This Hasidic Rabbi Was Appointed to the New York State Council on Developmental Disabilities

Rabbi Simcha Weinstein knows what it means to be called to something.

As the longtime Chabad emissary (shaliach) at Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, Weinstein has spent years helping students navigate questions of meaning and purpose. But one of the deepest callings of his life emerged much closer to home.

When one of his sons was diagnosed with autism, Weinstein entered a world he had never expected to navigate: schools, services, and hard questions about whether the systems meant to support families like his would actually be there when needed.

As his son grew older, the supports his family had relied on began to thin just as the challenges became more acute. “When we needed the support the most, that was the moment that there was the least,” he said. For years, he describes himself as a “dad in denial.” But crisis forced a shift. “The moment of dad in denial becomes dadvocate,” he said.

Long before any formal title or appointment, that shift led to a father driving to Albany on behalf of his son, and the many families facing similar challenges. Weinstein began showing up at hearings, giving testimony, and raising concerns about gaps in support, especially for older children and families navigating crises with too few resources. Along the way, he found something else too: other parents carrying burdens much like his own.

He began connecting with grassroots organizers, training as a peer family advocate, and returning again and again to push for better systems. And, as he tells it, he simply kept showing up. “They call Albany… ‘Small-bany,’ and if you keep turning up, I think eventually you become known,” he said. And eventually, he did.

That persistence brought him into conversation with state leaders, and what he expected would be a one-time chance to “unload,” as he put it, became an invitation to help shape the work from within — a path that has now led to his appointment to the New York State Council on Developmental Disabilities.

“I think this has become shlichas,” he said, a divine mission that, in his mind, has become an extension of the religious work he already does fostering Jewish life and meaning for students on campus.

That may be part of what makes his appointment notable beyond disability policy. Weinstein is bringing not only lived experience as a father and advocate into this role, but a worldview shaped by Jewish ideas of responsibility, interdependence, and the refusal to let vulnerable people fall through the cracks.

It also shapes how he understands the broader community this work serves. “The disabled community, if we’re going to talk about historically marginalized communities, it is the largest marginalized community on earth,” he said.

Yet Weinstein is just as animated by the coalitions this work has created across difference. He speaks warmly of a Chinese “dadvocate” in Queens he calls a brother, of colleagues from other communities, and of a shared sense of purpose forged not despite difference, but through it.

“We bring our culture into the room and our values and our tradition,” he said. “We’re also really united by advocacy.”

When asked what Jewish wisdom has sustained him, Weinstein cited a teaching from Midrash: “A twig can easily be broken, but a bundle of twigs are strong.”

He offers the Midrash as advice to overwhelmed parents: there is a community out there for you to connect to and get involved in; you are never alone. Another piece of wisdom he returns to is a reminder from parent to parent that “a diagnosis doesn’t define love.” Taken together, those ideas reflect something essential in how Weinstein approaches this work; through relationship, dignity, and hope.

An emissary through and through, this new position of influence to help enact change for people with developmental disabilities may be the most meaningful expression of his calling yet.

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