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By Alan Morinis The only difference between the scene at the California Women’s Prison in Chino and a movie set is that this one is real, and the women don’t go home at the end of the day. I was there recently to address a Mussar group, and I was nervous because I had never been inside a prison before. What would it be like? What would they be like? My student Shayna Lester, a volunteer prison chaplain who started the group, brought me there. Shayna, her husband Eli and I arrived early enough for me to tour the facility and get oriented before I had to speak. We were free to walk the grounds, as were most of the women, until 4 p.m. when a siren sounded and all the women had to return to their cells for lock-down. Then we walked the spacious grounds by ourselves, the only ones left after a busy scene had suddenly cleared out like an evacuated college or market. It was eerie. We connected with two female guards who took us around the prison. There were classrooms and workshops, a Native American sacred area, a house for conjugal visits, and then the Special Housing Unit or SHU, described as a jail within the prison. This is a large cube of building surrounded by wire fence set in the grounds where women who offend within the prison get sent. Shayna had never been inside the SHU, and our guard-guides offered to get permission for us to enter, which we did. The outer door slid open, and we passed into a small corridor. Then the outer door slid shut and clicked loudly. The door before us then began to slide open, and we passed through it too, to hear it snap shut behind us. Inside was a grim scene of two tiers of cells surrounding a large open area where six guards sat at a table. There was nothing to see but walls of cells with tiny windows facing inward to the central area. On the balcony where the upper tier of cells was located, large white letters had been stenciled for all to see—“NO WARNING SHOTS FIRED.” I was to speak in the chapel and we got there before the women were released for dinner and evening activities. That gave me a chance to meet with Rabbi Moshe Halfon, who is the prison’s Jewish chaplain. An energetic and passionate man, R’ Moshe and I got to know each other a bit while he ate his dinner, and the women started to arrive. The Mussar group of about 15 women had been working through my book, Everyday Holiness, and were studying the chapter on Patience. I thought that gave me as good a starting place as any, because what I really wanted to do was hear from them, and then respond, to be in dialogue and in relationship, rather than teach. One by one the women came in and joined the circle of chairs. One was in a wheelchair and seemed to be close to 70. The majority were in their 40s and 50s. Some seemed no more than 18, the minimum age at the prison. All wore white or grey clothes, but not uniforms. Why were they here? How long had they been here? Would they ever get out? What did this world look like through their eyes? I told them that I had never been in a prison before and that I was anxious about meeting them because I didn’t know what to expect. But as I looked around at them, and connected to their eager eyes, it came to me who I was addressing: people. Maybe people who had made a mistake, or had extraordinarily tough lives, or who had been misled by the company they kept, or their pain, or their yetzer ha’ra. None of it was outside the realm of life and what the Mussar masters taught about life, and so they weren’t really that different from any other audience I address. It wasn’t much of a stretch to look out and imagine that this was the Sisterhood group from any temple in any city in North America. If you had dressed the women a little differently and put them in the meeting hall of the temple, I would have addressed them just the same. They raised questions. They asked about humility and occupying space. They asked about how to deal with people who are arrogant. One asked about her tendency to procrastinate. We laughed together. They may have been in prison, but their issues are the very familiar human issues I encounter all the time. Were they all Jewish? No. Some were clearly educated and showed knowledge of Judaism. Some were the curious or the lost, seeking to connect somewhere, to find some guidance. I offered what I could. I wanted to strengthen them in their belief that they are holy souls, and that their challenge is the same as yours and mine—which is to understand and master our spiritual curriculum. After an hour, a larger group started to appear. This was to be an open talk to all who were interested from the general population. While people filtered in, I stood to the side and chatted with the Mussar students. They drifted away until only one woman remained, a petite woman about 55 years old with mid-length, straight blond hair and very clear blue eyes. “Can people really change?” she asked me. I assured her that we not only could change but we do change, because life doesn’t allow us to stay in one place. I imagined she was speaking of herself, but she let me know it was her son she had in mind. I didn’t ask, but she offered that she had been in prison for 18 years for killing her daughter’s drug dealer. She had raised three children, they owned their own home, and then in a moment of rage she had blasted the entire family into a different trajectory. The shame and horror became the dominant force in her son’s life, propelling him into becoming a police officer. He didn’t forgive her, despite her regret. And his heart turned to stone in her direction. And she stood there before me and cried, because she was not only a prisoner and a criminal, but also a mother. Yes, I assured her, her son might well change. Life sometimes takes a hard heart and cracks it wide open. And then compassion and understanding become possible where none existed before. That’s what happens when HaShem circumcises our hearts. About a hundred showed up for the talk, and I gave a simpler version of the same talk, trying to instill in these women the core notion that we are all made in the image and likeness of God, and so we are all holy souls in our essence. I shared teachings on the different aspects of soul, neshama and nefesh, and what we can learn about how to live by understanding these two aspects of our inner lives and how they interplay. I pointed to the venetian blind that hung over the window and told them that every one of their inner traits that was not properly aligned was like one slat on the blind that was blocking their inner light from shining into their lives. They listened intently. That’s actually what I talk about to all my audiences these days. The spiritual perspectives of our Jewish tradition have not been well disseminated in our generation. A woman in prison is no more likely to have been introduced to her own soul or the notion of her own personal soul curriculum than you or I. The context may be different, and the themes varied, but life is life, and the challenges to living life to our highest spiritual potential are there, too. There was one difference between the women at the prison and me. After I spoke, I got to leave. I had the privilege of waving a badge and getting clicked through one door, then another, and then a third, out to a parking lot and a car and a drive back to Los Angeles under the same night sky that remained over their prison. I hope they all get to leave one day, and that they realize that they are not alone, that there is a tradition that they can call on to help them put their feet on the path. Some will end up right back in prison, I suspect. But maybe some of them will recognize that all people face challenges to growing straight, and they will engage with those challenges and, little by little, they will grow and ascend the holy mountain. That’s the message I have received and that I tried to give them. Maybe some heard it. U’l’yishrei lev simcha—and to the straight of heart, joy (Psalms 97:11). |
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