In Leviticus in the bible God commands Moses to not allow people with physical disabilities to worship. Has this ever been used to to discriminate against people with disabilities?

by [deleted]

[deleted]

gingerkid1234

As the comments below state, the title doesn't match what you're quoting. The bible doesn't say that people with disabilities can't worship, it says that priests who are physically disabled can't offer sacrifices as priests did (so what they're not allowed to do is not something most people are doing anyway).

It's impossible to prove a negative, but I'm unaware of these verses ever being applied outside the context in which they were originally written in a Jewish context. A number of Jewish texts (the Talmud, Shulchan Arukh, Mishnah Brurah) go into the requirements for someone to lead communal prayers. This is an area where you might think those rules would be applied, but the requirements have nothing to do with physical disabilities and do not reference those verses whatsoever (they are things like being popular in the community, singing well, being knowledgeable in different sorts of chanting, not gossiping, etc. The closest to a physical disability is ability to grow a full beard).

Another area where you might think people would apply this is post-Temple (and modern day) rituals Kohanim (the priesthood descended from Aaron that's being discussed in those verses), but as far as I am aware none have. The only disqualifying defect anyone seems to care about is disfigured hands, because the congregation might stare at them during the priestly blessing. But this is not absolute (i.e. according to many it doesn't matter today since Kohanim cover their hands with prayer shawls when performing it, or doesn't matter if it's a disfigurement the community knows about and won't stare at). And the fact that disfigured hands are what keeps a Kohen from performing this ritual implies that there probably isn't a problem with other sorts of disfigurement. And even if disfigured kohanim couldn't perform the ritual of the priestly blessing, that wouldn't restrict them from worship entirely, just a particular priestly ritual.