By Rabbi Shalom Gurewicz for COLlive.com
My job in Kashrus takes me to Cedar Rapids, Iowa every month. Knowing that Sholom Mordechai is sitting in prison there, I applied last month to visit him. I was approved and visited him yesterday.
He was so happy to see me besides for the fact of just having a visitor, he had also been placed in solitary confinement the night before and nobody including his wife and attorney knew about it yet and he was not allowed to make calls.
Rabbi Avrohom Blesofsky, Chabad Shliach of Iowa City, about 30 minutes away, visits him every other day. What a Mitzvah!
My zeida, Nochum Zalman Gurewicz, once took my aunt Ida to see the Lubavitcher Rebbe. She told the Rebbe that her husband Hershel was not a Chossid but a ‘finer poshuter yid’- a simple Jew (in fact he was a Yid a Talmud Chochom). The Rebbe answered her ‘un vos is a Chossid? A finer poshuter Yid!’- ‘and what is a Chossid, a fine simple Jew!’
Sholom Mordechai is a Chossid. His actions in prison had me thinking if my ‘Chassidishkeit’ and behavior in freedom is the way it should be.
While in prison, Sholom Mordechai has requested to shower every morning. He does not do this for the same reason most people shower in the morning but this was his way of going to the Mikvah before Davening. He will not Daven unless he showers first.
His toilet is in the actual cell so in order not to Daven with a toilet in the room he has taken his sheets and made a Mechitzah around the toilet. At one point when his ‘cell mate’ complained of contraband they did a search on the cell and took down his mechitzah.
He told me that in the morning when he woke up in solitary confinement he started saying Tehilim (Sholom Mordechai is known for saying the whole Tehilim daily even before prison) and then he started to cry. Immediately he stopped himself and looked up to Hashem and said what am I crying for and began laughing away and then began to sing and dance in the cell five nigunim including Nepolian’s march, a known Lubavitcher song.
He would take some of the water that was given to him to drink and save it in a bag for neglevasser. He would not watch TV even with not much else to do there. He felt that once you compromise your spiritual values it is a slippery slope downhill. All the other prisoners had to do was watch TV, he had his seforim. He said that when they didn’t watch TV they would be yelling things at each other and there were also screams of ‘there is a Jew here, kill the ….Jews’. He would read a lot of Tanya which gave him Chizuk throughout the hardship to remain positive.
When he was put into solitary confinement, the small closet like room had a slab of concrete which was his bed. He looked worried how he would sleep on it without any mattress or something soft. During a small reprieve from the cell, a fellow African American from another of these solitary confinement cells screams out to him ‘hey Rabbi’! Turns out he was from Franklyn Avenue in Brooklyn which is right near Crown Heights. He told him that a small thin mattress is bought to the room from 10pm to 5am and he should not worry.
He told me the story I think of the Previous Lubavitcher Rebbe while he was in prison he said that at one point he felt like this was Mesechta Gehainom but it was Chelek Beis! Sholom Mordechai felt the same way now in solitary confinement.
On my way out of the prison I shared the elevator with a lawyer who looked at me and said ‘you are a Rabbi correct?’ then he said ‘that means you are Jewish.’ Then he said ‘Well I am a Christian who loves Jews’ to which I responded that we all need to love each other. I then proceeded to tell him about my visit and he was somewhat familiar with the Rubashkin story. He was shocked to hear about the way he was being treated which is horrific.
We learned a small bit of a Sicha from the Rebbe about the geula from Mitzrayim. Sholom Moredchai was pointing out and trying to understand how it could be that all the Yidden who were taken out of Mitzraim never even made it to Eretz Yisroel? It was bewildering to him.
Let us be inspired and let Hashem together with our Tefilos and all our good Hachlotos help this Chossid get out of prison and be able to continue his life as a Chossid together with his family and community in Postville who are waiting to see him again, and all of this with Moshiach Tzidkeinu NOW!!!
he din’t necesairly have a rebbe but reb hershel was a chosid
Anyone that can take a day off from work, has some extra air mileage to spare please do consider going to visit (I guess we can contact the writer to see how to go about it) – we see how it lifts Sholom M.’s spirit and shows him we are there for him, doing all we can, thinking about him all the time, davening and giving tzedaka in his honor, etc. Let’s show him this is our pain too, that he is feeling. Also, anyone with any spare gold please do send it to the Gold Fund for Sholom (NCFJE’s… Read more »
I am now in tears!! Everyone DONATE NOW!!!!
apparently to donate this is the website
http://www.ncfje.org/templates/articlecco_cdo/aid/799796/jewish/Pidyon-Shevuyim-Fund.htm
moshiach we need u . we cant have this any more .
Great work! great mitzvah! and it is great that you posted your thoughts on this site! Only the people who know you, know what a kind and caring person you are and to me it come so naturally that you will take the time to brighten another jew’s day by visiting and showing you care I urge all of you to take a detor if you traveling in the area in the midwest and if you work or live in the area, take the time and go visit even if you never met the guy it makes a huge deference… Read more »
this is very strengthening i say tehillim for him every day im a bochur so i dont have money but bezras Hashem in the zchus of mine and all the bochurim in yeshivas learning this galus will end right now mamesh!! yechi hamelech!!
what more can we do for him?
can you tall me the address?
Shalom you are the man!
thanx for posting this.
keep up the great mitzvos
i am sure hashem is watching, and very soon he will open those prison doors and we will be in yerushalyem .
thank you for visiting sholom mordechai !
you representsome of us here in ch
hello wake up, bizbiuz haotzorois, i dont have money, its hard times, give your electifcitily bill for this yid, u sit here and complain about mundane things, this yid is pidyon shevuoyim mommosh mommosh, no jokes…… give your phone bills, your water bills, get him out of hell, stop being so complacement, we all sit here and live our comfortable lives, and he is sitting with shvartzeh thugs fighting for his life and freedom, can the ch bal habaatim wake up, and start giving for real!!!!?????? no more giving here and there, give your water bill and phone bill for… Read more »
May the aibershter hear the cries and have compassion on his son in tefisah. May the reshuim have a mapolah and may we all be zoiche to the geulah miyad mamash.
his great uncle Hershel was indeed a very special jew who went to great lengths to help many people , and was a talmid chochom and his children, granchildren and great grandchildren are all chasidishe yidden ……. his grand father reb nochum zalman was a one of a kind guy ….. anyone in melb will remember fondly his special way of saying kaddish … classic memories not to mention the cheek pinches
bekarov!! we cant imagine what he goes through every day.
his life is saved every moment! bH
Thanks for the chizuk you gave Sholom Mordechai – please continue to go as often as you can!
Btw, for those who know, R’ Hershel Klein ob”m was far from a “posheter” yid!
ADDDDDDDDDDDD MOSAI!!!???!!!???!!! I can’t bear the pain!
Most prisoners would have gone batty and delirious out of the unknown fear of the future, but Sholom is handling this situation with a most stunning spiritual strength that beckons good angels to come and protect him….. May he create more and more good angels to fly him out of this senseless and unjust predicament!!!
my hart brakes for Sholom M