A Note in the Drawer
Only a few hours had passed, but Lisa knew something was wrong. Desperate, yet helpless to reach her husband, she suddenly remembered the Aleph Institute. Months earlier, he told her how supportive Aleph had been, making sure he had kosher food, providing him with T’fillin and visiting regularly. So she jotted the organization’s name down on a piece of paper and shoved it into a drawer. When the regular call from her beloved didn’t come in, intuition told her something was terribly amiss. But when she called the prison, she was quickly rebuffed. No one would give.
“Ben just disappeared. He fell off the earth.” With no idea if her husband was dead or alive, and with no family or anyone to help, she became frantic. Suddenly, she remembered that scribbled note in the drawer. “I’ll never forget. The kids went to bed, and I started calling all the Aleph numbers I could. An hour later, just before midnight, Rabbi Raitman called her back explaining that he would get on it immedeiately. Before noon the next day, he called back again, this time with four simple words: ‘Boruch Hashem, hakol biseder’ “It was all I needed. To know Ben was alive.”
She later learned that Ben did not make his usual call to her because he had been placed in complete isolation—with no warning and absolutely no chance to notify her. Only the rabbi was given access to him. Only the rabbi could visit him and spend a few precious minutes praying with him. Years earlier, Ben was happily married with a growing family. An eager breadwinner, he wanted to provide for his family and establish himself professionally. Unfortunately, ambition, inexperience and innocence clouded his judgement. “He was vulnerable. He trusted people,” explains Lisa.
Ben was sentenced to sixty months in jail and ordered to pay a hefty restitution on bank fraud charges. Since she connected with Aleph on the fateful night when her husband missed his daily call to her, Aleph has been her “lifesaver.”
During his first Hanukah away, Aleph sent gifts to the kids from Daddy. “My daughter was 12 years old, and her favorite color was turquoise. She also loved monkeys. I don’t know how Aleph knew, but on the first night, they sent her a turquoise backpack with monkeys all over it…amazing, amazing, amazing.” For the boys, Aleph delivered a new soccer ball and a remote control car, along with a cuddly white teddy for the youngest. And when last summer came along, Aleph sent the two oldest children to sleep-away camp for a month. They were delighted and returned “so happy.”
Even more, “My daughter was 13 and becoming a teenager. It was important for me for her to be traditional. This made her such a good Jewish girl,” Lisa said. To date, Aleph continues to be a great source of financial and emotional support for the family as it endures at least another year before Ben’s expected release. Forever grateful to Hashem and to Rabbi’s Brook and Boyarsky and the rest of her extended family at Aleph, Lisa promises to never forget what Aleph has done for her. “I have a mission (when my ordeal ends)…to help families in the same situation in as many ways as possible. To, Biezras Hashem, help Rabbi Lipskar and the whole Aleph team help these families for as long as I live.”
