Jewish Leadership Council founder, Gerald
Ronson, is one of the most prominent figures of Anglo-Jewry. A philanthropist and community leader, his
pioneering work for the Community Security Trust serves as an example for
communities around the world. His
leadership and support of countless charities within and beyond the Jewish
community is unparalleled.
In the early 1990s, Ronson spent
six months in prison. In his
autobiography, Leading From the Front, he writes about his perspective
on his daily routine during that period:
In prison, the passage of time
takes on a different and variable dimension.
Looking back, time seems to have gone quickly. But looking forward then, time went by very
slowly. To make days and weeks move
faster, you had to keep busy. Some
prisoners preferred to . . . sleep the day away thinking that would make the
time go by faster. They wouldn’t use
their brains to read or go to the gym. The idea of doing something constructive
never occurred to them. Even if you were
only going to spend a year in jail, a year is still a long time to sit around
doing nothing.
מַעֲשֶׂה שֶׁעָשׂוּ
אַנְשֵׁי טְבֶרְיָא וְהֵבִיאוּ סִילוֹן שֶׁל צוֹנֵן לְתוֹךְ אַמָּה שֶׁל חַמִּין.
אָממְרוּ לָהֶם חֲכָמִים: אִם בְּשַׁבָּת — כְּחַמִּין שֶׁהוּחַמּוּ בְּשַׁבָּת,
וַאֲסוּרִין בִּרְחִיצָה וּבִשְׁתִיָּהּ
הָא מַעֲשֶׂה דְּאַנְשֵׁי
טְבֶרְיָא דְּתוֹלְדוֹת חַמָּה הוּא, וְאָסְרִי לְהוּ רַבָּנַן! אֲמַר לְהוּ:
הַהוּא תּוֹלְדוֹת אוּר הוּא, דְּחָלְפִי אַפִּיתְחָא דְגֵיהִנָּם
Mishnah: The people of Tiberius once ran a
cold-water pipe through a canal of hot water from the hot springs. The Rabbis
said to them: If on Shabbat, it is like hot water that was heated on Shabbat,
and prohibited for bathing and for drinking.
Gemara: The Rabbis said the following to Rabbi Yossi:
Wasn’t the incident involving the people of Tiberius with derivatives of the
sun, as the hot springs of Tiberius are not heated by fire, and nevertheless
the Sages prohibited them from using the water? Rabbi Yossi said to them: That
is not so. That case involved derivatives of fire, as the hot springs of Tiberius
are heated as they pass by the entrance to Gehennom.
This Gemara imparts an important idea about the
idea of “punishment” in the Afterlife, according to Jewish thought. Gehennom is not punishment for punishment’s
sake, it is a purification process. It
should be thought of as ‘Purgatory,’ rather than ‘Hell.’ Just like the healing waters of the Tiberius
hot springs, Gehennom is a healing process for the soul. The challenges of this world leave the soul
with multiple wounds. In order to enter
Heaven, those wounds must be healed.
That process of healing is called Gehennom.
That doesn’t mean that it’s a pleasant
experience. When you dab antiseptic upon
an open wound, your objective is to heal.
But that doesn’t make it any less painful. It can sting as the ointment does its
job. If physical wounds hurt when they’re
cleansed and healed, one can only imagine the pain the soul endures as it is
purified and prepared for a life of eternal bliss.
Gehennom, of course, is not a physical location,
and does not involve the inflicting of physical pain as part of the
purification process. The anguish felt
by the soul is of a spiritual nature, more closely resembling FOMO (the Fear Of
Missing Out). Imagine the soul that must
watch all its friends living in the lap of luxury, with all the blessings and
pleasures only Heaven could provide, while it must sit there on the side-lines,
locked up in Gehennom. That’s the
ultimate pain: a lack of freedom even in the Afterlife.
There are those who are critical of certain earthly
jail sentences on account of the ‘luxuries’ afforded to prisoners. With thrice-daily hot meals, clean linens, a
gym and a library, many prisoners in the West have lives that would be the
dream of so many underprivileged individuals, not only in poorer countries, but
even in more distressed urban areas in our country. But they’re misunderstanding the real pain of
prison: the lack of freedom to do whatever you like, whenever you like. And to see people move about ‘freely’, while
other human beings dictate where you must be at any moment of the day. Given the mental pain it inflicts, a prison
sentence is one of the worst forms of torture.
Right now, most of us are in the midst of the
greatest international prison sentence of all time. Due to coronavirus, we are confined to
lockdown in what has been dubbed ‘coronaprison.’ Undoubtedly, our situation is light-years
apart from actual prison sentences. We
are free to go out and purchase basic necessities. We can leave the house for exercise and
urgent needs. But compared to our normal
lives, we are in a situation of mass house arrest, particularly for those most
vulnerable, who are indeed unable to leave the house at all.
Gerald Ronson’s account continues:
Prison crushes men and destroys families. But it doesn’t have to. Prison can make a man stronger. The experience of being inside should be a
positive one, not one that pulls you down and makes you see the worst in
people. If a man’s mind can be compared
to a camera, six months in prison should cause a man to look at life in manual
focus instead of automatic focus. A
spell in prison, if you make positive use of it, should teach you not to take
things for granted, not to see things as the automatic lens shows them to you,
but to focus for yourself on the priorities of life – family, friends,
community and your own values.
You have to be strong in prison, not only for
yourself but for your family. You have
to survive. If you can do that without
getting hurt and without becoming embittered, you become more compassionate,
more understanding, more tolerant. I
find that when I sit around a table negotiating with people, listening to
people, watching people assessing other people, I do it differently from how I
used to. I see people differently, and I
see myself differently. I didn’t think
of myself as a bad person before I went to Ford, but I am a better person
now. I’m more compassionate. I’m more confident. I’m more tolerant, far more so than I would
have thought possible. This sense of
extra strength, of uplift and inner equilibrium, came to me as soon as I walked
out of those gates.
Serving time can be life-changing. We might not quite be in jail right now. Please God, coronaprison will be the closest
we ever get. Let’s utilize our time to
become better, more purified, people.
Let’s become more compassionate.
Let’s become more confident to do the right thing, in the face of
scoffers and critics. Let’s become more
understanding. Let’s become more
tolerant. And let’s become more focused
on what’s truly important in life – family, friends, community and our values.
What are those values to which Ronson refers? Beyond a shadow of doubt, topping his list is
his commitment to spiritual values. He
concludes his book:
The Good Lord looked after me and gave me the
strength to come through . . . Nobody should be so arrogant as to think they’re
some sort of genius and did it all by themselves. It’s the Good Lord who blesses us . . .
May the current crisis bring out the best in you
and may your improved focus remain with you for the rest of your life!
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