I received a phone call at my office from a very distraught mother calling from Long Island, N.Y. Her non-Jewish son, Sammy, who had just turned 21, was recently sentenced to 25 years to life. Sammy belongs to a very close-knit military family. In the course of our conversation, the woman asked me what kind of Chaplain I was. When I responded that I was a Rabbi, she began to quote verses from the Bible about G-d’s chosen people, so I understood exactly where she was coming from and what her religious beliefs were. She asked me to check up on her son, who had attempted suicide at another prison and was transferred to our facility, where he was on suicide watch in our Mental Health Unit. At that time, we had just hired a new Protestant Chaplain named Anna. As the more experienced chaplain, it was my responsibility to assist with her training. I thought that this case would provide an excellent learning opportunity, so off we went to the psychiatric unit. I introduced Anna to the staff, and together with an officer, nurse, and doctor, we went to the “bubble.” The bubble is a specially designed room in which an inmate cannot injure himself. It contains only a bed, a sink, and a toilet. The resident of the bubble wears only a special padded sheet, which serves as both a robe and a blanket. Sammy recognized me immediately. I am, after all, the only member of the prison community who always wears a black hat. He began to pour out his heart, telling me how he ruined his life and destroyed his family, finishing with these words: “And here I am naked, I have nothing.” Rarely have I experienced such a devastating situation nor encountered such a broken human. How does one respond? What can one say? The chaplaincy training literature does not prepare you for such seemingly hopeless situations. Out of the blue, the biblical references quoted by his mother in our phone conversation gave me an idea. “You are just like Adam,” I said. Bewildered, he asked me what I meant. “Didn’t your mother teach you the Bible?” I asked. “Of course,” he responded. “Well then, after Adam brought disaster upon himself and his descendants, he was dressed as you are with a crude sheet. When he re-entered society to be healed and reconciled with G-d, he wore new and very different clothing. What kind of clothing did Adam wear?” By now, Sammy was paying close attention. He, Anna, and the group were totally mesmerized. I continued, “What kind of clothing did Adam make for himself? Were they green (the color of the prisoner’s uniform)? Blue (the color of the officer’s uniform)?” Stunned silence. “They were neither. He made worthy clothing for himself out of his thoughts, speech, and actions. With these new garments, he could enter a rectified, reordered world and live meaningfully.” Anna, the Protestant chaplain (an ex-NY City police officer from the Bronx), burst out, “WOW, Rabbi, that was powerful! Where do you get this stuff?” When we returned to our office, I called Sammy’s mother and repeated the dialogue that I had with her son. She became very emotional, blessed me, and said, “Rabbi, you don’t know our family or my son, but there was nothing better in the world that you could have said.” I currently visit Sammy almost weekly and have met him together with his family in the visiting room on numerous occasions. I also send him my weekly Parsha newsletter, which I distribute to about 35 inmates. That night, on my 80-minute commute home, I reviewed my day. I had repeated a fundamental idea from Tanya which inspired two non-Jewish women and helped save a young man from suicide by replacing his self-destructive thoughts with healing, hopeful, strengthening words of Chassidus; words of truth that cannot be found in psychiatry, sociology, or penology texts. There was also a lesson in all this for me. It raised a painful question: When was the last time a Chassidic insight inspired me?