by Fein, Judith
When he nodded, I dove in.
“I know the Samaritans consider Moses to be the greatest prophet who ever lived, but how did he convince the recalcitrant Israelites of his importance?” I asked.
“Moses could do many things,” the High Priest explained. “He put his hand inside his shirt, and when he pulled it out, the hand had leprosy. Then he stuck it into his shirt again, and it came out clean.”
“What about the five Hebrew words Moses used to cure his sister Miriam of leprosy?” I asked excitedly. “I’ve thought about those words many, many times. Would you agree they can be used for healing?”
He nodded.
“And is it true that the words mean ‘Please, God, heal her, please,’ but they can be used to heal a man as well?”
“Yes,” he replied. “The words of the Torah cannot be changed. So they’re used for men as well as women. Also, healing takes place in the soul, which is feminine. For those reasons, the words pertain to men as well as women.”
High Priest Elazar proceeded to give me a rather complex numerological analysis of the five words. Apparently, he had also thought about Moses’s healing words many, many times. It created a bond between us. The High Priest thanked me for asking such meaningful questions. He became less formal. Friendly, actually. I pinched myself. There I was, on chatty terms with the revered icon.
He mused about Abraham, Isaac, Jacob. He explained that Israelite Samaritans cover their faces when they say the names of the forefathers, because they are so holy. He gently ran his open hand, palm facing inward, over his eyes to illustrate what he meant. I was hyperventilating with excitement. I felt as though time dissolved and I was in the desert, engaging with someone from the family of Moses.
He spoke about the revered matriarchs of the Bible, the ten plagues, and the golden calf. He made the events seem as though they had happened yesterday or perhaps a few years ago. We chitchatted about Joseph’s dream interpretations, Noah’s ark, and Lot’s wife who looked back when she should have looked forward. In the course of our conversation, he mentioned something about a camel.
“Ah, camel,” I said. “I once ate one in a Bedouin tent. It was tasty, actually.”
The High Priest stiffened. He set his jaw.
“You ate camel?” he asked me, incredulous.
“Sure. I guess you could say it was like very tender roast beef. Soft and succulent. A bit of a meaty tang. You should try it sometime if you get tired of chicken,” I joked.
The color drained from the High Priest’s face. It drained from the face of the deputy High Priest. It drained from the faces of the High Priest’s family.
“You ate camel?” the High Priest repeated. The words bounced off the walls and slapped me in the face.
“I shouldn’t have eaten camel?” I asked in a small, insecure, parched voice.
“Eating camel is worse than eating pig!” pronounced the religious potentate.
It was at this moment I knew I had crossed a line. I wasn’t sure where the line was, but I was on the other side of it. The Samaritans are all extremely observant and one hundred percent kosher. They won’t even eat certified kosher food outside of their homes in Israel or America because it’s not kosher enough.
“I didn’t eat a lot of it,” I said, trying to backtrack. “Maybe half a camel steak. Probably more like a third. I’m sure I didn’t even like it. I left a lot of it on my plate. I just pushed it around with my fork and sort of pretended I was eating it. Now that I think back, I probably spit it out.”
The High Priest shook his head. I heard him talking about penitence—that I would have to do something to atone. I looked around the room, drowning in a sea of disapproval.
I fumbled inside my beige leather bag and extracted my see-through wallet. All eyes were on me. I rifled through my money and came to a bill that was given to me for luck during a classical opera in North Vietnam.
“Please, take this,” I said, proffering the bill. “It has brought me a lot of good fortune. Now it’s yours.”
“Thank you,” he said. “I have a coin collection and this is a good addition.” I am sure he thought I was nuts. A consumer of camel handing him a Vietnamese dong note to atone.
“Sir, I just want to say that . . . well . . . I won’t eat camel again. The next time it’s offered to me, I’ll pass. I promise.”
The High Priest nodded, but our intimacy was gone. I had blown it. Over a hump-backed steak in a Bedouin tent. I had insulted my host with my gut. I was a culinary criminal in his eyes.
And then, just when I was deflated enough to skulk out of the room, the High Priest smiled. “It has been very enjoyable talking Torah with . . .
with . . . a camel eater,” he said.
“Please, sir,” I answered, “a repentant camel eater.”
He laughed. I laughed. The deputy High Priest laughed. The family laughed. Soon we were all cackling. After I left, I heard that the High Priest asked how the camel eater was, and if she had gotten home safely. I suppose that meant that he couldn’t forget my sin, but he was able to forgive me.
He was a wise man, the High Priest Elazar. He taught me that I can unwittingly screw up and commit a cultural faux pas out of ignorance. I can offend someone’s sensibilities by what I say, the clothes I wear, and even by what I eat. But it takes a man of substance, of wisdom, to leapfrog over condemnation to compassion.
Recently, I was in a restaurant in Santa Fe, New Mexico. A waiter was fuming because he had spent a lot of time helping two young
foreigners understand the menu and order. He had even brought them free sopapillas and honey to dip them in. Then he had advised them on where they could go for a hike. When they exited the restaurant, they had not left a tip.
I immediately thought about the High Priest and decided to speak to the offended waiter. I told him I sympathized with him, and suggested that maybe in the young men’s country, tips were not the norm. He spewed out a cranky epithet or two and then shrugged and said maybe that was true. I heard him tell the woman who worked the cash register that he had been stiffed, and then he added, “Maybe in their country they don’t give tips.”
I smiled inwardly. The waiter did exactly what my role model in a turban did on the Mountain of Blessings. He was insulted, but he chalked it up to a cultural miscalculation, and forgave it.
As I write these words, I have learned that the High Priest just passed on. I am honored that I got to meet and spend time with him. I was feeling very sad about his death when I received an email from my dear Samaritan friend Benny Tsedaka. He, too, was sad, but he closed his missive by saying that “We all must pass. Only God is Eternal.”
Chetumal, in the southern Yucatan peninsula in Mexico, just a few hours away from the international playground of Cancún, is where I went to prison. I was able to gain entrance because I collect prison art. You are probably wondering why I collect prison art and why I wanted to enter the prison. There is a long answer and a short one. The latter seems most appropriate here.
I have never really been interested in the mainstream. Actually, most people are fascinated by the mainstream, so the mainstream doesn’t need my interest. What makes my ticker beat faster is discovering voices, people, places, realities that are not generally known. And serious offenders fall into that category. The stories of how and why they descended into the bowels of crime make great films and books but, in real life, the general feeling is that convicted criminals are monsters and they should be locked up and punished.
This would be fine if it worked. The perps would learn their harsh lessons out of sight of the rest of us. But, as we all know, one day the prison gates open and the perp is free. If he and we are lucky, he has had a change of heart, and he becomes a productive member of society. If he has learned little inside the prison except how to be a better criminal, then nothing has been gained and plenty has been lost. In fact, we are all the losers.
Behind every criminal face is a human who once was a bouncing baby, gurgling
with glee, and aching to be loved. Then, something happened. Each story is different, provocative, sad, and disturbing. Needs were denied or not met, the environment was violent or cruel or indifferent, and feelings with no healthy outlets were expressed in unspeakable acts. I learned this when I volunteered for six years in a juvenile detention facility, and I spent time with some baby-faced serious offenders who were shockingly young and others who had already logged years in a life of crime and were on their way to chronic criminality and incarceration.
Beneath the machismo, the drugs, the gangs, there are human beings who—although they no longer gurgle with glee—are often still capable of love, passion, pain, remorse, and creative output. In the detention facility I met frightening thugs who wrote tender, sensitive poems and created imaginative, highly expressive art.
Courts, judges, juries, and innocent victims are much more capable than I of dealing with issues of guilt, judgment, and sentencing. What interests me is getting a glimpse into a criminal’s heart and finding a place, however tiny, where there is authentic feeling and sensitivity. To my mind, this is where hope for healing, rehabilitation, and redemption lie.
We all know that prisons are most often like the dark nights of the soul—rife with pain, hurt, rage, humiliation, isolation, revenge, and desperation. But believe me when I tell you that rays of enlightenment shone on that medium-security prison in Chetumal. It started at the top and trickled down to all those who are incarcerated.
The prison director, Victor Terrazas Cervera, walked around the garden-like inner courtyard of the prison unarmed, in shirtsleeves. He stopped to play with the prison’s pet coatimundi (which looks like a cross between a raccoon and an anteater), and chatted with inmates, all of whom wore street clothes.
“Aren’t you concerned about violence?” I asked Victor.
He grinned and answered, “There is none.”
“This is a prison. You have serious offenders. There have to be incidents of violence.”
“I can assure you that there hasn’t been any violence in ten years.”
He led me to a small, two-room arts and crafts shop. The bare, cracked, white walls were covered with paintings; mobiles hung from the ceiling; sculptures, wearable art, and jewelry were perched on rough-hewn shelves; and brightly-colored hammocks were displayed on wooden looms. All of the work was made by inmates.
A few of the incarcerated artists were milling about the shop, anxious to make contact and talk about their work. One of them held up a Ferris wheel fabricated from pieces of scrap metal and Coke cans, another proffered a Maya-themed painting, and a third was the proud artist who had produced a bracelet fashioned from large, chunky beads. A shy man, who looked down, stood next to two hand-woven purple and blue hammocks which he was selling for $50 each.
“In New York, that hammock would cost you $125,” said the shy man’s friend, who was also an artist. He pointed out his latest work: a papier-maché sculpture of a vintage, single-engine plane.
The buildings were run down, but the prisoners were pumped up. They made and sold multi-hued hammocks, wooden furniture, jewelry, picture frames crafted from plastic sleeves on soda bottles, and inventive toys. They took art workshops and sold their creations to the public in the small gift shop I visited. A few of the finer artists were even provided with their own studios.
On the grounds of the prison were a massage room (where very inexpensive Reiki and Swedish treatments were available) for physical stress, garden areas for meditation to relieve mental and emotional stress, and, for one dollar, inmates could spend a night with a spouse or partner in an on-site love motel—as long as they brought their own bedding and TVs or DVD players if they wished to use them. In the morning, they were required to leave the room in the condition they found it in.
“I think the conjugal visits—which are legally permitted in Mexico—help to prevent violence by releasing pent-up sexual tension,” Victor explained, adding, “There are children conceived and born here when both parents are inmates; they raise the kids together. Many prisoners have families who come to visit them and we provide a playground area. One of the inmates is a clown, and he performs on Sundays.”
Prisoners had access to a well-stocked library and could take classes in IT, Spanish, English, and even French and Japanese. They played soccer and belonged to sports teams. There were AA meetings and inmates were encouraged to pursue whatever interests they had so that they could develop skills and seek employment when they were released. When there was lingering anger or resentment between two prisoners, they were given padding and put in a boxing ring to duke it out. By the second round, they were often so worn out that they just shook hands or hugged and put their differences behind them.
Terrazas Cervera considered the inmates as human beings who had made mistakes in their lives and were capable of redemption. He treated them with the humanity and kindness many of them have never known before. He encouraged their creative self-expression and helped them to maintain dignity and self-respect by living in a community setting.
“It’s just like a pueblo—a little city here,” the unassuming director stated.
Although I would venture a guess that none of the prisoners enjoyed being incarcerated, if they had a choice they would probably opt for the facility in Chetumal. It seemed lax and laissez-faire on the surface, but there was a constant demand on the inmates: they were given every chance to grow, change, and be rehabilitated. They were expected to function as a community. If they behaved like human beings, they would be treated that way. They were invited to be the best they could be—a radical shift from their previous lives. They were not coddled. They were exposed to communal values and norms and encouraged to develop the positive sides of their personalities.
The second time I went to the prison, I took twenty-seven adult journalism students with me. Some were lawyers, teachers, scientists, accountants. I wondered what they would think and how they would react. At first they were apprehensive, but within minutes they were talking with inmates, taking photos, buying art.
“Of all the wondrous things I saw in Mexico,” one of them told me, “this is the place that moved me most. It completely changed the way I think about prisons, prisoners, and rehabilitation.”
Another student cradled a foot-high wooden sculpture of a sensuous, voluptuous woman that she had just purchased.
At home, I smile every time I open my closet and see a large,
brightly-colored purse made from the foil shrink wrapping from plastic soda bottles. I bought it for $20 at the prison, and I can still see the beaming, round face of the man who sold it to me. Victor told me the money would help feed his family, so I got a purse and a good feeling for a few dollars.
My experience in Mexico greatly influenced how I think about crimes and punishment.
For many years, I have corresponded with Raphael (not his real name), a Mexican national incarcerated in the southwestern U.S. He was convicted of a violent crime and has affiliations in prison that he refuses to renounce. Rafael spends every day and every night in isolation, only leaving his depressing and claustrophobic cell for about an hour to go to the yard.
I am constantly agog at Rafael’s brilliance. He has taught himself English and writes with the fluency of a native speaker. He is a philosopher, artist, and poet. The verse he writes is so powerful and authentic that my friend Nancy collected and published it in a book.
The only thing I didn’t like about Rafael was that he was homophobic and harbored prejudice against black people; Hispanic and black people are at odds in the facility where he lives.
I decided to try a bit of Victor’s philosophy. I asked a gay friend named Artemes, who is a singer and actor, and an African American friend if they would be willing to write to Rafael. Both said yes. Artemes and Rafael have developed such a deep relationship that it can easily be called love. They admire, respect, and fantasize about each other. And ever since Rafael started writing to my African American friend, he has dropped a
ll hostility and judgment of the latter’s race. He has stopped generalizing about groups of people and shows gratitude to his correspondents by sending them cards, drawings, and poems.
In my opinion, Rafael is totally rehabilitated. His head is full of dreams of the future now and his writing is laced with hope, compassion for his guards, and clear thinking about what landed him in prison, and how he will never make those destructive life choices again.
Rafael grew up surrounded by violence. He was never exposed to healthy, peaceful human interactions. In prison he encountered rage, racism, confinement, sadism, and squalid conditions. But because people on the outside treated him kindly, believed in him, wrote to him, published his work, nurtured him, I feel fully confident that he can return to society and contribute to it. It’s just a matter of when he gets released.
Treating prisoners as human beings, encouraging their skills, their intelligence, their creativity, can help to reduce the horrendous problem of violence and recidivism in our prisons.
This is not idealistic, pie-in-the-sky thinking. It’s real. It’s happened with Rafael. And it’s happening right now in that little known Mexican prison.
I vividly recall the first time I saw him in Guatemala. He was sitting on a chair in a native marketplace, dressed in a black suit, black shoes, and a black hat. His mouth was open, pursed into a small “o.” He was appealing, but also had a streak of danger about him.
“Who is he?” I asked a new Guatemalan friend.
“Maximon,” she answered, pronouncing it mah-she-mone.
The second time, it was a hot, humid day, and I was looking for a grocery store to buy a bottle of water. He was in a shop which sold masks and textiles. I looked away and then I looked back at him. He was clearly staring at me.
“I see you like him,” said the shopkeeper.
I nodded tentatively.
“Here,” he said, and he handed Maximon and his chair to me. You see, Maximon was less than a foot high, and he was made of wood.
