working as intended. After all, these restrictions are designed to make us less comfortable. And one of the things I struggle with this time of year is articulating the distinction between the right and the wrong kind of discomfort.
The section on laws and customs of the nine days in the Shulchan Arukh opens with the following statement: “When the month of Av begins, we minimize our happiness” (OC 551:1). This is the opposite of a statement many may be familiar with from the month of Adar, when we say that we maximize our happiness as the month begins. Understandably, there is no catchy tune this time around. Instead, we are left with a list of restrictions that are designed to evoke a state of mourning and prevent the happiness that comes from being comfortable. In order for the customs of both Adar and Av to make sense, we must exist at a baseline level of contentment that is neither deeply joyous nor despondent. There must be space to increase happiness to make room for Adar, as well as space to decrease it to allow in the mourning rituals of Av. But it is important to note that decreasing happiness does not mean increasing pain. Even for Yom Kippur, when the Torah tells us that we should afflict ourselves, the Talmud is very clear that this refers to the five specific forms of affliction (that Tisha B’Av shares on a rabbinic level) that come from refraining from enjoyment: no eating and drinking, no bathing, no wearing shoes, no having sex, and no putting on creams or ointments. There is, the Talmud emphasizes, no mitzvah to deliberately cause anguish to oneself by sitting in extreme heat or cold (BT Yoma 74b). The same is true for Tisha B’Av: mourning rituals are designed to remove pleasures, even necessary ones, as part of diminishing happiness. They are not supposed to actively cause pain.
Unfortunately, many autistic people do not exist at this baseline level of comfort. Even leaving aside how often we are asked to be in public spaces that cause sensory stress, many of us are careful with hygiene, music, and how often we do laundry precisely because our baseline is not an absence of pleasure, but the presence of distress. To be autistic in a neurotypical world is often to be distressed, and we do our best to structure our world around us in a way that mitigates that pain. The figure who seems to speak to this experience in the Talmud is the istinis, a term translated as anything from sensitive to weak or fragile. The word itself is likely derived from the Greek asthenia, weakness. The istinis, for example, is allowed to wash in hot water even when the custom is, for reasons of deprivation or mourning, that one wash only using lukewarm water. What it seen as an enjoyable luxury to some is a necessity to the istinis because deprivation, in their case, could lead to real harm rather than simply a pleasure deferred.
The figure of the istinis is critical for those of us looking for halakhic language that describes our own experiences because the istinis is about a person’s nature, not necessarily about whether they are currently ill. Halakha has always been aware of the ways that illness interferes with one’s ability to fulfill halakhic obligations and customs, and lifts that burden of obligation for the illness’s duration. But neurodivergence is not temporary and, even when disabling, many of us balk at the language of illness to describe our identities. I am not experiencing a bout of autism that would reveal a neurotypical person underneath; I am autistic all the way down and that will not change. It is gratifying that halakha sees that and that istinis is an identity that even the Talmudic rabbis themselves do not hesitate to claim. Istinis ani, they say (JT Yoma 8:1). This is my identity. This is what I need.
With all that said, there is something unsettling in seeing oneself as fragile; to admit that one’s serenity or sense of calm is so precariously balanced that not listening to a certain song or not being able to wash and wear a certain shirt is enough to destroy one’s well being. And yet my own neurodivergent journey has taught me the same thing: even at my best I feel precarious and aware of how many haphazardly placed blocks are needed just to keep me out of distress and how easily they could tumble down if one block is nudged out of place. That fragility feels shared during Tisha B’Av, a time when the restrictions and liturgy remind us of how precarious the world can be and how easily things can and have fallen. Perhaps what is so distressing about Tisha B’Av is that it is the day when we deliberately approach that edge. And then the day ends, we are expected to take a deep breath and return.
That balance is hard to strike at the best of times and hardest of all when we go into Tisha B’Av already held together with twine and chewing gum. That fragility is not limited to neurodivergence; some years and life experiences are more destabilizing and shattering than others, but the test of Tisha B’Av is to step into a space of fragility and then step back afterwards. The test is to answer the call of the haftarot that bookend Tisha B’Av. This week, we will read “comfort, comfort, my people” (Isaiah 40:2). Or, to spin the verse differently, find comfort by being among your people. No wonder we neurodivergent Jews struggle so much; we who are so often left on the outside of Jewish community. And yet Isaiah the prophet has the answer to that as well. He tells us, in God’s name, what to do on the Shabbat before Tisha B’Av: “Learn to do good. Devote yourselves to justice; aid the wronged. Uphold the rights of the orphan; defend the cause of the widow” (Isaiah 1:11). Find the fragile, precarious people in your world and help them. Because Tisha B’Av is a time when we sit as precariously as we can safely bear. For some of us, that’s quite close to our usual levels of fragility, while for others it is a much larger shift. For us to come back from that edge, we need the care and help of those around us. We need to be comforted by our communities by being in community. There will always be Jews for whom certain of the mourning restrictions or practices of the day will be impossible, but we all deserve to have our broken hearts addressed and offered comfort by our people. In the same way that halakha sees the istinis and offers them understanding and accommodation, I want our community to see all our fragilities and, after our tears have been shed, find a way to meet us where we are and say “be comforted for you are still our people.”
Rabbanit Dr. Liz Shayne is the Director of Academic Affairs at Yeshivat Maharat as well as a recent alumna. She came to Maharat after completing her PhD from University of California, Santa Barbara, where she studied the past, present, and future of digital reading. She loves old books in new forms, analyzes how halakha and technology can work together, and is a teacher committed to the idea that studying Torah can and must be for everyone. Rabbanit Liz has authored a series of thinkpieces on neurodivergent torah. You can read them here, here, here, here, and here.
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