Aleph Brings Purim Joy to the Unlikeliest of Places

At 7:00 am on Purim morning, Levi Moscowitz and Yehoshua Geisinksy were already en-route on a three-hour journey from their yeshivah in Scottsdale, Arizona to the Arizona State Prison. Although snow and hail were falling from the sky, their resolve was clear. They were on a mission to bring the mitzvos of Purim, as well its spirit of joy, to the most unlikely of places.

I’ve never done anything like this before and I didn’t know what to expect,” Moscowitz admits. “There was only one Jew at the second prison we reached. One Jew in a prison population of 600. I’ll never forget the look on his face when he realized we drove all that way just for him. That was the moment I realized for the first time the extreme depths of the Rebbe’s ahavas Yisroel.”

In an impassioned farbrengen on Purim in 1976, the Lubavitcher Rebbe, of blessed memory, raised awareness of the needs of Jewish prisoners and encouraged outreach in their behalf. While there are many mitzvos incarcerated Jews cannot perform, he said, the mitzvos of Purim are feasible and should be made accessible. The Aleph Institute, which was founded under the directive of the Rebbe to care for people in prisons, sent 80 volunteers to 153 prisons across 18 states this Purim, to bring laughter and love to over 700 incarcerated individuals.

The volunteers danced and sang, talked and farbrenged, and poured their hearts and souls into the visits. “We knew that after we left, they would only have what we left with them,” says Shmuly Cohen, who traveled with Menachem Engel to remote state prisons in Florida. “So we gave it everything we had. Many told us after, ‘This is the best Purim I ever had.’”

“While we were reading the megillah, you could forget you were in a prison,” says Engel. “Outside that door, it was dark and depressing. But inside, the room was lit up with excitement. Everyone, even the guards, wanted to be there. It didn’t feel like a prison, it just felt like Purim.”

“Visiting a prison is not like doing any other mivtzoim,” Moscowitz says. “When you approach a Jew on the street, you sometimes feel like they’re doing you a favor by listening to the megillah. But these guys listened with their hearts and souls, and you could sense how they were thirsting for more. Some broke down in tears because it meant so much to them. The connection we felt was instant and real.”

“We came in with a handshake and we left with a hug,” Cohen put it succinctly.

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