Tales of the Unbound Episode 4: Do Good Time
Tales of the Unbound: Episode 4 - “Do Good Time” follows Ari’s spiritual journey of claiming Jewish identity. There’s an incentive process in prison sentences called meritorious time. We call it “Good Time." For Ari, Good Time has to do with the way he spends his days for the betterment of himself and the world at large. Good Time means a gratitude process, embracing shared humanity, giving to others without expectation of receiving, choosing compassion, and accountability.
In "Tales of the Unbound: Season 1, Episode 4: Do Good Time," the podcast explores the concept of "Good Time" within the context of Jewish conversion in a prison setting. Ari, the central figure in this episode, reflects on his journey from initial moral failings to embracing opportunities for self-improvement through education, religion and community engagement. Ari shares his experience of learning multiple languages, pursuing academic degrees, and discovering artistic talents while incarcerated. And how all those skills set him up to lead and support his Jewish community behind bars. Ari's transformation highlights his proactive approach to rehabilitation and deepening commitment to Judaism, paralleled with his aspirations to contribute positively to society upon release. The episode underscores themes of resilience, personal agency, and the transformative power of education and faith within the confines of a correctional facility.
[1] Meritorious Time, also known as: Good Time, Gain Time, Earned Time, and Merit Time, are all ways of talking about participation in programs for personal improvement, working in inclement weather, serving as a medical test person, giving blood, helping out in an emergency and no incidents of violence or write-ups that allow the state to award time credits to incarcerated folks to shorten the time serving their sentence before becoming parole eligible. How much time varies state by state, as do the standards for meritorious time. There are various opinions about these policies, here is a helpful article about effective strategies for managing long sentences and improving life behind bars to benefit society at large.
[2] Miriam talks about needing a teacher, friend, neighbor, or in Ari’s case, a guard to help spark a new way of looking at the world and time. This feels very similar to episode 3 with Josh and the importance of chevrutah, a study companion. In Pirkei Avot 1:6, we are to “find for yourself a teacher.” All of us need guidance and support to take new steps.
[3] Ari mentions the Second Chance Pell Grant, which extends access to education for incarcerated individuals. Here is an article about the change in 2015, when the government made these programs free in prisons.
[4] Ari paints all kinds of things. He works with folks in the administration to paint murals that they like. Even the superintendent (warden) commissioned an Ari painting for her office. In Monroe, and just about any prison where Ari has resided, the walls have been transformed by his art.
[5] Miriam talks about “Ari’s signature move” – the deep dive into subjects that he wants to learn. On the outside, he was like that too. He loved to scuba dive and was really advanced in his martial arts practice
[6] Ari lived a lot of his life traveling – his parents were standup comedians, and he grew up watching them hone their craft, learned how to read people, and learned by doing. We mention in previous episodes how Ari teaches himself Hebrew, but for those who don’t know, Ari works in the library in prison, and during slow times, he listens to Hebrew pronunciation on cassette tapes or CDs, working his way through old workbooks. He had a friend who was raised Jewish and Ari would bring what he learned back to him, and they would practice. Once Amy was on scene, his learning flourished, and with Marvin and Amy’s attention, his Hebrew and prayerbook engagement was able to deepen.
[7] We love the image of Ari discovering Judaism by first reading Psalms to his cellie. He was then surprised by their resonance and chose to share the words both with his fellows and with his guards. It’s a beautiful vision – that in a dark place, his inclination was to learn and share learning, not to explain it, but to shine a light on the beauty that he was discovering. We wanted to start our episode the same way, with a reading of psalms. We chose Psalm 23 for a few reasons. First, it’s recognizable. Second, psalm 23 uses “I” 17 times; it’s a reflection that is both personal and engages with our relationship with God and revelation. Third, it teaches the three-fold process of Ari’s journey: 1: I am ok and am trying my best to walk righteously 2: I am in the shadow lands, I am lost and hurt 3: I have found my peace and my place with the Divine. And Miriam’s favorite Ric Hordinski song is just a single line from psalm 23 ‘Ki Ata Imadhi” “For you are with me”, you can listen to that here. That’s not the only song of psalm 23! There are so many renditions of Psalm 23 such as:
• Psalm 23, Bobby McFerrin
• Too Many Tears, 2Pac
• Ripple, Grateful Dead
• Psalm 23, Leonard Bernstein
• Psalm 23, Judy Collins
• Psalm 23, Nechama Carlebach
• Psalm 23, traditional
• Psalm 23 (I am not alone), People and Songs
• Der Herr Ist Mein Getreur Hirt (Psalm 23), Bach
• Gangsters Paradise, Coolio
[8] Ari cites the failings of characters in the Bible: Moses for manslaughter (Exodus 2:12), King David for accessory to murder, (II Samuel 11) and Joseph being used for good while he’s imprisoned (Genesis 40:1-23).
[9] Rabbi Benay Lappe, sigh… amazing, right? Listen to her whole video here, or even better, check out her amazing organization, SVARA here.
[10] Ari mentions his certificates that are on his wall in his cell. The Jewish one declares his Hebrew name (Ari ben Avraham v’Sarah) and has the signatures of his beit din: Miriam, Marvin and Amy. A copy was also sent to the American Jewish Archives.
[11] Ari fights for his right to kindle lights, he refuses to accept the solution of electric lights as a substitute. According to Orthodox halacha (legal code) it is a violation of the sabbath and a holiday to turn on, off or dim an electric light. However, there are plenty of reasons why we may need to use electronic lights in lieu of paraffin or oil. In hospitals, or if you have oxygen in your home, or if it’s just you have on hand and it’s the only way to acknowledge the start of Shabbat. Here is an Orthodox take on why we might or might not use electronic lights. Here is an Conservative one, that addresses computers, ipads and electronic lights. If you haven’t listened to Judaism Unbound Podcast with Brett Lockspeiser, creator of Sefaria, the largest Jewish digital library in the world, you’ll love it! He has a gorgeous take on the use of technology as a sacred practice.
[12] We have some “insider” words in this episode. So here are a few translations: daven is a Yiddish term for praying, typically referring to the traditional three times of day prayers that happen in a traditional observant practice. Tefillin are phylacteries, the leather boxes and wraps that bind the covenantal prayers to our bodies while we pray. Rav is an affectionate term for Rabbi. One might learn or pray with many rabbis in one’s life, but your Rav or your Rebbe, your rabbi, is the person that you turn to or orient towards for moral leadership.
[13] Ari talks about the fall of the Second Temple in 70 CE. You can learn more here about the impact of the loss of the Temple as the place where Jews practiced their Judaism.
[14] Ari briefly mentions Tana visiting and feeling connected to her. We will talk more about this in later episodes, but for now, Ari is referring to a Chanukah celebration they had within the walls of the prison where rabbis and community members and in this case, Congressional Representative Tana Senn joined the guys for Chanukah.
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Miriam Terlinchamp: Welcome to Tales of the Unbound. I'm Miriam Terlinchamp, and this is a seven episode series about a journey of Jewish conversion within a prison. We so appreciate all the feedback we've received about the podcast so far. Thank you for your emails, notes of support, and all the love that we're able to share back with Ari and Josh too. So keep them coming. And if you've been listening to the story this far, we're in this together. And if this is the first time you're listening, welcome and thanks for subscribing. If you haven't heard episode one yet, push pause now and go listen to the first few episodes in order to best engage with the story. Also, our show notes include ways to volunteer, donate, and get involved, so please check them out at the conclusion of this episode.
There's an incentive process in prison sentences called meritorious time. We call it good time. In the legal system. Good time typically means earning time off of a sentence for good behavior. Depending on each state's regulations, this usually amounts to somewhere between 30 and 60 days off of a sentence for every full year of good time. You can earn that time for performing good deeds like giving blood, helping out in an urgent situation, volunteering to serve as a medical subject, and maintaining good behavior while incarcerated. In the Jewish community in Monroe Correctional, good time has little to do with sentence reduction. Good time has to do with the way we spend our days for the betterment of ourselves and the world at large. This isn't unique to Amy and her group. It's likely the closest thing to a non religious moral compass that percolates in prison culture. Good time means a gratitude process, embracing our shared humanity, giving to others without expectation of receiving, choosing compassion and accountability.
Amy Wasser: I guess for me, it's really about helping them to do good time.The voice of Judaism that someone who's incarcerated is seeking, to be able to help them navigate what they're doing inside and becoming a better person, regardless of the fact that they may or may not get released in my lifetime or even their own. But Being able to provide them with concrete Jewish morals and values that can guide them in their day to day while they're incarcerated.
Miriam Terlinchamp: I think those of us on the outside could use that moral orientation as well. How are you doing good time in your life? Who reminds you of the preciousness of time and the need to use it well? And how does the reward for good time manifest inwardly in your spirit and countenance?
Ari Kingsman: I am doing my best to show society that I am trying to change along the way. When people go to prison, you automatically assume that they're going to change and there's going to be all these things, but the reality is individually people have to want to change and be involved in programs. There's no mandatory things here, so I I thought about what had happened, and I didn't want to be on a self destructive path, and I have done my best to apologize for the things I've done, and to just not be that person when I get out. Looking forward to the future, I hope to find a community that will accept me and just let me be a part of them. I hope to rewrite the script of the job I want to do when I get out, my education, I hope to get married someday and just have a family and do good time out there too.
Miriam Terlinchamp: Good time is lived out in words that heal, in sharing your own gifts and in showing up. Sometimes it takes a teacher, a friend, a neighbor, or in Ari's case, a guard, to remind you of your capacity to do good time.
Ari Kingsman: This actually starts in county jail. There was a lady that worked there. She said, you're about to get a bunch of time, you should do something productive with your time. And I said, like, what? And she goes, well, maybe you should learn a language. And she's like, well, you have German ancestry, why don't you learn German? And it turns out she was from Dusseldorf. And I was like, well, cool, maybe you can help me with the pronunciation. So I had a book sent in, and when she would do her tier checks, or had extra time when she wasn't doing stuff, she would help me with pronunciation. And It was pretty addicting because it's the sister language to English so it was not a super hard language to learn and I kind of fell in love with the idea of learning them and started pursuing other things like French and Russian.
Amy Wasser: Josh came to Judaism when he got to TRU and so his journey is much shorter. In some ways, more two feet first. And like, fast and swift, and gotta do this, wanna do this, has to be now. Ari, much slower. Ari also has a facility for languages. So he taught himself Hebrew, and he is more comfortable with the Hebrew, and he can actually sing a lot of the prayers alongside of me. And has been doing that for a long time, right?
Miriam Terlinchamp: For Ari, the first step towards doing good time started with education. Learn But it wasn't just education for education's sake. It was education for the purpose of focusing on personal improvement.
Ari Kingsman: I broke the law and absolutely deserve to be in prison. I don't see that as a catastrophe. Some people are like, oh man, my life's ruined, I'm in prison. Now it's like, oh wow, look at all this opportunity I have to better myself. Here's where I was messing up. What can I do to change? Who do I want to be when I get out of here? And if what you see is not the movie you want to star in, change the script. I got 25 years in prison. Yes, that's a lot of time. But it's also a lot of time to grow, read books. And on the street, I was never somebody who was into artwork or languages. But now I speak six languages at varying levels. And I'm a mural painter. And I got interested in the law stuff. I decided to go to two years of law school, and there's a lot of things that have become huge blessings in my life, like becoming Jewish, and meeting you, and being accepted into the community. I honestly don't think a lot of those things ever would have happened if I hadn't have come to prison. So I'm actually grateful for the experience. and having the opportunity to go through this. And if someday this experience inspires somebody else to change the way they've been living, or, you know, they just go, Wow, that was really cool, you know? You could have gone down a dark road and you didn't.
Miriam Terlinchamp: That's a powerful way to see a 25 year sentence. To look back and say, Rehabilitation is a choice. Where I put my attention is a choice. And even what I do with my learning is a choice.
Ari Kingsman: Before prison, I had my GED and a handful of college credits, but hadn't actually achieved a degree. And I had actually decided to take advantage of a program in here called University Beyond Bars, which was what Amy was the head of at the time. And they were offering free two year degrees that were part of the Obama administration's test run of something called Second Chance Pell, to where if Sixty different prisons did well with this education program. They would expand it into the rest of the United States, and we actually did well. And they have now expanded it to all the prisons across the U. S. Right now, I should graduate in In the fall with my associates in business and it's an AAS degree. Recently, I also just finished two years of a law school through Adams state university to become a paralegal and got that certification and hope to use that to get a job in the legal field. I'm really interested in civil rights and helping people. And I recently just found out about. A program called the Washington Law Clerk Program to where if you have a bachelor's degree and can study underneath a supervising attorney or former judge, you can actually take the bar exam without having to go to a law school here and just become a lawyer that way. So, that's kind of my goal. That would be something that would be really amazing. Just as far as, you know, Being able to help the community and give back to, not only the Jewish community, just people in general. I really like the idea of helping out with civil rights issues and the current climate. After all the protests with BLM and other things that are going on, I think it would be amazing to help people out with issues that they're having.
Miriam Terlinchamp: For Ari, good time stems from learning. Learning for the purpose of supporting others. The kind of learning that nurtures a broad perspective and encourages action. Here's Josh talking about Ari's approach to learning. The audio's a little hard on this one, so thanks for your patience.
Joshua Phillips: When he was studying to become a paralegal, I was his roommate and I would watch. He went about his study during the product, bouncing ideas off of me and others able to then. harness the power of community that we share and getting into a study mode using the law library using networking and then sitting down getting his notes and going really hard and decisive into his studies and completing his work and what he was doing was working and I always found that to be a strength. Truth of the name. Ari, right? So Ari means wine, if I'm correct. And so I would say that in this context, that that is true to form and fashion when it comes to him, that he's a bold person, that he knows who he is and he knows where he's going, he knows why he's going there, and he has an idea of what he believes is going to happen when he gets there.
Miriam Terlinchamp: Ari is true to his name, his boldness, as Josh describes him. is not brash, or loud, or aggressive. He's a body building bookworm with a deep confidence that allows him to listen for opportunity. If Josh's way of being hopeful and looking for possibility is through joy and faith, then Ari is his perfect complement, seeking hope through hard work and education.
Ari Kingsman: In 2015, there was a program that was for the senior living unit and it was supposed to be only for people that were 55 years and older to have something to do around the unit and they were letting people decorate the walls and they didn't have that many participants and I had actually gone out into the day room one day. My buddy Kevin was painting and I had brought this postcard of the Spokane clock tower. And I said, Hey, Kevin, you should do this one on the wall. And he goes, why don't you paint it? I said, I can't paint. And he's like, I'll show you. And that was a huge shift in my time because I actually never knew I would fall in love with painting. I did my very first ever, very abstract picture. But. It was such a joyful experience that I wanted to do another one and another one. And pretty soon I actually got good enough to where they turned it into a paying job. They were like, wow, you have some talent here. Would you like to decorate this other unit?
Marvin Stern: We visited his cell block and were given a tour of his art in that building. We were able to see that the office that he had painted and a lot of his artwork that was in that particular building. So it was a manifestation of him doing good time and doing this great artwork.
Miriam Terlinchamp: Starting from scratch and following that line of learning to its farthest expression is an Ari signature move. In every instance where he learns something new, he masters it, then pays it forward into other contexts.
Ari Kingsman: When I came across the state to this place, they actually didn't have any murals going on. And I said, hey, at my last prison, I was a mural artist. Would you guys be interested in me decorating your walls? And I had a bunch of pictures of stuff I had done there. And they were like, wow, you did that? And I said, yeah, I'll make this place look amazing. You know, and it lowers the tension in the unit. And it makes it more of a place that you actually want to be. Don't mind being. It's a less prison y feeling when it's not all white walls.
Miriam Terlinchamp: Lowers the tension, makes it a place you don't mind being, and less prison y. That's what Ari does with his art. Transforms the walls he's confined within. It's what he does with his languages and his schooling. Pushing beyond the walls, trying to soak up the years of life lessons from the outside world. And it's what he does with his Jewish community. Brings in his Hebrew. Models to his people that for the time that we've got in here, we need a way to do good time. And if we do it, well, it will feel like the walls themselves, transformed through color, art, and human hands, and it will look amazing. This is Tales of the Unbound, Episode 4, Do Good Time.
Miriam Terlinchamp: This is Psalm 23, translation by Rabbi Richard Levy of Blessed Memory.
מִזְמ֥וֹר לְדָוִ֑ד יְהֹוָ֥ה רֹ֝עִ֗י לֹ֣א אֶחְסָֽר׃
Adonai my shepherd; I lack for nothing
בִּנְא֣וֹת דֶּ֭שֶׁא יַרְבִּיצֵ֑נִי עַל־מֵ֖י מְנֻח֣וֹת יְנַהֲלֵֽנִי׃
In meadows thick with grass You lay me down,
Across streams serene You guide me.
נַפְשִׁ֥י יְשׁוֹבֵ֑ב יַֽנְחֵ֥נִי בְמַעְגְּלֵי־צֶ֝֗דֶק לְמַ֣עַן שְׁמֽוֹ׃
My life You restore,
Leading me serenely in well-worn paths of justice
To glorify Your name.
Ari Kingsman: What really, I think, was The thing that got me into just studying and whatnot was when I was actually in county jail, I had a celly that said he couldn't read very well and he wanted me to read the Psalms to him in the house. And at that point, I wasn't super religious, but I agreed to do it. I remember I just started at the beginning of them and just started reading and we would get a few hours of just hanging out and doing the proverbs each day and kind of like just talking about it, which actually turned into me putting a little card in my door of the proverb of the day and the guards would actually come by and kind of read it when they were passing by in the window and they were like, huh, that's a good water piece.
Miriam Terlinchamp:
גַּ֤ם כִּֽי־אֵלֵ֨ךְ בְּגֵ֪יא צַלְמָ֡וֶת לֹא־אִ֘ירָ֤א רָ֗ע כִּי־אַתָּ֥ה עִמָּדִ֑י שִׁבְטְךָ֥ וּ֝מִשְׁעַנְתֶּ֗ךָ הֵ֣מָּה יְנַֽחֲמֻֽנִי
Even when I walk in a valley dark as death’s shadow
I shall fear no ferocity, for You are with me;
Your staff and Your walking stick – they reassure me.
תַּעֲרֹ֬ךְ לְפָנַ֨י שֻׁלְחָ֗ן נֶ֥גֶד צֹרְרָ֑י דִּשַּׁ֥נְתָּ בַשֶּׁ֥מֶן רֹ֝אשִׁ֗י כּוֹסִ֥י רְוָיָֽה׃
You set a table before me along with my enemies,
You rain rich oils ‘round my head; My cup? Overflowing!
Ari Kingsman: And I had just like started reading them out loud and he was listening and From then on, I just started like, there's more to this. Like it was the weirdest thing ever and I was not planning on it at all. And then just kind of these things just started lining up to where. People would come in to preach and whatnot, and I would ask questions, and then when I got to prison, I met Josh, who was Jewish, and we started studying together. At that time, there was only three of us going on, and it was a very, very, very small service that just met Friday nights in the chapel. At that time, we didn't even have a sponsor. It was just a completely different time where we were allowed to light candles by ourselves. We didn't even have grape juice or challah back then. Thinking about that reminds me of how far we've come to having challah every week, freshly bought and Grape juice donated, but studying with those guys early on got me looking into things more deeply.
Miriam Terlinchamp:
אַ֤ךְ ׀ ט֤וֹב וָחֶ֣סֶד יִ֭רְדְּפוּנִי כׇּל־יְמֵ֣י חַיָּ֑י וְשַׁבְתִּ֥י בְּבֵית־יְ֝הֹוָ֗ה לְאֹ֣רֶךְ יָמִֽים
For certain, goodness and the love of Your covenant
Will run after me all the days of my life,
And I shall abide in God’s house
For long days,
Long, long days.
Ari shows tenacity and creativity in all of his practices, but his natural proclivity to learning things the right way Creates a tension between what is possible to do in prison, the level of flexibility required when we are part of a community with a variety of ability and experiences, and that gray zone between gatekeeping and opening the gates.
Ari Kingsman: I lean towards more orthodox practices. Like I want to do everything possible to do it the quote unquote right way, even though there's several different ways mentioned in the Talmud.
Miriam Terlinchamp: This need to do things the right way, or as close to it as possible, shows up a lot for Ari. It's part of the way he grapples with his own identity and what it means to be part of a lineage, and the first step of seeing himself as part of the Jewish people.
Ari Kingsman: I notice the underlying theme of Hashem using people who have not been the great leaders of the world, but rather people that had moral failings. If you Look at Moses. He probably would have been arrested for manslaughter for hitting someone in the head with a rock and burying him in the sand. King David probably would have been arrested as an accessory to murder for having Uriah sent to the front lines so that he could have him killed and be with his wife. I mean, there's a certain Lens that, if you look at it, that people in prison can be used for things as well. The Torah is full of stories that are beautiful. It's just being able to, like, relate to these characters and go, Wow, okay, Hashem can use anybody.
Miriam Terlinchamp: Benay Lappe, do you hear that? That is the founder of Svara, Rabbi Benay Lappe’s donkey theory in action. Here, take a listen to how she explains it in her own words.
Benay Lappe: I once heard my friend, Rabbi Lisa Edwards, teach something to her students that I'll never forget. She said if donkeys read Torah, all the donkey stories would jump out at them. Right? Every time they'd see a donkey, they'd go, there's me! There I am again! All the donkey stories, they'd see. All the donkey stories that we completely miss. When I began to learn Talmud, all the donkey stories, my donkey stories, started jumping out at me. And when I connected the dots, I saw a tradition that was smarter, more sophisticated, more courageous, compassionate, bolder, and more radical than anything I could have imagined. And I fell in love.
Miriam Terlinchamp: When we open ourselves up to seeing the text through our own worldview, we see that we're not oddities or marginal characters. We are the one finding wells in barren deserts. We are the ones seeing angels through animals, and we are hearing prophecy from jail cells. This is a faith that speaks to and through all living beings, and the moment we see ourselves in it, we understand our value and our responsibility to the sacred lineage of being a people of Torah.
Ari Kingsman: When you read the history of things, it's like, now that I'm part of that storyline, what can I contribute to this great story of thousands of years of Torah? People and history. It's like, holy moly. It's a little intimidating at first, cause it's like, wow, this amazing people let me be part of them. Now I need to give back to that community, and how can I use the tools I have as far as my art and language stuff, or Maybe I help with the legal things. As a paralegal, can I give back to the community with that? You know, I'm still trying to figure out how I can be a blessing in return for being blessed so much by the community.
Miriam Terlinchamp: Seeing himself in the story allows Ari to own his place in it.
Ari Kingsman: You have that, what we would call in our psychology class, the imposter syndrome of like, Do I really belong here? Like, what am I doing? But now it's like, absolutely I belong. I have your certificate hanging on the wall next to my paralegal certificate. I look over and see it every day, and yours and Amy's and Marvin's names are on it, and it's super cool. It was a thing that was like, wow, this is a life changing event.
Miriam Terlinchamp: Once Ari is grounded in that space of his own truth and connection to his Jewish identity. It translates to this need to almost desperately model that his change is authentic. This need manifests in three very different ways. The first way is how he approached living a Jewish life as part of a fledgling community.
Ari Kingsman: Uh, I absolutely know what it's like to be on my own in that for years some of the guys We only were able to meet the three of us, and we weren't actually even on the same unit in the prison, so the only time we saw each other was once a week, so there was a lot of days of just self study.
Miriam Terlinchamp: The second way Ari lives out his Jewish identity is strict observance of the mitzvot, the commandments, and modeling for the rest of the group how to best honor the way Judaism is practiced outside of the prison walls. In prison, Ari has every reason to practice Judaism in as flexible a way as possible. Yet Ari's response to the difficulty of practicing Judaism behind bars is to prove otherwise.
Ari Kingsman: So our Shabbos candles are a part of our Kabbalah Shabbat service, as well as everybody in the community. And one day, DOC decided to change their mind on the safety of two small candles and declared them a hazard. So we went through a six month process of working up to a level three grievance, and they still denied it. I had pointed out that not only do you have a fire marshal's approved fire suppression system, as well as fire extinguishers within reach, and staff that are on hand that are trained to respond, and fire exits, and the fact that it's only being lit by fire. By the sponsors on a plastic table in the middle of the room that's not flammable and they just weren't having it so we reached out to the state ombuds and they thought it was more than reasonable to do that. So we reached out to the state ombuds and they thought it was more than reasonable to Have these things and they're like, Hey, what? And so they actually helped intervene and they fought for us and explained the importance of having the candles and how that's a huge part of the tradition. And we had to go through this battle to be able to fulfill something that we really wanted to partake in. We want to do as many things possible to follow our beliefs. And when something was taken away, we fought as a group. to get it back and everyone filed a resolution request and worked through the system and we had patience, but there was a lot of prayer going on like, Oh man, I hope we can get our candles back. And you know, Hashem, if this is something you want, help us out here. And we're just trying to come together and worship every week. So if this is something that you want done, but you'll help us get it back. And it came back. So it was really cool.
Miriam Terlinchamp: Ari is rooted in his studies. He read psalms out loud and translated them into sermons on cell doors. He taught himself Hebrew while working in a library. He learned to chant, devour Talmud, and davens praise with his tefillin every morning. He sees the commandments literally, thou shalt kindle the lights of the Sabbath. And he sees himself in all the forgotten characters and the broken leaders and the humanity of the Torah. In all of that is absolutely gorgeous. But what makes him a Rav, a rabbinic figure, in his community, is something else entirely. Ari has so thoroughly embodied his Torah. That he knows that part of being Jewish is change, and acts of transformation for the greater good are holy choices.
Ari Kingsman: The rabbis of the second temple era sitting there as the temple is smoldering, going, Uh oh, now what? And they found a way to adapt and make it more of a personal and community practice that didn't revolve around the temple, still told the stories, but they adapted to new practices, and now we have this. And we have all these other services that feel like they've been going on forever. But over the grand scheme of things, that was a huge change in Judaism from no longer having sacrifices to. Sacrificing time in your own day, in the morning, when you dawn to fill in or light Shabbos candles. I love how Judaism can adapt and there are a million different ways to do Jewish. That's one of the things I love about it. There's a central line of history that revolves around the holidays and everyone tells these stories, but Each community has their own tradition or tune that they sing the same songs to, or the different foods that they eat, or the dances they do, but there was still that common bond, and it's that connectivity that you have with all Jews around the world, even if your traditions are a little bit different, you still know the main story.
Miriam Terlinchamp: To be part of a people requires us to know our stories. It is in the stories that we find the connective tissue between all living things, the great mystery of oneness, you know, that thing that sometimes some of us call God. It's in the stories that we're transformed through empathy.
Ari Kingsman: The liberation part of Passover really hits hard in here because I wouldn't call it U. S. C. Pharaoh because, you know, we deserve to be here, but having that feeling of not being able to do what you want and that captivity part really relates to being in prison. We're constantly called to remember that we were strangers in the land of Egypt, and we’re terribly mistreated, and no one helped us, and it wasn't until Hashem freed us, which is why we need to remember to help the oppressed and the vulnerable when we come across them. So, Passover for me, In here, it's really relatable because I am currently incarcerated, but it's to be mindful of, yes, one day I will come out of here, my own Egypt, and to remember to help people that are vulnerable and oppressed, because at one point in life, I was oppressed.
Miriam Terlinchamp: In our best stories, we are all of the characters. We are Pharaoh, and Moses, and Miriam, and Pua, and Shifra, and Aaron, and all of us. All of us at some point are Yochavet, having had a moment where we held the most precious thing in our lives and had to let the river carry it, trusting in the will of the universe. In the call, I believe from Judaism. from our stories, from our lineage, is the same for each and every one of us.
Do. Good. Time.
Thanks for listening. Tales of the Unbound is a production of the Institute for the Next Jewish Future and part of the family of podcasts of Judaism Unbound. Tales of the Unbound was created and written by me, Miriam Terlin Champ, produced and edited by Joey Taylor, original music by Rich Hordinsky, and art by Katie Kaysner Frenchman. Thank you to Amy and Marvin and all those who serve the Jewish people. And a huge shout out to the guys of Ari and Josh and all the Jewish folks in Monroe Correctional and all the people everywhere trying their best to do good time. Special thanks to DOC at Monroe Correctional who allowed access to Ari and Josh. Check the show notes to see some of Ari's art and to find ways you can get involved to support those who are incarcerated. And for amazing behind the scenes content. We'd love to hear from you. We love it. So you can email me at miriam@judaismunbound.com or find us at www.judaismunbound.com/tales.
Stay tuned for our next episode, in which we will go deep into the big day of Beit Din, Mila, and Mikvah.
Ari Kingsman: It's just something that gets me to want to do better each day, to try a little bit harder and be.a better person so future me will look back and go, wow, good job on putting all that effort in while you were in there.
Miriam Terlinchamp: Thanks for listening. This has been Tales of the Unbound.
