Jewish women talking about Torah and the lived experience of our Judaism.
(00:00:45) TC: Hello, and Happy Chanukah. I’m Tonia, and you are listening to Human and Holy, a podcast where we discuss the deepest parts of Torah. Not just as scholars, but also as human beings. Before we get started, I have a grand invitation. If you love Human and Holy, I want to invite you to partner with us in this season by sponsoring an episode in honor of a birthday, a yartzeit, someone you love, or by giving a donation in any amount at humanandholy.com/sponsor. You can also reach out to us via humanandholy@gmail.com if you’d like to advertise on this show. Your donations and dedications literally keep the wheel turning. Thank you for giving people access to the yiddishkeit that is their birthright.
I want to share something with you. It’s the end of December, so Spotify Wraps are in, and I was astounded by our stats this year. Human and Holy is now in the top 1% of podcasts shared globally, with the majority of our shares coming from Whatsapp. So if you've shared via Whatsapp in the past year, thank you! And don't stop:)
We’re also in the top 5% of most followed podcasts on Spotify, and here’s a jaw dropper: We've reached over 200,000 downloads. I am amazed and really inspired by the amount of Jews who are loving and connecting to their Yiddishkeit. I'm grateful to be on this journey with you of making Torah and Chassidus a real part of our lives, and I think it's safe to say that we all feel equally thirsty for emes. Human and Holy is committed to supporting you in learning and growing. If there's a topic that you'd love to learn more about, something you're struggling with in your Yiddishkeit, something you're loving- don't be shy, send us an email. I love to hear your feedback, and I love connecting with you.
Now let’s talk about today's episode. In honor of Chanukah, we're going to do some Pirsumei Nisa, which is what Chanukah is all about – publicizing the miracle that G-d did for us long ago. Personally, there's a miracle that is seared in my own memory. The first time that I really saw the impossible become possible, when Sholom Mordechai Rubashkin was released from prison, on Chanukah, 5 years ago, after being sentenced for 27 years. Today, we will hear from his wife, Leah Rubashkin. What was it like to experience a miracle like this up close? And what does it look like to hold onto hope, when redemption does not seem possible?
Before we hear from Leah, let's hear a quick word from our sponsor.
(00:03:44) If you're last minute, and still looking for a Chanukah present, I gotchu.
Today's episode is sponsored by Toveedo, which is a website and an app that has hundreds of original and quality videos for Jewish children. It's designed to just be a simpler, safer space for Jewish kids entertainment. And, what sets Toveedo apart is that new content is added weekly, which is created solely for subscribers. They have 3D animations, live action films, and a new film in honor of Chanukah about the Maccabees in 2022. This is a gift that can suit the entire family, and I just love the idea of our children’s superheroes being the superheroes of Tanach. Toveedo is available on almost any platform- Smart TVs, websites, apps. Videos are available for download, so if you're traveling, just take it with. Toveedo is usually $99 a year, but, Happy Chanukah, Human and Holy has a code for 15% off. Just type in HH15 to redeem your little Chanukah present. Thank you Toveedo for this Jewish platform, and thank you for sponsoring today’s episode.
[musical interlude]
(00:05:04) LR: My name is Leah Rubashkin. And I am married to Sholom Rubashkin who got a little publicity in the last 10 or so years. We have 10 beautiful children, one special needs and a bunch of very accomplished, capable, talented kids. Baruch Hashem. And we're living out in Jackson, New Jersey right now. And we have something called the Aleph, Beis, Gimmel Center, which tries to give chizzuk to different people going through different challenges. We give classes on Emunah and Bitachon, and host shabbatons for different groups, whether it's students, or different people going through challenges, specific challenges, or just hardships in general. And that's what we are. That's what we do. And we're very thankful for that opportunity.
TC: Today we're going to talk about your miracle story, like how you literally experienced the open hand of Hashem. And we're sharing this in honor of Chanukah.
And what's amazing to me is that your husband was released on Chanukah. It's amazing. Chanukah is the holiday of miracles. So, it's mind-blowing. Tell us a little bit about your story. What led up to Chanukah?
LR: Basically, interesting footnote to what you're saying is that the first Yomtov that my husband was actually in a place called prison, was Chanukah. And he has a very interesting story about that. But I'll wait a little bit to get into that.
So, we were living in Postville, Iowa, which is in the middle of this country, the heartland. And my father-in-law had purchased a slaughterhouse, which he turned into a kosher slaughterhouse. And we were initially living in the Twin Cities- Minneapolis, St. Paul, because we needed education for our kids, we needed a nice sizable community to give us the things that we needed.
And three years after that, we actually moved down to Iowa and we started creating this little shtetl, with the school, and the grocery store, and the Jewish library, and of course the shul and a mikvah. And the business, thank G-d, was flourishing and doing quite nicely.
And then we had this major tsunami, this immigration raid that happened. That kind of left havoc and started a wave of events that was, like, unstoppable. It was an election year actually, and the Republicans that were in office then wanted to show that they were very tough on immigration. And so, they had made a couple of different immigration raids to show that they're not going to let these illegal immigrants work and do things that they wanted to do.
Instead of maybe building a wall or stopping them at the entry point, they came down on employers that had no idea that they were illegal. Because every employee has to submit papers. And those papers have to be authentic papers. And actually, when the government was trying to infiltrate into the plant to find out all kinds of information, they actually had to try five times to get this spy into the plant. Because each time the HR department, the people in charge of hiring, wouldn't hire these specific employees because their papers didn't look right.
But I think what ended up happening was they went to the Social Security office and actually got for them a proper ID from the government, in order to get this spy into the plant. And inevitably, they ended up making this immigration raid on the plant. And that basically was the beginning of this terrible story, where it put the plant into bankruptcy. And then once the plant was into bankruptcy, they were defaulting the loan. It was like, just a snowball effect. That's really what started this whole story off.
And unlike other raids that they did, they targeted the management and the ownership of these employees. So, instead of just giving the business a fine for having these employees work in their company, which is what they did in the other instances, they actually charged management and ownership with the charges of having hired these workers.
So, my husband ended up being the forefront of this fight. And he was thrown into jail, denied bail. And during that time, before the trial, before anything, while he was denied bail, he had this first Chanukah in a place called prison. So that's just a general answer to your question.
(00:09:50) TC: Wow! So, Chanukah is really significant to the story. Before we continue, I'm just curious, I noticed that you keep calling it a “place called prison”.
LR: Right.
TC: Can you tell me a little bit about that? Yeah, what does that mean?
LR: Okay, so, one of the ways my husband was able to get through this experience was really by learning from the different experiences throughout the ages of our different Rabbis, Rebbes. In our history, we have quite a few of our Rebbes, our religious leaders, that were involved in situations where they ended up in jail for very severe crimes of trying to forward Yiddishkeit, Judaism, in Russia when it was Communist Russia, sending Rabbis to teach children underground. Or making mikvahs for women in remote places that didn't have that access anymore. Or whatever it was.
And obviously, that infuriated the Communist government because they were trying to create an atheist type of environment where nobody believes in anything connected to G-d. And so, it was the Rebbe Rayatz, who is the previous Lubavitcher Rebbe, who was in jail. And when he got out of jail, he had this talk where he shared with the Chasidim, with his followers that were gathered there, that a goy, a non-Jew, could enslave or imprison a Jewish body but could never really imprison the Jewish spirit, the Jewish neshama.
And so, my husband took from that, that, "Okay, for whatever reason, Hashem wants my body to be in a place called prison. But I'm not going to be in prison. I'm going to make sure that I tap into this strength, the spiritual connections, Hashem to my neshama. And by doing that, I'll be in a place called prison, but I won't be in prison."
He constantly lived his life where he was a little bit higher, a bissele hecher, than what was going on in his physical environment. So that's why he coined this phrase “a place called prison.” And in turn, whenever we talk about his prison experience, we relate to it, then we talk about it as a place called prison.
(00:12:11) TC: Wow! I love that. Fast forward a little bit for us, you said that he first found himself in a place called prison on Chanukah. And then what happened next? What was the sentencing process? And then, what was like, according to nature, his fate now, with everything that had gone down in his factory?
LR: Right. So basically, like I said, he was initially denied bail. And we understood that this was a very important fight to get him home. Not only because, obviously, when you're in jail, it's very hard to do the different mitzvahs, and you're separated from your family, and there's a lot of mental anguish. But this was the time when he had to prepare for the trial that he was going to have.
Now, when a person's in jail, it's very hard to prepare to speak to your lawyers. People feel that inmates have access to their lawyers. They just don't have access to the outside world. Well, it's not so simple. And typically, it's not so frequent that a person is able to tap into his legal counsel. And they have to make an appointment. It's not such a simple thing. They make it hard for you.
Reason being that if you don't have access to your legal counsel, then you really can't prepare for your trial. You cant prepare for your trial, especially when it's something involved with the government, then they have an easier chance of winning the whole case.
(00:13:36) We fought that fight. And Baruch Hashem, after a lot of interesting situations and experiences, we, Baruch Hashem, won, and we got him out. And interestingly enough, that was our first Aleph, Beis, Gimmel story, where we got him out over the days of the Hebrew month of Shvat. And it was Aleph, Beis, Gimmel, which was something that we were really living with. And Hashem managed to manipulate things through a large series of disappointments and feeling like we can't believe this is going on. Like, all these different things happening. And Hashem wanted to give us this message that you're going to have emunah, which is aleph. You're going to have bitachon, which is beis. You're going to get the gimmel of geulah. You're going to get your redemption.
And so, we had this faith, and we had this trust. And thank G-d, we got the liberation that we were looking for. Now my husband's home. And we're able to prepare for the trial. And that was probably about nine months. It was let out in Shvat. And then the trial was after Tishrei. And it was a long haul of preparing, and dealing with the government, and pre-trial hearings and – it's like, our lawyer, when we first came to talk with him, he told us that if the American people would realize what it means to go through the court system, there would be riots in the streets.
The average person has no idea what goes on and how they manipulate things, and what they allow you to talk about, what they don't allow you to talk about. It's mind-boggling, really.
TC: I don't even know where to start. There are so many different directions that we could take this. But ultimately, your husband was sentenced -
LR: 27 years.
TC: 27 years.
(00:15:24) LR: Yeah, 27 years was the sentence. And, it's really mind-boggling to think how the country looks at things. I mean, a murderer could be given eight years, ten years, something like that, depending on all the different circumstances. But for a white-collar crime for a person that is a first time offense, to be given such a sentence was really outrageous.
But on the other hand, it empowered us, because anybody that heard about it, whether they were just sympathetic Jews that wanted to get involved, or former attorney generals, or former directors of the FBI, or the people that even wrote the laws because of this sentence, they were like, "What? You got to be kidding. This is not what we meant. This is not what the intention was." And so, it actually really forced an amazing support system and people getting involved that we would have never really been able to reach out to. Hashem had his ways of making sure that we would have all the support and help that we needed to get through this.
(00:16:36) TC: Is it an unprecedented amount of years for that type of crime? Has it ever been done? Like, 27 years, was kind of like a life sentence for your husband.
LR: Yeah, it was really amazing. What happened at the end was this whole story started with an immigration case. But then because of the immigration case, they had access to all the paperwork of the company. And they realized – listen to this. They realized that because these employees were illegal immigrants, even though we didn't know, that meant that the money that we borrowed from the bank – we had like a revolving loan that's called, like, you know, just to keep paying back and borrowing again and paying back.
One of the conditions of the loan is that you're not doing anything illegal with the money. But if we are paying illegal immigrants, then we're doing illegal stuff with the money. So it changed from not only immigration charges, but also financial charges that my husband was committing bank fraud because he was doing illegal things with the money paying illegal workers that he wasn't – It wasn't within his knowledge that they were illegal. He didn't even have any connection with the hiring. It was just ridiculous. They ended up dropping the immigration trial because they said that, "Oh, we could give more time if we show that he's guilty of the bank fraud, then he'll get more time in jail than if it's from the immigration problems."
(00:18:06) So, they just dismissed the immigration trial. Now, they're going forward with this financial trial. At the same time that my husband was involved with his case, there was another case. Maybe it was Enron. I forget exactly the name of the case. It was a big case where it was a similar loss to the bank. And that person got a year and a day.
TC: Oh, my gosh.
LR: And the truth of the matter is, is that even within the year and a day, this person had financial gain from the money that he officially, you know, took, whatever the story was. Whereas my husband, the business was forced into bankruptcy because of the raid that the government did. So, It was no loss that he had incurred. It was a loss that was incurred because of this immigration raid. And another mind-boggling fact, is that as we were going through the trial, we were not allowed to talk about the financial aspect – this is a financial trial. But we weren't able to talk about the financial ins and outs of the business because the bank wasn't on trial. Sholom Rubashkin was on trial.
So we would bring up accountants that worked in the business that introduced themselves to the jury that said that I've been working with this business for 15, 20 years. I've never seen any problems here, whatever. And then when it got into the details of that statement, the jury was sent out of the courtroom and they didn't hear all the ins and outs, for instance, that whatever was going on in the financial part of the business was with total knowledge of the bank. Because bank fraud really means that you're trying to trick the bank and steal from them.
But anything that was going on with the bank was with the bank's full knowledge, and even assistance with filling out the papers and doing all the things that they need to secure the loan and whatever. So It was just mind-boggling, having a financial trial, and there’s nobody that takes care of the finances that could talk to the jury. So, It was really no surprise when the verdict came through, because what did they hear? Nothing.
(00:20:24) TC: Well, the question is, is that the jury decides if he's guilty or not. But the judge decides the sentence. And the really shocking piece in the story is the sentence. Like, even if they wanted to frame it in a way that made him seem completely guilty, even if no financial representative was able to speak, 27 years is like an obscene amount of time.
LR: Right. That's true.
TC: What happened there?
LR: I really don't know. It was really a wild situation. It's interesting, because in the midst of all this, after the verdict came in, until we went to the sentencing, my husband had another case. And this case was a state trial that really spoke more to the immigration issues, which was really the basis of the whole case, which never got to be heard in the federal court. But only got to be heard in the state court.
(00:21:19) And my husband was acquitted of 9,311 charges. And the reason why there was so many charges is because what they did was they took the amount of illegal immigrants that they felt were in the story. I think it was like 37 or something. Every single day was another charge. Every single shift was another charge. And every single department that they worked in was another charge. So they came up with these 9,311 charges. And they really wanted – a lot of the people that were involved in the case, the askanim, the people that were helping us, the lawyers even. Everybody was pushing my husband to just, "Why don't you just plead guilty to one of these charges? Because then you won't have to go through the whole situation of this case?" LIke, it was ridiculous. And, you know, it costs a lot of money. And it's not a simple thing going to trial. And you never know how things are going to work.
And my husband said, "No. I'm not doing this. This is a child labor case.” Which means that they picked the illegal immigrants that were – officially, now that they knew who they really were, they were underage, which you're not allowed to have in such a dangerous type of business. You're not allowed to have underage workers. This wasn't exactly a perfume shop over there, you know. They were shackling the cattle. They were cutting it up. There were a lot of dangerous equipment there.
My husband's like, "No, I'm not going to let them say that a frum yid, a religious Jew, put children on a kill floor, and it was such a danger. And how could he do that?" And if I would have known, I would have never done it. And actually, we had quite a few Jewish boys, or boys that we knew for sure were underage, and they just didn't accept them because they were underage. They just can't work there.
So, it was really an unbelievable experience to go through. And as both my husband and I – both, we're born in America, grew up in America. Maybe said “I pledge allegiance” as a kid to the flag and to the country. And to see what's going on behind the scenes was a rude awakening, to say the least.
(00:23:31) TC: Has anything come to light since then that gives you any insight into, like, what led them to specifically pick on a visibly religious Jew?
LR: We don't really have any concrete evidence of anything. The business was in the midst of farm country surrounded by different giant non-Jewish plants. Just IBP and just very massive conglomerates of processing plants. And I think they just felt like they want to prove a point with immigration and they're going to start with the weakest person. Because these big plants, they have their lobbyists in Washington, and they could be very easily defended by the people that they are supporting this politician and that politician, this senator, that senator. And we were just a little plant in the middle of nowhere. And who's going to really come to the aid of some Jews, you know?
(00:24:27) It's interesting. We had a former Assistant Attorney General. His name is Larry Thompson, African-American guy. The sweetest person you want to meet. He was involved from the beginning. He told our lawyer, he says, "I'm not getting out of this case until we have some kind of resolution here and we get Sholom out." And he really was there till the end. And he told my father-in-law, he said, "You know, if you looked any different, if you just looked like a regular guy, not like you, not like me, this would have never happened."
So he, you know, he saw it for what it was. It was definitely something that was, had very strong anti-Semitic tones. As a matter of fact, my husband was denied bail. And reason being because he was a flight risk because of the Law of Return. The Law of Return is a law in Israel that was created to protect Jewish people from the persecution of the time, which obviously, in the beginning of the state of Israel, it was the coattails of the Holocaust. And they understood that there could be Jews around the world that would be persecuted and there would be problems. And they wanted to make that Israel should be a place where they could come and get citizenship, and it shouldn't be a problem.
This was their reasoning for keeping him in jail, because he could go to Israel, and then he could get citizenship, and then they'll have to fight to get him back. Now, basically what that was telling us, is that if our neighbor was given the same charges as we were charged, my husband was charged with, he would be given bail without a problem. But because my husband was Jewish, then he was denied bail. So, that kind of set the stage for what was to come.
And as far as the judge herself, I don't really know what her issue was. And she's obviously not a well person. And she actually has a very interesting name on the computer. If you Google her name, there's all kinds of cases that come up where she was like, very, very strict and very, like, out of the ballpark of what typically goes on. So, we were in a situation. That's for sure.
(00:26:37) TC: Oh, my gosh. Okay. So, now, obviously, looking back, you mentioned that the fact that the number of years that he was given was so out of the ballpark of someone who would have done something like this.
You mentioned that now, when you look at the fact that your husband received 27 years for what he had done, it was like a blessing in disguise, because it got people's attention. Like, as soon as you said, "Well, this is what happened. And he received 27 years." People are like, "Oh, my gosh."
Now that we're post-miracle, you can see that. But before we get to the actual miracle, what did you feel when you heard the sentence of 27 years? Did you imagine that he would ever get out?
LR: Actually, I never even said those words, 27 years. I never internalized it. It was not my reality. And I just knew that there was no way that Hashem would let him stay in that kind of environment for 27 years. I actually was surprised he stayed there as long as he did, because we really were on the mindset that this is ridiculous. It doesn't make any sense. He never got a normal trial. Whenever there was anything that was going to come up that would be to our benefit, the judge dismissed the jurors. She didn't want them to hear it. And naively, we thought that, "Okay, these jurors are not going to hear it. But it's on the record." We had no clue that when a person has an appeal, they are not retrying the whole case. You're only able to bring up to the appeals court the mistakes that the judge made or other issues. But nothing compared to doing the trial the first time.
But my mindset, I really did not relate to that number at all. I never even said that number while my husband was there. It was only after he got out that I was able to even say those numbers. Before that, it was just, "Okay, Hashem has His idea of how long He wants him to be there. And we felt like it's going to be just any minute, any day. Whichever way Hashem is going to do it, it's going to get done.
(00:28:33) TC: Oh, wow! Oh, my gosh. The concealment was so thick and strong. And you're like, "I didn't internalize the number 27," which I think is unbelievable that you said aleph, beis, gimmel, the emunah and bitachon that you and your husband practiced while he was in a place called prison. Tell us about your Chanukah miracle, about your husband being miraculously released from prison after years of being in there.
LR: Well, it's a very interesting story. Obviously, when a person is in such a challenging situation, we really tried everything. We dealt with the courts. We dealt with politicians. We dealt with whatever, advocacy groups. We really tried to leave no stone unturned. And of course, we did spiritual things also. We did rallies. And we did children doing different contests. We really did a ton of different things.
And I remember coming to visit my husband a couple times and telling him, "You're definitely getting out. I just don't know how it's going to be. This seems to be advancing. This way seems that we've gotten good news in this area. And this category, we're really meeting amazing people." And it was almost like the horses are racing. And you don't know who's going to win at the end.
And it was a very interesting thing, that we had Republicans on our side. We had Democrats on our side. We really tried to create a wide range of support in all kinds of different arenas. And we just were not sure how it was going to come to pass.
And when President Trump won the nomination, we thought, "Oh, maybe we could get a pardon from him. Maybe he'll do a clemency, whatever." And we had tried that with Obama. But that didn't get any traction. And it was very interesting because, typically, presidents give these kind of things at the end of their presidency. But we were working all our different connections all throughout. And Hashem was really behind us all the way because there was a lot of people that were trying to stop things and people that were just killing different things that we were trying to do.
(00:30:44) And actually, our final Yeshua, the end of the story, or maybe the beginning of a new story, started over the days of aleph, beis, gimel. Over the days of – the last days of Chanukah. In the month of Teves, and on Rosh Chodesh Teves, which was aleph, my husband got the final denial that every single thing that you could do in the court system is over.
And, he found out about it on aleph. He got a letter from the court. He was called down after he finished davening. He was called on the loudspeaker to come to the office. Now in a place called prison, you get mail. You get regular mail. And usually, it's read. Before they give it out to the inmates, it's read. So, that if there's anything inside the envelope, or if it's illegal conversation, or whatever, it's stopped.
Legal mail, though, they're not allowed to read unless it's in front of the inmate. Basically, when you have legal mail, they call you to the office and you come into this office and they give you this closed envelope. And you open up the envelope and they shake everything out. Then you read the letter.
(00:31:52) And in big bold letters it said denied. And basically, what that meant was, "Mr. Rubashkin, you're going to be in jail another 18 years." That's it. There's nothing else you could do. There's nothing else you could go to the courts with. And you're stuck. So, my husband read that letter. And he thought about something that he had learned many, many years before. And that is a pasuk from Tehillim, "Hashlech al Hashem Yehavcha, v’hu yechalkelecha." Throw on Hashem your burden, and He will sustain you.
And it's explained, a very interesting explanation, that the word yechalkelecha, which means sustain, is a very general word. And it basically means your livelihood. But the pasuk itself, this passage, is trying to explain to us that we should have this tremendous trust in Hashem. And He's going to be there for us no matter what it is. Whether it's a financial problem, a medical problem, a judicial problem. Whatever the problem is, Hashem's going to be there for you.
So why is it using that word, which is more of a general thing? Or actually, it's more of a specific thing. It's more of something that talks about livelihood and not about everything in general. It's explained that in that word yechalkelecha, comes the word keili, which means a vessel. So when you explain the pasuk like that, it means throw upon Hashem your burden, and He will be your vessel. He will be your keili. Meaning that when all else fails, don't think that life is over. Understand that this is a time when Hashem wants you to put your complete trust in Him, and He will be there for you.
So, this is what came into my husband's head when he saw that letter. And he said, "Okay, Hashem, you're not going to solve this problem in the courts. Let's see what You're going to do." Little did he know that less than 24 hours later he would be pulled out of a cell and told that the President of the United States of America has signed your commutation and you're a free man to go home.
TC: Oh, my gosh.
(00:34:01) LR: It's just every time I share the story, it brings shivers down my spine. And it's just an amazing thing, because all that time we were living with this idea that we are going to have this tremendous faith and this tremendous trust. And somehow, Hashem is going to do it. And so, we had this formula of this aleph, beis, gimmel. And Hashem worked it out, that on aleph, he got this terrible denial. But he didn't lose it. He didn't get crazy. He strengthened his trust.
And then on beis, during the day – actually, it was towards the end of the day, like about 4:30, he was called out into the warden's office and they told him that he's a free man to go home. And by the time I came to pick him up, it was gimel. He was sitting in that car, and it was gimel Teves. And he was on his way home. Like, they talk about yeshuas Hashem kheref ayin. That the salvation of Hashem could come in the blink of an eye. And that was a tremendous, tremendous blink of the eye. But we really put our trust in Hashem and believed that, as Jews, we're higher than nature. We're living in nature. We're living in a place called freedom, so to speak. Although we're not so free in a place called freedom.
But we're living here in this world that we're meant to take the world and to elevate it. To use all these beautiful things, technology, and all the physicality of the world for good things, for spreading the right kind of information and for using things for Mitzvos. But we're higher than nature. We're higher than any kind of diagnosis, or any kind of sentence, or any of these kinds of things. And when we use that power and really live in that higher place, then Hashem responds from a higher place and gives us the good that we really need. So it's really, it's unbelievable. It's the power. It's the power that we all have. And the more we grow, the more we can access that.
(00:36:32) TC: What was that experience like to literally see the impossible become possible and see Hashem's hand so clearly?
LR: It's really unbelievable. I was on the George Washington Bridge coming home from speaking to a couple of high schools that day. It was Zois Chanukah, which is a day that they often make parties in school, chagigos. And so, I was at two different schools that day. And when I was on my way back up to Monsey, where we lived at the time, I got a call on the George Washington Bridge from the lawyer. And the lawyer told me that he has some – He calls up and I said, "You know, Gary, I just have to tell you that my battery is very low. And for whatever reason, I don't have a car charger in the car. And so, try to make it quick so I don't lose you. But if I do lose you, I'll go and get a charger on the other side of the bridge at a gas station."
While I'm on the bridge, he says, "Oh, Mrs. Rubashkin," he became very prim and proper. He says, "Oh, Mrs. Rubashkin, I have to just tell you one message. It'll be very quick. The president of the United States, Donald J. Trump, has just commuted your husband's sentence and he's a free man to go home. Please go all the way up now. Don't stop anywhere. Don't stop at home. Go all the way up and just go and pick him up." And right after he said that, the phone went dead. I'm like, "What? I need that phone now."
I got over the bridge. And sure enough, I went over the bridge and I bought another charger. And I plugged the charger in. I plugged the phone into the charger. And I keep looking at the phone that is like rebooting. It's like going on again. And it's not going on. And I keep pushing the button, "Come on! Let's go. Get on." And it is not going on. And I realized that my phone wasn't out of a charge. It was just broken.
TC: Oh, my gosh!
(00:37:55) LR: Hashem had – the phone was dead. It was broken. There was nothing I could do. And I said, "Oh, boy! I can't believe this is happening. I have all this amazing news and I have nobody to call, nobody to share with?" And then I realized, "Wait a minute, Hashem did this, too." Hashem made sure that there was nothing else that I could do but be busy with Him, but thank Him.
I started saying all the Tehillim, all the perakim of Tehillim, all the kapitelach I knew baal peh, everything I knew. I started off with Hallel. It was Chanukah, and I had just davened in the morning Hallel. So, it was fresh in my mind. And I just started singing Hallel again. And then I went through all the other chapters that I knew by heart. And then every once in a while I would just scream out, "Hashem, you did it! You did it!" It wasn't a question, "I can't believe it." It was like, "You did it! You finally did it. I knew it was going to happen. I knew it was going to come, and it happened."
And it was such a tremendous feeling. Meanwhile, my children were wherever they were, and they knew that I was by myself. And they're wondering, "Oh, my gosh! How is this lady driving?” But in my excitement and my thrill, I had such a calmness to me that it was like, it was fine. It wasn't an issue driving. I wasn't nervous, It was just such an amazing calmness that I had and excitement at the same time. And it was just an unbelievable feeling. I mean, I'm sure you could imagine, that it was just unbelievable.
(00:39:30) And that whole night of celebrating with everybody and going from one place to the other. It was just, it was beautiful. It was a national holiday. There's no question about that. All of the Jewish nation were celebrating together with us. And I think the reason for that is because they were all very involved in the whole situation throughout the years. Everybody was praying, everybody was taking on different resolutions to get it done. People were giving us money. They froze all our assets. We didn't have any money to fight this case.
When you're in trouble with the government, they have a lot of leeway to make your life miserable and to make it impossible to actually fight the fight. And so, it was Klal Yisroel, the yidden, that really helped us with money. I think over three million dollars was raised throughout the years to fight this fight. And it's just unbelievable.
(00:40:23) TC: That visual of you in your car singing Hallel and thanking Hashem is the most beautiful, joyful scene. It just brought tears to my eyes. The gratitude, the thanks, the spontaneous outpouring of the heart. So beautiful.
LR: Yeah, baruch Hashem.
TC: I have to ask you what your experience was in integrating this miracle into your life. You experienced something that was completely above nature. You experienced years of struggle, believing that it would happen, not knowing when or how. And then you experienced a miracle that was completely above nature that – and the day after he was fully denied. So just like the most impossible thing became possible, was nothing but the hand of Hashem. What was it like to integrate that miracle into your life, to bring it down to earth?
LR: So, baruch Hashem, my husband came home. There was endless celebrations. And it was very, very special.
TC: I was there. I remember. I was in 770. It was incredible.
(00:41:25) LR: It was unbelievable. And it started, you know, we were trying to get my husband home to a house that he was never in. Because while he was put in jail, we moved to New York. The first place I wanted to stop was our house, you know? Like, give him a sense of your home. So we stopped at home.
And I thought that I was just picking up clothes, because I had my husband's clothes in the car. But I knew that we would not get back to Monsey that night. So I needed to take everybody else's clothes. So we stopped in the house, thinking that we're just stopping for a second. And there were thousands of people in front of our house. And so, we were there for quite a while. And then we left there. Then we came to visit my in-laws. And we went on a bus.
Actually, my children met us in Monsey. And we went on a coach bus, all together, to Boro Park to visit my in-laws. And there, there were like – I don't know what they say. 10,000 people there? There were tremendous amounts of people. It was unbelievable. And we spent time there. And it was very, very powerful there.
And then we went to 770. And the dancing was unbelievable. And I don't even know if the men really realized the scene from upstairs by the women's section seeing all the different types of hats and the different types of people. And everybody in this ecstasy of such joy. It was unbelievable to watch. So we were there for a while.
(00:42:47) And then at about 4:30, something around there, we ended up by the Ohel to thank the Rebbe. And it was just an unbelievable day. And then we had a beautiful Shabbos by my in-laws. And at the end of that Shabbos, a person came over to my husband and said that next week, they're making a shabbaton in Connecticut. And it was for an organization of families with sick members, whether it was a spouse, or a child, or whatever. And really, if we would join, it would give tremendous strength to the people living life in a very fragile way and the very unknown future.
And so, my husband was – he really felt like we should do this. And of course, my kids were not too excited about this because they had their father home. We had this first Shabbos that was like thousands of people coming through the door. And it was a very unbelievable experience. But it wasn't too private and family-like. They were looking forward to the next shabbos.
(00:43:48) And my husband said to them, he said, "Listen, you're welcome to come with us." But it really was Klal Yisroel that got us out, between all of their davening and all of their input to get this be resolved the way it's meant to be resolved. And we can't just turn our backs on Klal Yisroel. This is what we're going to be doing. This is really how we integrated this whole miracle into our lives by just deciding that this is what we're going to do for our life now. This is where we're totally dedicated to being mechazek, to strengthening other people, to teaching other people the strength of bitachon, of really creating this environment where you, too, could come to this level.
And we've seen amazing progress. And people have tremendous success by doing this type of work, by internalizing these ideas. And they themselves see their own liberation from whatever they're going through. And it's really been tremendous. So, we're so thankful.
TC: You've channeled the miracle into –
LR: Into making other mini miracles.
TC: Yeah, birthing more miracles.
LR: Yeah, baruch Hashem.
(00:44:56) TC: Let's end off with what your advice would be to anyone who is waiting for their miracle, who is experiencing their own prison sentence that might not be 27 years, but something else that seems equally impossible. Chronic illness, just real health challenges, family issues that seem like they'll never go away. Anything that someone is experiencing that seems impossible to heal?
LR: Yeah. I think that a person going through these challenges will gain tremendously by learning, really, what it means to trust Hashem. I mean, obviously, the harder and the more traumatic the experience is at the moment, the harder it is maybe to sit back and actually learn something. But the idea of knowing that Hashem is beyond any limitations, and the more we can connect to Hashem, the more we are connecting to that ability to be beyond nature and beyond any limitations that nature could give us.
Obviously, if a person has a terrible diagnosis, so they're going through a challenging time. But really, Hashem healing an ear infection or Hashem healing a terrible diagnosis, to Hashem it's all the same thing. It's just a matter of accessing that strength which is really beyond nature and beyond anything that we could fathom in this world.
(00:46:18) The more a person could get to that level of their understanding, the more they could warrant that kind of a response from Hashem. I would suggest anybody starting off with a challenging time should try to learn what it means to have true trust. Because you'll be surprised at the details. Just like we learned the laws of, let's say, keeping Shabbos or keeping kosher, there are laws and details to the Mitzvah of having trust in Hashem.
And the more we're able to access that and internalize that, the more hopeful we feel because we realize that Hashem could do anything at any time. And it's not a matter of if we deserve it or if we don't deserve it. Because Hashem gives it to us even if we don't deserve it. And the more we could learn about it, the more hope we could have and the more trust we could put in Hashem. That's what I would suggest.
TC: They said 27 years and you never internalized that number. I'm walking away with that, because we all have something that it's, like, are we internalizing what the nature is – or are we believing that we're connected to Hashem.
(00:47:26) LR: There's a very interesting story connected with that. So, that next shabbos that I was talking about, that we went to this shabbaton for these illnesses, families going through illness. It was Parshas Vayechi. And in Parshas Vayechi, Yaakov Avinu, Jacob, is telling his sons, "When is it going to be the time of the redemption?" When are the Yidden going to get out of Mitzrayim? Get out of Egypt?"
So he brings them all together. He's about to die, and he wants to bless them, and he wants to share with them, because they're in Egypt now. And they want to know when they're going to get out. And he calls them all together. And for some reason, it is hidden from him, Jacob, at the time. And even though he knew initially, it just flew out of his head. He was not able to share it with his children.
And the different commentaries bring different explanations for this. And they question why would he want to share this idea anyway? Initially, in Rashi it seems like it could even be that he wanted to say when Moshiach was going to come. And that we know, was thousands of years later. But even if you go with the people that say that it was at the end of the Exile of Mitzrayim, of Egypt, that was going to be 400 years. Right now, they were nowhere near 400 years.
(00:48:46) Actually, I think the message that Yaakov wanted to give them was that, because of the avoda, because of the work that the Jews had done in Mitzrayim, the physical work, the work of trust and faith in Hashem, the things that the Jews continued, it's already not 400 years. It's already down to 210 years because Hashem backtracked the time not from when the time that they got into Mizraim, but the time that Yitzchak, that Isaac, was born. So already, they're counting the 400 years since when Isaac's born. And the reason why he wanted to share that with them was because they would understand that it was their work, it was their avodah, that would make the difference. And if it was their work that already made the difference to make it 210 years, then they could go out and strengthen their tribe, strengthen their families to continue becoming stronger in their work, in their avodas Hashem, in their G-dly work and getting close to Hashem. And who knows how long it could be? It could be another day.
So my husband was sharing that with us on the way to the Shabbos. And my son perked up. He was a yeshiva bachur. And he said to my husband, he says, "Ta, you know what? I just realized that you and Mommy came down to the Midwest to work in the plant 27 years ago." Which means that the number 27 that I didn't want to think about, really was a number, but because of all the bitachon that we had. Because of all the work that the Jews did to help us, whether it was physically, whether it was just emotionally, whatever it was, help that that time should be counted from the time that we moved to the Midwest 20 years before the actual trial started. And we were able to get him out that eight and a half years earlier. After eight and a half years. Instead of after the 27.
It was just like this amazing parallel between what had happened with the Jews in Egypt that they were able to get out, when they got out of Jacob's message, to what we actually experienced at this time, in this amazing aleph, beis, gimmel story. It's really unbelievable. And when we learn the lessons of the Chumash, and really internalize them, we see how they really could apply to us in a very personal way. So it's very special.
(00:51:14) TC: Hashem should send the miracle on the resolution to anyone who is waiting for it. Thank you so much for sharing your story.
LR: Amen. My pleasure.
TC: And I'm amazed by you, by your husband, by the miracle. Just hearing this miracle again is renewing my belief. Like, the impossible can become possible.
LR: Yes, it really can.
[Musical Interlude]
[Outro]
(00:51:45) I can viscerally remember hearing that Sholom Rubashkin was released from prison. I was sitting with my parents, and one of them checked their phones and got a notification, like any other text, and suddenly just stood up and began dancing. And that night, I had a flight to New York, where I was living at the time, and after arriving in Crown Heights, I immediately went to 770, where Sholom Mordechai Rubashkin was brought by bus with his entire family, and it seemed like the entire city was dancing with him. In the shul, on Eastern Parkway and Kingston. And for the first time, I became aware of what it meant that something that had seemed completely impossible, would become possible. And I think also for the first time, I understood what it meant that one moment we’d be in galus, and then the next moment, we’d be in geulah.
(00:52:42) I want to share this poem that I wrote the night that I came home from 770, standing there for hours, watching a sea of men dancing and celebrating another Jew release. Its called, Behold, A Miracle:
It smells like body heat,
and geulah.
Our phones rang the same way they always do.
But behold, a miracle.
The benches are still splintered.
Everybody is falling atop each other,
pushing, forceful, but this crushing huddle
feels like a heavenly hug.
770, 2 AM: the loud, quaking
footsteps of Moshiach.
Thousands of people
stamping out darkness.
A moment ago, these chains
seemed eternal.
In a breath, I believe.
Finally, again, renewed,
like I never have before:
It will come like this.
In a text message that sounds
the same as the millions of others.
It will sweep itself across the globe,
split this concealment like the sea,
it will fall like glitter: unexpected,
sticky, everywhere.
We will not remember a time
when we could see our skin.
The internet means that our nation
is connected like veins. Limbs of a body.
A cough, and the whole body trembles.
A fist, pumping the air, victory,
and we are all rising in the palm
of another Jew’s miracle.
Our miracle.
Is possible,
is coming,
is ours.
It will smell like body heat,
and geulah. Our phones will ring
the same way they always do.
We will be wearing our slippers,
unprepared.
We will leap, like this.
Liberated, into the arms of
each other.
Our chains will disintegrate
like dust beneath our feet,
unnoticed, forgotten.
All of this galus is a leaking balloon.
In a moment, behold, a miracle.