How The Rebbe Helped a Jew Find Freedom

I had recently come across a letter that the labba had penned in response to somebody whom they had a relationship with was but in prison. Prison is a place where you survive. You survive not only because of the prisoned conditions but in general prison is a is really a bad place where you have to fend for your life and often Ben values literally to not get killed by other people depending on what type of prison one is in. Prison is a very scary place. And the Reb offered brilliant words of comfort. But the Reb says in his letter that everybody's confined. We could all empathize with the pain that you're in. Every single person is confined. Every single Jew is confined. You know why? Because prior to being born, the soul was in heaven. And the soul's experience of God was real. Its love for God was unmeasurable. Maybe it was measurable, but it was beyond what what we could ever fathom. Its reverence and respect for God beyond what we could fathom. The confidence that our souls had being basking in the ray of God. These are things we can just use uh talk about with words but not really get. And then we're born we're born into a body. We're given life experiences. We're thrown opportunities to feel insecure, to feel lost, to feel lonely. And all these beautiful qualities that the shining soul has covered up by a body gets covered up by life. And it doesn't mean that the soul is no longer here. The soul is very much here, but it's in prison. It's in prison because it doesn't get to be itself. The Reb is writing this to this person saying like, we can all empathize on some level. Obviously, we don't have the physical pain that you're going through. But the idea of feeling constricted and feeling like I don't get to be me, the truest version of me, the most godly, divine version of me fully, that's prison, man. And the Reb had then said, "This person that you're referencing is not only in prison, but he's like in a double prison because he's in the soul and the body and then the body in a prison. It's like a two-layered prison." And you know what we do when we're in prison? We realize like Yseph when he was in prison that I wasn't sold here. I was sent here. Yseph could have easily have victimized his situation and said, "What did my brothers do to me? Why did I get into this?" But instead, Yseph thought to himself, "I'm not sold. I'm sent." Like, I'm here for a reason, and I can literally find connection here. He ended up connecting with the people, other people, inmates in prison, asking them about their spirits, trying to lift them up, and ultimately he ended up being freed. When we realize that even though we're in prison, we're sent here for a reason. And the reason isn't just to escape prison, although we might like to, but it's to find connection within prison, within the body, within the constriction, within the limitation, within the diminished confidence, within the washed out passion that we once had. We somehow find an ability to connect by making time to study Torah, by doing mitzvah, by dotting. Literally reflecting on this itself can remind us of an existent connection. We find opportunity to connect and what happens is what we discover is freedom and it's a different kind of freedom because it's a freedom that is not dependent on the circumstances around us. It's not a circumstantial freedom. It is an inherent freedom. Now that we're in prison, we're in a body and we discover connection. We're no longer victim to the prison. We're no longer victim to freedom outside of ourselves because we've discovered freedom within ourselves. But what happens after that? That freedom internally begins to radiate outside ourselves. It begins to illuminate our surroundings and you see it. Somebody who's inspired, somebody who's comfortable with their soul, somebody who's comfortable with their nishama. It's like what is he on? Where can I get some of that quick? Manis Friedman, Rabbi Manis Freedman shares a story of a friend he had had back in Minnesota who was a Holocaust survivor and Rabbi Manis Freedman tried sharing with him opportunities to connect to his Judaism and he was uninterested. He was burnt. He was just burnt out and angry understandably so. One day, this was back in the 80s, he was flipping through TV and he I guess was intending on watching Monday Night Football or whatever it was and he came across who was being broadcasted from 770 from world headquarters. He was sharing Torah in Yiddish and this guy is mesmerized. This is a guy who doesn't want to connect with God, doesn't want to connect with religion, doesn't want to put on, nothing. And he's mesmerized by a rabbi with a hat and a beard talking to thousands of people in Yiddish about the Torah portion. And Manis Friedman says, "What is going on here? Explain. What did you see here? I saw a Jew who was so unbashful, just so comfortable with his soul, so comfortable with himself. It's like where can I get some of that? That type of inner freedom radiates beyond. It radiates outside of ourselves. And the Reb had proceeded to share with this person struggling with a a a friend or acquaintance who was an inmate, saying that when we adapt this, this will evolve into physical freedom because they go they they shorten sentences for good behavior. And the reason is because you're internally free. And if you're really internally free, you have to be externally free. Because truth, real truth is going to be true everywhere. So start discovering inner freedom and you'll experience circumstantial geographical freedom.