Lucien Izraylov will not be among family members or friends when he recites Passover prayers or sits to enjoy his kosher meals.

Instead, he will do it alone, with the instructions from his rabbi and the kosher meals provided to him by the Cook County Department of Corrections.

Since late August, Izraylov, 33, has been incarcerated in a medium-security division of Cook County Jail, the result of his fourth DUI arrest for heroin, he said. He awaits sentencing, so he must celebrate the springtime holiday, which commemorates the Israelites’ escape from slavery in Egypt, along with eight other Jews who have temporarily lost their own freedom.

“It is what it is,” said Izraylov, reserved and soft-spoken. “I accept where I am. I have no control over it.”

Passover, which begins at sundown Monday, is an eight-day celebration that typically begins with a ritual dinner called Seder (pronounced SAY-der). During Seder, observers typically read from the Haggada, a religious text recounting the story of the Exodus, drink four glasses of wine that represent redemption and eat unleavened bread, or matzo.

County Jail is accommodating the dietary restrictions by providing kosher food on each of the eight days.

Because of strict guidelines on how to prepare food for Passover, none of it can be prepared in the jail’s vast kitchen facilities, which churn out about 30,000 meals daily, officials said. Instead, Rabbi Binyomin Scheiman delivered an eight-day supply of kosher fare and instructed jail authorities on what to serve when. He also discussed the significance of the holiday with the inmates and gave each of them a Haggada.

But the Jewish inmates will not get the traditional Seder plate of symbolic foods because it is too difficult for jail staff to prepare it properly, Scheiman said. Further, the nine inmates are housed in different divisions so there will be no official Seder meal and they will not be able to eat together on any of the days of Passover.

“It would be worse if they couldn’t do a Seder at all,” said Scheiman, who serves all Jewish inmates in the Illinois Department of Corrections. “It’s some type of a semblance of what they’re used to.”

Some of what the Cook County inmates can expect includes matzo, grape juice in place of wine, frozen kosher dinners, macaroons, salami, gefilte fish, instant soup, tuna, cream cheese and lox. Some of the food may look like what Izraylov grew up eating. But his current perspective of Passover has evolved only since his time behind bars.

Born in the Black Sea port city of Odessa, Ukraine (then Soviet Union), Izraylov came to the United States in 1979. His family, which wasn’t particularly religious, settled in Chicago’s northwest suburbs and used the major Jewish holidays as a reason to get together for dinner, he said.

“I believe everything, but I didn’t grow up with having to do everything by the book,” he said.

His addiction issues began when he started drinking alcohol at age 15, he said. He owes his seesaw between addiction and sobriety to a pervasive feeling of emptiness, even as he got married, had a son, bought a house and started his own business.

“What the drugs did was fill a void inside of me, and once they were gone, I filled that void with staying busy and achieving goals,” he said. “As I was building all this, I was OK. Once the goals were achieved and I got what I wanted, I was empty again.”

But when he landed in jail and began rehabilitation, he said, he realized why he couldn’t overcome his addiction for good.

“The one thing I left out would be the spiritual because I never found a spiritual solution,” he said. “And because I didn’t think I needed it, I thought that I could do it.”

So once inside, he slowly began to pray. Short, intermittent prayers have grown into 10- to 20-minute prayers three or four times daily. What he once thought cumbersome, he now finds integral.

“In addiction, you have to have faith in something other than you in order for you to be able to stay clean because you are the one who got you into this situation,” Izraylov said.

Izraylov said he has no illusion of his past failures. He is only beginning the long, difficult path to recovery. But he feels his faith, not just his willpower, may be the key to staying sober.

Scheiman said that connection with spirituality could have prevented many of the imprisoned Jews he counsels from arriving in the correctional system in the first place.

“When somebody is leading a life with their core values and meaning, they don’t feel that emptiness as much,” he said.

Though the inmates will observe in isolation what typically is a family holiday, Scheiman said, the symbolism of the celebration will mean more to the Jewish inmates precisely because they are alone.

“Each one of them is fighting for freedom,” he said. “They’re actually in an Egypt, in a sense. They are incarcerated. They are in bondage.”

Izraylov takes the idea a step further. “I’m trying to free myself from slavery — of addiction.”

(Source: Chicago Tribune)