This is an inspiring story of how a Jewish “Refusenik” maintained his freedom inside a Soviet prison.
From Aish.com:
“Yosef Mendelevitch sat in prison. He was not free in the sense that he could not go and come as he pleased. And yet, that seder night he was freer than his Communist captors for he didn’t allow them to dictate how he saw himself, how he felt, who he was and what he valued. The Soviets may have denied him liberty, but make no mistake: Yosef Mendelovitch was free even while behind bars…”
“Freedom is self-determination; it is the capacity to rise above our innate emotions or our instinctual and visceral response to the behavior and choices of others. Freedom is the ability to decide we won’t let others define us and we won’t let others own how we feel, but we, and we alone will determine our feelings our response and our reaction to them…”