TEARING DOWN SPIRITUAL PRISON WALLS

For decades, R’ Fishel Jacobs, a Chabad Chassid from Kfar Chabad, served as a prison chaplain. We met for a fascinating conversation about his work and about the effect Tanya has had on his life and the lives of those behind bars.

The steel door of Nitzan Prison slammed behind R’ Fishel Jacobs, a Lubavitcher Chassid and resident of Kfar Chabad. This was the last time that he was hearing that sound and he knew that an era in his life had ended.

He still remembers the clang of the slamming of this same door when he heard it the first time.

“The second the thick, iron door slammed behind me, I knew I was in prison. No other door in the world sounds like that.”

It was the first time he had gone behind prison bars.

“The doors, more than any other detail in the complicated prison complex, embody the prison experience. The doors set the tone and express the inner experience of life in jail. The doors of a prison are unlike doors anywhere else. Prison doors have no soul. It’s not the sound of the thud that is cold like ice, of iron against iron; not just a thick bolt shooting into its place. It cannot be measured in decibels or any other measurement of sound. They reverberate throughout the building nonstop throughout the day, so their sound has no soul. Their empty echo circulates with blood-chilling coldness. It proclaims, ‘you are trapped like an animal and cannot get out.’”

But this was the last time the door slammed behind him after thirteen years in which Prison Chaplain Fishel Jacobs served as the rav of a number of prisons. For the past ten years, he served as rabbi in Nitzan Prison which contains about 700 inmates out of which about 500 are criminals and about 200 are security prisoners. He also served as the national classification officer for all religious prisoners who requested transfers to the sections for shomrei mitzvos.

A RICH LIFE

R’ Jacobs is definitely a colorful personality. He’s a Brooklyn boy. His grandparents on both sides were emigrants from Russia, Romania and Poland. They mostly spoke Yiddish. His father moved his family to the New England area for business reasons. That is where he grew up in a picturesque village of 1500 people called Royalton, in Vermont.

His youth centered mainly on skiing, riding snow mobiles, flying planes (at 18 he got his pilot’s license) and raising and riding horses. Under the tutelage of Grand Master Dr. Tae Yun Kim he won some karate championships including the YMCA’s Mid-Atlantic championship for black belts in the heavyweight category in 5736 (“This later helped with my work in prisons.”).

He was niskarev by R’ Shmuel Hecht a”h when he was attending the University of Vermont. In 5739 he finished his degree. It was then that he yearned to research his roots and went to Eretz Yisroel. He studied in yeshiva and kollel in Kfar Chabad for 14 years. With the Rebbe’s guidance he received smicha from both chief rabbis, completed his studies as a rabbinic advocate and has published seven halachic works thus far.

Between 5748 and 5765 he served as rav on campus under Chabad auspices at Tel Aviv University. There, with his family, he ran the shul in the Einstein hall. From the summer of 5755 until Elul 5765, he worked in the Prison Service. Every morning, Prison Chaplain Fishel Jacobs would put on his uniform and enter one of the highest security prisons in the world for 9 and a half hours, five days a week.

R’ Jacobs is married and has seven children and ten grandchildren, so far.

I met with R’ Jacobs to discuss his interesting life.

Please describe what the role of a Prison Chaplain is.

It’s an all-encompassing responsibility starting with the kashrus of the kitchen (the kitchen under my supervision produced about 3000 meals, three times a day), running the shul (each wing has to have an active shul with all that’s needed including a Torah), and arranging for mitzva fulfillment on all holidays for everyone, including staff.

I assume that with all that, your main job was with the inmates themselves.

Definitely. That was the main work. Unlike rabbis or volunteers at other prisons around the world, where they visit now and then for a few hours, in Eretz Yisroel, the rabbi is constantly involved with the inmates and staff from 7:30 in the morning until five, six o’clock week after week, throughout the year.

You naturally become close with the people you are responsible for. You sit with them in their cell or in the small shul that is in every wing. It might sound a bit strange, but in terms of hours, you are with them more than you are with your own family. There’s no question that over time you become close with people, even with inmates and with the staff too.

In Nitzan Prison, there were two yeshivos in which rabbis taught for pay. About 60-70 inmates learned there every day. Additionally, every day the rabbi mingles with everyone, talks to everyone, and tries to improve things for everyone in one way or another.

A PRISON IS A TRAUMATIC PLACE

I assume a prison is not an easy place for anyone to spend time in deep conversations or even light, friendly conversations.

True. A prison is a traumatic place to be, though there are sparks of light there too. I’ll give you an example. There was an inmate in his 50’s, nice looking, educated, cultured, who seemed to have money. He had never encountered Torah and mitzvos, for his life revolved around his big factories and successful businesses. He was sentenced for crimes having to do with irregularities in his accounting practices and he was sentenced to five years (out of which he could expect to sit for about three plus years after deducting a third for good behavior).

Although he was distant from a life of Torah and mitzvos, he was impressed by our study program and began listening to Divrei Torah and attending shiurim. I enjoyed his company very much. He was just a nice, smart guy. I’m talking about a period of a year and a half.

When I would meet people in situations like these, I would start learning Tanya with them. I always felt that the learning of Chassidus, even a little bit, is like penicillin for the soul. I learned Tanya with him, not in the order of the chapters but by topic. The truth is that it was an experience to talk with him, to clarify topics and to learn Chassidus with him. He was also very influenced by a group of Chassidim from Kfar Chabad who visit the prison every Friday to learn D’var Malchus with the inmates.

One night, toward the end of his prison stay, I stayed late to work because of an overload of work before Shavuos. I went to his cell and saw him sitting on his bed on the top bunk. He was sitting with a Tanya and crying. It wasn’t tears of sadness but tears of pleasure. I was astounded. He was alone in the cell because his cell mates were at supper.

“What’s happening?” I asked.

“All’s well, rabbi,” he said.

“How do you feel?” I asked.

He knew I saw him with tears in his eyes and he felt the need to explain.

“I’ll tell you honestly,” he said. “I am thanking G-d.”

I found that interesting. I was sure he was referring to his leaving prison in another few weeks.

“You know,” he went on, “I spent my entire life living the good life. I always had money, restaurants, cars, and a good family.”

I wondered where he was going with this. Then he lowered his voice and said, “But until I came here,” and he looked at the cell around him, “I had no life. And until I began learning this” – and he picked up the Tanya – “I had no life.”

Were you able to learn Tanya or Chassidus with every prisoner?

An inmate is like anyone on the outside. On the outside you have friends with whom you can learn and those who aren’t ready yet; it all depends on their situation.

There were also plenty of them who were influenced more by the makif.

By the makif?

Yes. In prison it is very important to raise the morale. For me personally, the atmosphere was very important. For example, I always made sure that in every shul, every Shabbos, there would be vegetables and other supplies so they could sit together, a minyan or more of people, and sing Shabbos z’miros together, eat together, be together in the spirit of “one man helping another.” I very much believed in this power.

It was also very important to make parties with music as many times a year as possible, on Chanuka, Purim, etc. I remember that after one of these parties in which there was a keyboard and a singer and about thirty men, one of them came over to me.

“I want to tell you something,” he whispered.

“I’m listening.”

“Thanks,” he said.

I stood there quietly and a bit stunned because his tone was way too serious for an ordinary “thank you” for a standard party.

“You saved my life,” he went on to say.

This line is never easy to hear and my jaw dropped.

“About half a year ago, I was sick of my life and was already thinking …”

I understood.

Then he went on. “But back then, at that difficult time, you guys came to the wing and danced and sang. You didn’t care about anything and this unconditional joy took me completely out of my depression and it saved my life.”

AS LONG AS THE CANDLE BURNS

You mentioned before that you would learn certain parts of Tanya with them. Were there topics that you liked in particular?

Everything having to do with the soul spoke to them.

I should mention that some of the inmates weren’t just “sitting” but had perpetrated criminal acts in a way that went beyond (or below) seichel; knowing how to deal with that is part of the job. A person who can break into a safe in a factory does so not with a calm, settled mind, so there were topics that I talked to them about that I thought spoke to them.

I remember a conversation I had with some inmates in the shul late one night. We were learning Chapter 19 of Tanya where it says, “The candle of Hashem is man’s soul.” At the beginning of the chapter it describes the nature of a flame which “constantly moves upward by nature since the light of the flame naturally seeks to separate from the wick and cleave to its source above.” Then it goes on to say, “And even though by doing so, it will be extinguished and won’t illuminate at all below, and also above in its source its light will be nullified in the existence of its source, nevertheless, this is what it wants by its nature.”

“Okay,” said the inmates, “but what’s the nimshal?”

(He chuckles): I sang to them (the Hebrew ditty), “Patience, patience, you can’t buy in any store … The Alter Rebbe won’t leave us with a question.” And we continued to read. “So too with man’s soul … it yearns and longs by its nature …” and we explained that this nature is “above reason.”

Somehow, in the conversation, we got to the point that there are definitely behaviors that are above reason and come from the G-dly soul and that you can attain this through prayer, Torah and mitzvos.

As I said, it was late at night, a heart to heart discussion with thinking people who naturally also thought about themselves and their situation. The conversation somehow got onto relating these ideas to our personal lives. We got to talking about the fact that there is also an animal soul and it also has desires and it too can want things that are outside the bounds of reason.

These kinds of conversations, at least to my sense of things, made a great impact on the inmates and motivated quite a few of them to make good hachlatos for drastic changes in their lives. I think that deep conversations like these, with someone who spent several decades of his life in the world of crime, going in and out of courthouses and jails, in many instances gave such people the opportunity for major changes.

KARATE IN THE LANGUAGE OF TANYA

The Tanya helped shaped R’ Jacobs’ spiritual character as he was taking his first steps in learning about Judaism. It was after half a year of learning in Hadar HaTorah that he went to Eretz Yisroel to Tomchei T’mimim in Kfar Chabad. He had made a long journey from the world of karate to the world of Judaism and Chassidus. He quickly learned that all the difficulties and challenges that he had to deal with in the past paled in comparison to the difficulties he experienced in Eretz Yisroel.

“My first period there was difficult and painful for me. Not only the way of dress was different, and the mentality and the incomprehensible language. A student who comes from the academic world has it easier, to some extent, exchanging mathematics or psychology for the study of Gemara. But for someone who spent his life on physical training and karate drills it was hard to suddenly drop down into the world of Torah, a world that is entirely cerebral.

“My main difficulty was looking at an entire day of thought, of in-depth study. My body, which had gotten used to never ending sports matches cried out for help and begged to break out. Being accustomed to physical activity gave me no rest. I was torn between my desire to learn and progress in Torah and Chassidus, and the very different habits that had become second nature to my body. I was sad, very sad. What kept me going was only the tenaciousness I was accustomed to, to take something till the end and achieve the goal.

“The turning point occurred after over a year of learning in yeshiva, when the mashpia and mashgiach, R’ Moshe Naparstek, suddenly discovered me. I don’t know how things came about but all of a sudden, I felt that R’ Moshe had discovered my secret and was aware of my inner crisis.

“The solution he gave me to deal with the problem was at first glance quite surprising. Later on, it became clear to me that this is what changed my entire life and being. ‘Learn Tanya by heart,’ he said. That’s all.

“I went to work on the Tanya and this was my karate for more than four years. Along with the s’darim in yeshiva in Gemara, Halacha, and Chassidus, I was using every free moment to learn Tanya by heart. It was a slow, hard, exhausting process for me. At first I had to drill into my mind each letter, its shape and sound, thousands of times until it was absorbed. But I did it, persistently, with the same power of concentration, with the same consistency and nonstop drills that I had become accustomed to from when I took karate. I would get up early in the morning and review another letter, another word, dozens and hundreds of times, on my way from the yeshiva hall to the dining room, to the mikva, and every night under the blanket until I fell asleep.

“My friends looked at me askance as an introverted type. I simply didn’t have the time to talk because it was Tanya by heart all the time. My spiritual life revolved around Tanya 24 hours a day. I don’t have to tell you what this gives a person …

“I finished memorizing the first chapter after two and a half months. It was a Yom Tov for me. I spent four years on reviewing Tanya, three to four hours a day. Since then, until today, I devote an hour to an hour and a half a day to reviewing Tanya by heart.”

TANYA WITHIN PRISON WALLS

The central themes of Tanya are what R’ Jacobs took with him to work and are what helped him see the G-dly soul in every inmate, including those who were incarcerated for terrible crimes. Tanya is what enabled him to feel empathy toward every inmate, “especially considering Chapter 30 of Tanya,” he says.

He explains, “The Alef-Beis that they teach us in yeshiva is that each of us has two souls, a G-dly soul and an animal soul. Each soul pulls us in a different direction, one toward Torah and mitzvos and the other toward materialism and sins.

“If you study Tanya and Chassidus, even a bit, you understand our condition. We are actually in the same situation as the inmates. They have two souls and we have two souls. The difference is that my sins are not in the ‘criminal’ category. Most of our faults or sins are between us and G-d and even between us and others, but they don’t go into the category of criminal. In contrast, the inmates crossed the red line and they ended up where they ended up.

“In Chapter 30 of Tanya, the Alter Rebbe tells us to employ a spiritual accounting that is even more severe than this. The Alter Rebbe tells the beinoni to make a spiritual accounting with himself and to compare himself to people in the marketplace who conquer their evil inclination with iskafia every day. As he puts it, ‘In truth, however, if he is a scholar and upholds Gd’s Torah, and wishes to be close to Gd, his sin is unbearably great and his guilt is increased manifold for his not waging war and not overcoming his impulse in a manner commensurate with the quality and nature of the war mentioned above that the kal sh’b’kalim must face. His guilt is far greater than the guilt of the kal sh’b’kalim, the most worthless of the street-corner squatters, who are remote from Gd and His Torah. Their guilt for not summoning up the fear of Gd Who knows and sees all their actions, in order to restrain their impulse which burns like a fiery flame, is not as heinous as the guilt of one who draws ever nearer to Gd, His Torah and His service.’

“I regarded my work and my role with holy trepidation. I was there to serve the people. I often set aside the officer in me and discovered the Jew within me, my humanity. For example, with the robber from the south who became religious in jail and he got to the point where he became the rabbi’s assistant, I never spoke about what happened. He spent entire nights talking to me about Torah and mitzvos but not a word about what he did which he denied. He was a delightful person. He later escaped and is still wanted. I had a good relationship with him. Each one did something. There are those who did things which you cannot even think about, but I was careful to set each crime aside. I was careful about not looking at files, not seeing what the inmate did. This is what the Rebbe taught us, not to deal with evil but to strengthen the good. It was necessary not to relate to the crime because that would interfere with his recovery.”

Many inmates become baalei t’shuva in jail. Isn’t that pathetic that a person who hurt others, who murdered, does t’shuva and starts to believe? Where was G-d in his life until now?

R’ Jacobs is familiar with this line. He says, “In prison you can work or study or become religious. It’s true that some go the religious route because the conditions are good, but I’ve seen many for whom the process is genuine. Why? Because the Tanya teaches us that there are two souls. When in jail, the pleasures of the animal soul are restricted. There is no entertainment, no fun, and the body is more subdued and attentive to the G-dly soul.”