Take 2 with R' Sholom Mordechai Rubashkin

[Music] welcome back to mishpacha's take two where the people you make friends within the pages of the magazine sit down with us here and we get to follow up with them in real time in the case of today's guest our dear friend of shalom he's never been far from the minds and hearts of our readers who've traveled this journey with him dabbling with him for so many years and over the last few years who among us hasn't been inspired by hearing some of his thoughts and the muna and the khizak and khasidas and somehow he's been everywhere tell us a little bit about what you've been doing you're so i'm so prolific we're hearing over so much time from so many different parts what have you been doing to keep busy lately easy [Music] out of prison and uh and the spontaneous uh uh simcha they all didn't enjoy to see david show how that i would feel is her heard and answered in the wonders away so uh i'm really so people invite me and i'm using it to encourage eden to continue the moon and you're doing that now actively and the amazing thing about uh talking a lot about taffle and golda is that you can talk to a crowd that has a mix of youngest kids middle age and all those guys there are circus i was in the school here in the lakewood and uh you you moved to lakewood you moved to the liquid area you moved from muncie to jackson to jackson that's a little further out of it but uh so a good friend of ours he asked me to come to that um so they said they came and spoke to them amazing you saw it sitting in the shower you had maybe it's 120 people didn't but yet children so uh and everyone's quiet everyone's listening do you find uh that people don't really understand what that means in like they don't connect with it or if i care they do they just don't know what it is they're feeling no oh i find that i miss everybody wants to hear about one of the talking because it's a little bit deceptive because of one side everybody we all have a wonder by nature we have a niche where we're abundant of a roma vino the first monument so we naturally have a moon with something naturally so we say oh we have it but i guess in order to get it to use it in our daily lives and to exercise it then we have to learn and to bring it out in a revealed way and i try to help them with that i have seen um forgive me for being so so blunt you were montreal so different meisters wanted you and they were my sisters who weren't sure they had to ask and they had to check are you kosher enough you're a venus three year old amateur and who knows and three minutes after you started talking suddenly it was pinned her up quiet everybody was pulling in closer and they said 20 minutes i think 45 minutes later they told me he shouldn't stop he shouldn't stop is that something you experience a lot that you're able to connect what is it such a gracious speaker is that what it is it's your smile your smile is for sure okay but what else there's other speakers and i've never seen it with anybody else this ability to just again it's it's something that everybody's interested in then and the reason i say 20 minutes or they don't they can't imagine somebody speak about it more than 20 minutes they're trying to be nice but they really want to hear more so you when you start and there's one right in the life it's not i'm talking just theory i bring a story i try to bring it out how this actually is something we can we can bring and and and how they wish to help i was able to do that in those trying circumstances so people come over to a lot of times how do you do it and and the answer is what's the answer the answer is that is that again the foundation that we have it and then we learn about it and and learn the locators and taylor they talk about it and then we can look you're saying is not just something it's something that you have to really learn you have to go back to the sources and you have to cause them over yeah even though we have it you said earlier if you're in any club you have it you have it in what's called in a general over overarching way but that's not a way that's going to really affect the way you can make a decision in order for you to make it become instinctive yeah yeah so then you have to now i knew you over the years even when you were there we got to know each other and i saw you keep on stagging forgive me for saying that in this nikuda that nothing meant anything at a certain point you were going into into a zone so to speak that you felt that bernstein was governing everything around you what did that feel was it a safer okay simply on what is it's a heart safer how do you learn it no it's not so hard no it's not hard at all you have to want to learn it you have to want to get past the outcomes you know there's everybody say alchemist i remember that you told me once when you were in prison that when i leave here it's going to be with that safe under my arm exactly what happened tell me i got the safe i first got so i learned today it was a little used out and then i had it in my locker it was a blue one says your name in the thing yeah and i had in my locker and the the day i was the they did for whatever reason i took it i'm like i put up my talisman the paler when i was when i was told to get out of the cell i was only i just didn't know what was happening so i just grabbed my towels back i wanted to have that next to me had i not taken out of my luck i would have stayed in the locker i grabbed a thousand bags and ambushed the target but today was not safer and it was like i practiced i took it out of my block i don't know why i put it in my towels big and i walked that's my family i'm walking out with the safer meaning they're safer if you learn the safer you know you say you sound it sounds it sounds revealed how do you know so you don't have time you find that but again the speeches are very very very critical when you it's me the connecticut media when uh means doing what i wish they wants one of the things and because you're doing what abrasive wants you can expect able to do what you want let's say if you want the address that's paid gimbal dollar this has clearly so you see the abilities expects us to have a bit of the hardest times i thought of myself many time challenges i mean of course i was challenged and people have johnson you still have challenges even after living prison vengeance not just you put in a quarter and press and you get a snack out of a machine it doesn't go like that because every single day every single day you wake up in the morning you wake up to a physical world the world is is a world that hides the english there you have to reveal it so if when you learn instead of just knowing i remember something i heard a two-minute clip on the on the app on the phone he said something inspiring but you can't get that inspiration anymore because you're not watching it right now but if you learn something you think about it you realize that you can go back okay wait one second forgive me but aren't you also a lot of your title is going on in those two minute clips also that means i don't have too much no but you know what i mean that means we're living in that world a lot of your popularity comes from the telegenic photogenic what we're doing there's not a lot of room farm because because people don't have the head and everybody's jumping because that's why i encourage those uh did i say yes yes there's a sure any time perhaps i'm i'm really doing good i think most you say issue in liquid also every weekend very very every week there i would try to encourage people to take just just the face of this i met with two two three children and i always say i remember pleased with them we speak for an hour and you feel a little bit energized you see the person went through a hard time and he and you heard how he got out of it but you don't believe that take the safe and open it up learn it then you can methodically think through it people talk to you a lot i saw when i took you to speeches that people with their child suddenly stop you in the hallways they need to tell you what they're going through this is amazing but things are giving me inspiration yeah i walked into a shoeless this friday night where i was in bur park i go to my mother my father is not there so i go to give my mother a keeper so i go to the shabbos that's not easy and happened in the capricious school in the same block you go back there today his grandfather did my father a big favor also he must help them get meat when they're trying to block him off the 1950s so as a converter and they help them so uh i'm divening like a switching commander uh friday night and if daphne walks over to me tells me i gotta tell you something you give me a lot of physique i look at him i don't know where i know him from so you know he's definitely from lakewood i mean it's he tells me that his father passed away after before and he's the same yeah and he was and he was very subragan and then there was absolutely i remember names asked me to say yeah and so i gave a i think i remember correct it was pesach i think it was mama and i gave a over telephone or zoom whatever i think it was over telephone and i um give a for the killing glide maybe 100 on the phone maybe zoom and uh he how he was on there and and just hearing the words of of of terror about the torch and and the idea and hearing a person who's wrong through something he has with him that gave him strength he found it important to come and tell me i would never know so this is the verb when we show who we really are we have he doesn't know that he didn't get into it it could be a difficult attack the doctor told her that that you can't have children that meant no difference yeah you're the biggest writer in the world yeah i have a question for you i want to ask you two questions but forgive me again for being uh you don't have to answer if you don't like the question you're and somehow you became sort of an ambassador both ways that means i think that a lot of people and told you the story didn't realize what laboratories says because sai michael when you went into prison you weren't a russian shiva you weren't a rav you weren't a mush beer you were zici the butcher who smoked from iowa and you went in and people saw such a kind of a fire for you that kind of for that and a lot of us me included said i don't know if i would be this strong there's nothing you don't need to wear yamaka it's not even the same all the things that we live with and you said no so i think people understood a little bit what khasidas means what means what it means to have that and fakat i think you got to see a lot of the shane kite of the rest of kalaswell who were there for you not only something you did who spearheaded it but everybody from from all kinds of communities who who i remember the event in montreal it was full of i see them and you know so you everybody it isn't a little sad to you that there's like so we're not together more we don't do more stuff together for sure but because first we see the path we're all one we all have one english there one taylor every considers or every meaning that people have whether it's all we'll we all have we have all are each one has to follow the way of his father my father brought me i wouldn't bore a park so my my father gets a lot of credit for this every single year is has to fear her father because you you you are living the life of your citizens or your or your literature whatever it is that's a and you bring out the beauty of your shade like avatar you'll be your favorite and each one but at the end of the day a lot of laboratories really know much about who the shiva in uh lakewood is or south fallsburg is or and a lot of us don't know really who are even than the cm and how about it it's for whatever reason it became that way it was it was a little more separate is that is that something that you're aware of do you work on it as i say so it's very simple you know after you see a tremendous artist that eden got together to happen for me they knew that i was uh not left after from their group in fact but they all felt that they're all they really are from our group because we're all living right right so when we put away all our differences and we help each other the abuse that puts away the old hug bullets in the world and helps us also and we saw the tremendousness all even came out spontaneous so we saw the king of arthas and obvious israel and anything that gets in between do you remember that night do you remember the thing i remember remember i was very surprised i i loved every moment of it did you know how many people were felt like mashbach with you like did you realize i looked too friday night in my parents home this was wednesday night right friday night they went to their parents for shabbos right about they say four over four thousand maybe four thousand pass through the house a second chance to take a chance and give them and i stood there believe me i want to see my father and i want this they came in and if it was amazing and i remember the the police the guys the guards were trying to shut the door and my mother's anxious with my father she said he says we never shut the door for anybody in the house your basket has never shut the door we're not going to start now so they said with 4 000 so the actresses are powerful and and and maybe this is the message also that don't focus on what makes us different focus on where we are we could be doing better we should be trying the magazine you were a opportunity like i said you know a guy told me it told us all about kobashkin the only thing i knew about bible truths that i've unfreed as well thank you so much i realized right and i go around i see beautiful even other other games i never saw the the learning see the middle statement jerusalem remember remember the myself yeah you know this thing today tell us do you ever i once went to visit you in prison and you were telling me with this pile emotionally come to like yeshiva and they and he asked for a picture and he was uncomfortable then you this is what you told me you said you saw he was uncomfortable then he said sure so you said what's the uncomfortable they that made them take off this hat when he came in shiva to be photographed that a hat he wasn't comfortable but about that he said yeah yeah the obvious israel that he could be nice and violent with you he could make a little frail if you wanted for the kids a picture with him he said yes you told me the story of his spireless so i got the picture so i wanted to put in the magazine to write the story of the obviously sort of i thought it was nice i called the book when asked for permission could we put it could i write this but if he didn't want to be photographed for that he certainly doesn't want it magazine which goes all over the world in the jewish homes so he says why what do you have to mean i would let because it will be yeah you could do it what the thing a month later you got out this was rajon can slave you out already maybe maybe from the atomizer for sure for minimizer other things too but um so uh going back to that so you got to see the the harvesting troll of everybody unbelievable so we have to keep that alive i want to talk a little bit about your father you mentioned your father his father so many people were nifty in this last coup in the last eight months each one of them was a book each one is a safer and it was so many that they didn't always your father was left before pesach father you must be full of that he got to see at least yes these years at the attitude i wanted him to see the the the total victories because they they they robbed him and they took away things from him against the law and everything um but he was a munda was steadfast but the munda was without uh imagine a person working 50 some years or something and it wasn't easy monday for him everything was getting ahead of a hard worker he worked but he was uh the yeah no i remember coming home and and walking into the register i tried to try to visit the butcher store was never a big money maker because it was a hasted enterprise i started working by him it tells me i might tell you something i mean i thought it's a good indian in business i'd say you say it he tells me a friday afternoon friday morning whatever comes in the woman and she doesn't have money to pay you for the meat the strawberries don't stand in between her just make sure she has the meat i was telling the guilt write it down because it's designed to design the sign in other words he saw he said he telling us you remember what you're dealing with deal with food don't let ever a piece of dollar to get from the hold back something i remember coming into that enter into the store i was standing there say thursday night wednesday night and it's for the philadelphia issue with that one i'm thinking about right now but all these shivers had to walk in so listen to my father big smile he opened up his big bags and started taking meat and filling it up for them amazingly uh i never understand this he started coughing or whatever they took him to the hospital and we know today would have what the hospitals were all about i try not to focus on on the on the course and then on destination he passed away the amazing thing with him was if i could say that not much time i have i want to say i want to show you a quick story and he had told my cousin i told him um that a certain spot that he wanted to be in um like i guess his father actually is five stones away from there then old martial but there is because they keep on expanding to different areas with this place to put people in the chef conference with me so you know you can't invest too much real estate over there because it's it's not a long-term investment for state strategy so um he had noticed a spot there wasn't really space there but he's our angle over here he tells my uh cousin he wants that spot so i called him thursday night none of my brothers wanted to deal with us he could tell should i stick to the other side what i do here is i call up my my cousin i still ask and i said what do i do he says to me as a matter of fact your father actually uh told me where he wants to be he described it hasn't been a barrier that last 29 30 years it's full for these stories in the alternating that suddenly becomes space so the kid said to me so i was on the telephone he said i said we are not going to collect direction from where you should be hostile whole night we're calling in the exactly i think in the morning till the boss comes in and your father wasn't wasn't buried yet no you're waiting something that happened tonight so i was very big and i want to tell you something one of the things that got me out through the prison is bashantav says everything you see in here you have to know it's from the english day it's a lesson in life i took it because it from the moment a very very big deep pain the there was no space there they they called every single person patiently in a tried head this guy that guy so what made you think the actions are kind because because my father said he went to this your father said he wanted there you're gonna kept on missing betting is a try that's right anyways i did they found who's in charge of of the traffic and they said also there's no room yeah they said i'd love to put it but on top it looks like there's maybe a little space but there's no space where there's no space but your father had said that he wants to be there yeah so he the kid said so i remember being at the front of the house they came and i was on the phone with charlotte he says maybe he should put where we should put him in a different space and then with at night and move him over if there is space i said come on and i again talk about wounded but one side what can i do second time david says advice not half an hour later i get a call from the condition they tell me that solomon had gotten a hold of the of the owner of the place he put that they never they all the money the owner of the whole monteverde yeah and he had a degree initially he said it's impossible there's no he knows the bottom as the top half of the bottom map they're stuck in space they pay they send two workers they open their membership to get to to figure out what's happening they they started digging and they found the space that's being used in the game space so this place you can say two ways the space is waiting for him 29 years or i would say he makes space for everybody your whole life i remember standing over the the barrier was why did your father want to be there does he have family members there i don't know yeah no he's next to somebody he knew from the home it's close to the website it's it's close to the way we want to put him to the river but uh that could be part of it i i don't know you don't know what he wants to be there but he ended up there and you actually kind of your siblings were all and i told myself look at this the watch in and this is again when you've seen this what do you think about this in the when you see the in the crisis you're going through i went through a terrible crisis and i knew people were dying for me working for me but it's one of the things that is strengthening but often you know that in the crisis you can see davis with you they've been the good for you before and then passion my family is healthy isn't that helping governing the kids are going through school it works in healthy and without without any psychiatrists and whatever didn't i'm exhumed and so i took all those things as a proof they should help me out of here too watching this this thing the girl seeing that if she's with you makes it where my father can get what he wanted we got what he wanted in a time where it was impossible and things shifted you'll see you'll see it and locked he was there it's not that long it's it's a vista watching it and telling you i'm with you i'm with you when you know damage is real to you that's the key when you go through the research and we realize is the difference between an australian and an english most people get nervous because they get a go hard time they think it's english it wants to see how you can act your business been much busier than ever because people are it because the covet people need help huh i'm asking you you're basically a doctor of a moon that's what you do you speak kamuna all day and all night to people has there been a much bigger need of people in crisis and we know if i can't no people on a crisis but very much so i i guess i'll answer any phone if it's a yakut if it's a minion if it's a thousand people hundred people always doesn't that's not even the area and and and the summertime at the few camps i spoke people are going through a very hard time and and again where they find this from the their moon and it's from the ambition from the we know that forgive me for saying this you struggled a lot like we mentioned earlier in prison you you worked on a lot then you had to one would think that if in prison it's easy to dive in and and not have to make shabbos shabbat stick and to do schmidt and i'm it's for sure easier when you get out because you're comfortable and you're free i think that probably it's a little out you have to work much harder in a way you know first of all in certain ways it's amazing and people will go through saying this you have that it says the possibility is forgive me for saying this you didn't look at a tv screen for seven years forgive me i'm very proud as the founder beautiful okay maybe you know like by literature people would probably you know uh in the yeshiva don't say right you didn't look at the television screen for seven years and away it's probably harder now even though you would think because people around look here i think it's handle computers i want to tell you if the one of the biggest nissan davis game is the sequel i got to i got the soldiers in in the rebels the person has to be marvelous eisen and his uh heirs today but uh again were you what's a munda battle surely just got prussian they think there's a complicated the conversation it's not complicated at all abundant means seeing the world and within your [Music] eyes look at the world injuries every time you open up a a television uh there's a television there's screens you open up you hook on to a new reporter you are getting fed and a a a look over going and i've been going with me even fever they try to explain how things work in the world whatever and the writer they give you a poll exactly what's going to happen and it isn't expected to see the world of tavra but see the amish the interval that's a mundane what's the moon the porsche i see a world a probably becomes three years old this is a world and he finds the ambition in the world he goes from beyond so so he if i'm going to work i i knew i i was told in theater but itself brings the bracha what what i i was not sorry i had to go home there were the doors blocking me right the fences a lot of those you saw those yeah a lot of doors a lot of people how do i get out of there so the legal system is not a system i was watching it that's not that they say i was told i knew i had to strengthen my the token the token comes from where from mundo so it became critically important to me not to watch the screens because if i watch the screen it's going to take away by taking away the ability to see do you remember what you told me about the phone could you say it over you spoke for like seven and a half hours straight and then in the seventh and a half hours and i was done you said this and it blew my mind so i was sitting in the this is part of it this moment's part of it till today i don't have a i don't have a computer phone like a second telephone i call it a handheld computer i haven't found why for this very reason i found but i don't want to hurt my amunda by watching right even though in lubavitch actually they're very afforded by technology they everything is meant to be useful you use it to send it out not coming in this is a different situation but getting back to your question they are sitting in the into in in the cell i was definitely learning about the murder i had the whole song i can't tell you that i was shabbos a lot i remember right that was the visiting room it was actually in and i hear a guy speaking in a in a course man i never believe the human being speaks like that and the initial reaction was jump up there's a little window go see if it looks like that but one of the things it has to do with especially in prison don't do something before you think why do you want it because prison call is a very dangerous place because sometimes you do things it seems simple but it can it can turn into a fight so before i stop myself what am i going to see guys face are you sorry yeah i uh right away um how does he rationalize that in my mind i want to see you speaking like that to notice away from him and that's exactly what i figured out that it's her talking see i want to see who's this maneuver so i should avoid whatever halogen i'm so good okay and then you said no one second that can't be the real reason because i avoid everybody really i mean i think i said ultimately i don't make any friends of it i was doing my thing and that's but after all again that's why they they respect me most is because of that so perhaps if you know people think that thoughts are part of and and when you learn later you find out no this is zahara you have thoughts coming from the from the from the gdu chef and thoughts coming in from the doesn't come always with a with a with a tomatillo sign it comes in with a rational sign so why is it this is completely it's hard because it's a lie so why i thought to myself why does hr pushing me so badly what's so important for me to see this guy's ugly face and ahabso and it hit me because when i see this guy i have the absolute reaction every time i see his face i'll remember what he said i desperately wanted to forget what he said you know i did because i was trying to keep the level of glitches it was an amazing epiphany to me david doesn't help with this they should help me you still have things now that you remember things that you heard in prison that had no no so what is from then i made a there i don't look i heard a lot of crazy things i never turned around to find who said it i kept my eyes to myself i don't remember one macho goodness thing they said i heard a lot of stranger things it's easy to forget what you hear it's after you left there was a interview or a conversation with some of the inmates who said nice things about you daphne that you were popular they liked you over there they're like yeah i was working you weren't trying to do pr did you ever hear that anybody coming out since then did you hear from them did they make a contact a good friend of mine i remember you told me two things one is that when you were there that you'd sing smears together on shabbos with them and you told me when you left that it sips you still but he's still there so you've been in touch with him since he got out yeah yeah yeah have you seen him touch with him he i could be in touch with him i know the system works he is he has a certain he still has certain he got out for the first step act have you have you seen again president donald trump signed this first about a year after i got released the membership to the day they started the gimbal tables the day after it was released came the good news that the mcdonald's name is the senate majority leader he is going to put it to the floor and before the year so that the dimension of margaret who's the man so every time when you were in maybe three four years i would call different zach and every time i'd say hi it's really western what he's doing waiting for nissan always that was her oh so they're doing you startles i gotta tell you also i mean uh i right now that came out i'm working for alex tell me a little bit about what you're doing all of his uh organization lipscomb but has no ego he doesn't like when we talk about him in the media he gets nervous when i say his name he's unbelievable yeah but he doesn't got he got out tens and tons of people he was he was under how he works 10 steps like he sees ahead he's working on things yeah i'm through music away and uh so whatever i can i i try to i try to uh raise those i give people but they were a tremendous help for me and then many times and helping so you're working for them yeah i'm helping them and to raise do you are there are people now who actively have maybe husbands in prison or family members in prison who call you foreign are you able to visit prisons or no i might still not yet not yet but you would go back if you were allowed to wouldn't be hard traumatic difficult i don't i never got i never got so that's a good question i never i don't think like people ask me like oh many times how do you talk about something you want to forget i said i i don't know if i was ever really there right luvashkin you're not here remember the story oh yeah that's an amazing story right so i'm trying to work on myself how do you do that i have a basket you're not here ready to fight with me you were never there angry why because i asked him for something in front of his guys it made him look bad it just went over right yeah you preached the etiquette you asked him you were mild writing your email so you asked them to get your water because they were going to shut down the computer nice and there was a it was a little gang leader and it was disrespectful you dissed him i didn't know at this time so the next day when he was telling you he goes i'm asking you're not even here and you told me that was the moment i'm not here how how you're not here a person has to know what if he literally is in the shamathi expresses itself in taylor mitchell so when you don't say the mixes you're expressing in the shrama well you know sharma is expressed you're not you're not in the tsar anymore because who are you really you're the shaman and that raises up all your your goof so to speak all your physical uh it rate gets raised up so you don't feel the pain of course you're in prison we're gonna feel the pain i i heard people describe me as being always happy it's really messing you think i was happy being there definitely not but the happiness was knowing that davis is with me because one of the hardest things going through any desire is the feeling of i can't i can't even imagine what one hour was like i was once visiting you and your kids were there and you leaned over to give him a kiss and the guard he's sitting over there like a grace a lifeguard chair and he's like we're basking no yeah you couldn't kiss your kid on the forehead and and you imagine the pain for me for the kids so the the vert is okay so so you can focus on the pain or you can focus that the ambush that wants me not these things shouldn't affect me and we can maintain and continue being the same video before right when you know you're doing what davisher wants right and you know that the abrister is going to help you you're able to could maintain a sim card so what how do you internalize this getting back to the beginning of the conversation by learning narcissism is so important are there any from contemporaries harm that you would recommend like like from high ticket people swear on the comment now i'm not going to straighten this off i know i know i can't tell you a story i think so maybe you want to use this let's do it we got to wrap it up let's see let's end with a story it's an interesting story because when i go to speak in schools this is an important so there's a various lesson in munzee brother there's a group of uh boys came from muncie from with liquid to see me a month into sun now and now i'm in jackson so uh afterwards some the guy had a connection with uh rubbish losing he brought me you know we're talking yes i i always felt very humble sitting in front of such great people and he wants to know what i'm doing what i'm doing and i then i got a chance to ask him a question i say to him i find it interesting i go to schools i tell my story right it's safe everybody learns and i would expect and i asked you guys i i asked and he says no no we we we have a schmooze or very few times i will be going to interview yeah and and and and and i'm wondering why did they sit down with these so he says to me was more than this but he says i said i actually guess what i'm doing now i'm writing a book on my whole story i'm also writing a act she wrote up as a whole curriculum so to speak for for kids of on the moon a little bit in a way that not the philosophy based on madras and they presented to a child that we started out there they can understand so he says to me a republican could prepare a should blood this and give it over he feels comfortable at the moment the doctor's an area he's afraid to get hit with a question he don't know what the answer is no no wonderful so what happens to the child the child then it goes out into the world and he he i spoke just recently to a guy went into the workplace and and for patrick the one who was the one the one who introduced me to him said i can't even believe he even went there right it wasn't what happens you you go into the world and you have not been given the ability to understand who you are to understand and yeah so so then you suddenly get as they an endorsement that you're closing with an endorsement to the people reach out go to the sources what if somebody wants to reach you how could they raise you i have an email address what is it gmail.com great to see you i will never not get excited from seeing your smile [Music] you