An Ex-Con with a Rabbinical Calling
GLICKMAN, KEN
An Ex-Con with a Rabbinical Calling KEN GLICKMAN WHEN MARK BOROVITZ tells you he was a thief, a con man, a convicted felon, an armed robber, a drunk, a crooked used car salesman (regularly...
...He got the judge to agree to turn Rips over to him for rehabilitation through Beit T'Shuvah...
...Rips says Borovitz is the perfect charismatic leader...
...Everybody else has...
...As part of her regular routine, she scoured area prisons searching for Jewish souls to save...
...You're a Jew...
...Over the years, it has accommodated hundreds of Jewish men and women hooked on alcohol, heroin, cocaine, and marijuana— in every stage of recovery...
...Between 1980 and 1988, Borovitz was in and out of state and county prisons— serving a total of six years for armed robbery, insurance fraud, and check kiting...
...Borovitz gave the cash to his mother, who assumed it came from his day job as a shoe salesman...
...As Borovitz sees it, Torah is the perfect salve for addiction...
...Mark gets into people's faces and tells them what they're doing wrong," Rips says...
...Every parshah [Torah portion] has stuff that speaks to these people," Borovitz, 50, told me recently...
...He is standing before an audience of some 80 addicts at a Beit T'Shuvah Passover seder...
...But his passion remains helping those who are trapped in the cycle of addiction...
...40 percent comes from private donations, 10 percent comes from grants, and about 5 percent is provided by the Jewish Federation Council of Greater Los Angeles, a division of the United Jewish Communities...
...it recently relocated to a trim, two-story brick building in West Los Angeles, across Venice Boulevard from a bakery...
...and drive six hours because someone needed his help," Rips says...
...To get sober...
...Just by standing before them, it seems, Borovitz is answering the question...
...Residents will tell you that Borovitz, who preaches in the ground-floor synagogue, is a major part of that success...
...Every morning at 6 a.m., he holds Torah discussions that are widely described as rousing...
...After all, he looks the part...
...When Borovitz is not at Beit T'Shuvah, he is off speaking to audiences at youth groups, JCC's, camps, and synagogues...
...Mario slipped Borovitz hot radios and stereos, and Borovitz sold them...
...And before anyone can speak, he wails: "Ten years ago, I was sitting in a jail cell in prison...
...Borovitz, filled with rage, remembers asking the rabbi: "You going to cut me off, too...
...Mark is unique...
...She challenged him: When you get out of jail, come join my team...
...The basic program is six months long, but many people stay up to two years in "sober living" apartments...
...What is hard to believe, at first glance, is that Borovitz has shed his sordid past for a more time-honored profession...
...I've seen Mark get up a 2 a.m...
...According to its Web site (www.wecanmakeadifference...
...Friends of Beit T'Shuvah raised some $5 million—mostly from private donations—to pur^ chase and refurbish the new, 120- bed building...
...An Ex-Con with a Rabbinical Calling KEN GLICKMAN WHEN MARK BOROVITZ tells you he was a thief, a con man, a convicted felon, an armed robber, a drunk, a crooked used car salesman (regularly dialing back odometers), and an embezzler, you think, 1 can believe that...
...We have plenty of rabbis who preach to middle class communities," Olitzky says...
...As Rips tells it, Borovitz had received word that Rips was about to be sentenced and literally "came running down the aisle, coat flying" in the courtroom...
...Borovitz never forgot that challenge, and when he got out the next year, he showed up at her doorstep...
...And his personal life was a shambles...
...Rosetto says that when she first met Borovitz, he was "abrasive" and "arrogant," but she was undeterred...
...He is bellowing into the microphone...
...And yet he still felt the tug of Judaism...
...I started to drink and when I went to parties, I was the kid who brought the booze...
...The rehab center has an annual budget of $1.5 million, which comes from several sources...
...During those years, his wife left him...
...Soon after, he met Rabbi Mel Silverman, the Jewish chaplain...
...His two older brothers had moved out and his sister, Sheri, was only 5 years old...
...But his criminal ways continued...
...Silverman replied: "I can't cut you loose...
...It turned out to be the match made in prison...
...He was, as he says, "living a double life...
...I asked the rabbis, 'Do You believe in teshuvah...
...BOROVITZ IS AT it again...
...Borovitz was the halfway house's spiritual leader for a decade before he was ordained, on May 16, 2000, by the University of Judaism in Los Angeles...
...org), the independent nonprofit boasts a 60 percent success rate...
...And in 1977, after cheating some mobsters, he left Ohio for Los Angeles, where he took a job selling wholesale jewelry...
...Borovitz steams...
...The facility combats addiction by fusing the Alcoholics Anonymous "12-step" program with a program of Jewish spirituality that includes daily Torah study, Friday night dinners, and regular Shabbat services...
...When Borovitz was 14, his father had a heart attack and died...
...So Borovitz went to his barber Mario, a fence for stolen merchandise, and a partnership in crime was established...
...In 1990, they were married...
...Busted for possession in 1995, Rips was brought before a judge for sentencing...
...He carried guns...
...Before long, he was bringing in $400 a week...
...I was drunk when I proposed to my first wife," he says, "and I was drunk when I got married...
...If there's a Jewish soul in trouble, Mark will be there...
...He was president of his United Synagogue Youth group, and a member of his Conservative shul...
...The seder attendees stare up at him, transfixed...
...If you do, you'll admit me to the seminary...
...He is telling a story about the day he went before the admissions committee at the University of Judaism, pleading to enroll...
...He senses the con in people— and he's a hell of a salesman...
...My world collapsed," Borovitz remembers...
...Martin Rips, who was producer and chief writer for TVs Coach and Three's Company, credits Borovitz with helping him overcome a heroin addiction...
...Is it possible to get better...
...Borovitz's success stems from his ability to draw from his own life experiences, says Rabbi Kerry M. Olitzky, executive director of the Jewish Outreach Institute and author of Recovery From Codependence—A Jewish Twelve Steps Guide To Healing Your Soul...
...He is often loud, and he peppers his conversations with four-letter words...
...BEIT T'SHUVAH, Hebrew for "House of Return," started out in a dilapidated building in downtown Los Angeles that housed fewer than 30 residents...
...Today, he helps strung-out Hollywood writers and producers, among others, recover from drug and alcohol addiction...
...Borovitz read Torah every day...
...Borovitz is a large man with a scraggly brown and white beard...
...The bulk, about 45 percent, comes from fees paid by residents...
...He was my moral compass...
...Borovitz is a rabbi—spiritual leader of Beit T'Shuvah, a drug rehabilitation facility on Venice Boulevard in Los Angeles...
...According to Rips, one of Borovitz's strengths is that he is not afraid to deliver tough love, even in a room filled with junkies and ex-cons...
...Thereafter, the two men studied Jewish texts together...
...BOROVITZ'S STORY STARTS in Cleveland Heights, Ohio—one of Cleveland's older suburbs— where he was born and raised...
...Beit T'Shuvah serves people who are "halfway" between their old lives, which often included prison or homelessness, and—it is hoped—a brighter future...
...Eventually, in 1978, he was busted for check kiting...
...I became a macber" Borovitz remembers...
...In 1987, when Borovitz was at the state prison in Chino, Calif., serving time for criminal fraud, he asked his brother, a Reform rabbi in Brooklyn, to send him a ckumash (the five books of Moses) and a prayer book...
...At the time, Mark felt obligated to pitch in and take care of the household...
...I help Jews who are broken and disconnected, and Torah study is one way to reach them...
...Borovitz asks...
...In 1988, Borovitz was visited in prison by Harriet Rossetto, who, two years earlier, had founded Beit T'Shuvah...
...I always had money in my pocket and could always make things happen...
...He walks with a toughguy swagger and isn't afraid to confront anyone with brutal honesty...
...He held up convenience stores and passed bad checks...
...As Rosetto puts it: "I gave him a job...
Vol. 27 • February 2002 • No. 1
