How an Inmate Changed My Life (part 1 of 2)

I never intended to be focusing my rabbinate behind bars.  I happily serve as the part-time rabbi at Kehillatt Ha’Alonim in Ojai two Shabbats a month and have been there for the last three years. But, I’ve been behind bars for seven. Two men who I met within weeks of each other 6 plus years ago changed my life and my rabbinate. 

Because of the blessing of working with them, I realized that this was the work I needed and wanted to be doing.

When Guy walked into my office at MCJ (Men’s Central Jail) he was a 28 year old empty soul. It didn’t happen immediately, but over the next several weeks he began sharing more and more about his life. He had been in and out of jail since he was first in Juvenile Hall at 15: Three prisons in two states and too many visits to LA jails to even attempt to count. His parents (both addicts) died within months of each other when he was four. His siblings were much older than Guy and he was brought up by his grand parents , who were immigrants and not very educated.  He dropped out of high school and began his life on the streets of Hollywood.

Guy came in to see me, at first, really just to get out of his cell. He didn’t say that but it was clear he wasn’t looking to make a shift in his life.  “Remember, Rabbi, I’m not religious,” he reminded me. He wasn’t ready for the questions I asked.  However, he found out quickly that if our time wasn’t going to be constructive and forward moving, it would be a very brief visit. The visits got consistently longer and more frequent.

I saw something in his eyes one day when he was caught off guard.  It didn’t take him long to cut off again but, too late! I saw something. This man had so much hidden and was so unaware of any hope of a different life that I had to move slowly and build trust.  We talked about building a relationship that was just between us with the stipulation that he didn’t ‘have’ to say anything but when he did, it had to be honest. I agreed to never lie to him either.  Hard as it may be for you readers to fully grasp, that was like asking him to do and be something (at least for the time he was with me) that was totally alien to the drug addict, conman, no-real-idea-of-friendship man he had been for most of his life. But, after cutting our session short two or three times because I knew he was telling me what he thought I wanted to hear…and definitely not the truth, he started to work harder at that.

I began working with him on values and honor and finding a way to see a tiny spark of hope that he had the tools to become something special and have a real life.

“Find yourself a teacher and find yourself a friend” became a constant part of our time together. Peeling the layers off of a non-trusting and basically hopeless young man became my goal and then, slowly, HIS goal, as well.

The next few months were much more of a validation of my ‘change/big change is possible even in people who have spent over half of their lives

in the system’ philosophy.  Regularly, there were officers who said to me (of course, they knew him from his frequent visits) that I was wasting my time and he’d be back.

But he began to shift. I saw possibility showing in his demeanor. For himself, in his own heart, not just mine.

I remember the day I told him he was going to go to college. He laughed. Hard. He had gotten his GED in prison. The idea of college was so off the charts to him.

He had tried rehab three times before and either left or was thrown out each time.

Part of my condition of continuing to see him after release was that he be in a 6-month residential program.  Finally he agreed to write an admission request and I followed up hoping to make certain he had a bed waiting the day he was released.

I had a friend agree to pick him up outside the jail when he was released. Not as easy as it sounds, since the jail cant/doesn’t give a specific time of release and very often it is 3am before the exit process is handled.  My friend waited for 4 hours with updates to me every ½ hour. It was my first time in this situation and I knew there was the possibility that Guy would decide last minute to ditch the idea.

He didn’t and was admitted that night.

He made it through the 6 month program and cried when I took him out after the ‘graduation.’  “I never thought I could do it.” I helped arrange a job interview with  someone willing to hire a felon. He got a temporary job (his first in 10 years) at a store in Beverly Hills. It turned into a 2 year “temporary job”. The next door to walk through was moving him into a sober living house. I took him sober-living shopping and he was ready to move into the less expensive of the two we finally narrowed it down to. He was afraid of being able to afford the $200 per month difference between them. I wanted him to start looking up the ladder instead of down. He needed to begin thinking of himself as deserving something better. I had helped him interview with someone willing to hire a felon. I had a generous supporter who offered to cover the first 6 months of the $200.00 rent difference to take the anxiety away from this very big next step.

After 4 months Guy said, “I don’t need the $200.00 now. I can do it on my own. He wrote a thank you note to his anonymous benefactor and I delivered it. But first, there was the short lesson on why and how one writes a thank you note.

We had discussions about how,  now, he was following in the path of our ancestor, Abraham, on a road to places he did not know. That’s an understatement.

I could write much more but I’ll end by telling you that he got a job at the rehabilitation center he had lived in. He got a promotion. Then another.

And on May 5^th I will be attending his graduation as he is given an Associate Arts college degree in drug and alcohol counseling (he got all A’s, made Dean’s list and came over after each completion to show me his certificates).

6 years after we first met, he is helping others rise up from the ashes of their pasts. And 6 years after we first met I tell him how much he has blessed my life. I had no idea my own rabbinate would take this road when I first me Guy (and the man who will be ‘Part two’ of this episode). Seeing how he responded to kindness, God, hope and trust made an unimaginable change in MY life. I will always be grateful for having the honor of being a part of this miracle.