ABSTRACT
This chapter is based on the assumption that observations of people with intellectual disabilities are helpful in gaining basic knowledge about being human at all, a general aim of sensory studies. It begins by clarifying the relationship between disability and sensory studies and the diverging evaluations of the intellect in ancient and modern times. The study then concentrates on two particularly illuminating aspects: first, the multisensorial festivals in Israel with their chances of repetition, and second, the ambivalence of the sense of touch. It concludes with reflections on power and disability. The potential of some passages and phrases of the Hebrew Bible has rarely been recognised yet, neither for today’s disability and sensory studies, nor for thinking about the essence of humankind in general.
