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DESCRIPTION] Touro Talks intro displaying photos of students and faculty across the university, fading into the Touro University logo.

[TEXT] Judge Rachel Freier, "Hasidic Superwoman" January 12, 2022 Tour Talks is sponsored by Robert and Arlene Rosenberg

[DESCRIPTION] Dr. Alan Kadish speaks to the camera with a Touro logo background. A Touro University logo is on the bottom right of the screen.

[ALAN KADISH] I'll start with introducing our guest speaker tonight, Judge Rachel "Ruchie" Freier. And it would be impossible for me to provide a complete bio of her remarkable life and career in just a couple of minutes, but I'll try to hit some highlights. She was born in Borough Park, went to Bais Yaakov High School, got married when she was 19, and began working in a variety of jobs and at age 30 decided to come back to college, and we were very fortunate to have her at Touro College as an undergraduate. And then went to Brooklyn Law School, practiced as an attorney. And in 2016 was elected as a judge in Brooklyn. And she'll tell you a little bit about the various roles she served as a judge.

But somewhere in the middle of that amazing story and six children, she's also found the time to start a number of not for profits to help the Jewish community in Brooklyn including ones that help combat poverty, help fill gaps in education, and her most recent non for profit that we'd like to hear more about called Ezras Nashim, which is a female all volunteer ambulance corps that helps serve the Brooklyn community.

So welcome, Judge Freier.

[DESCRIPTION] Judge Rachel Freier joins.

[RACHEL FREIER] Thank you. Thank you so much for having me. Touro College has such a special place in my heart, so it's a privilege to be here. And I look forward to spending some time and hearing from you and hearing from these students and faculty and just take it away.

[ALAN KADISH] So it's our 50th anniversary this year, and it's an absolute pleasure to have one of our most illustrious graduates join us. One thing I left out from her bio was The New York Times characterization of Judge Freier, which was as a Hasidic superwoman. So we're prepared to hear some amazing things tonight.

Why don't we start with you're telling us-- I provided the outlines of your education, but why don't we start with you telling us how you became interested in law and how you decided that relatively later in life than most students that you'd begin a career in the law?

[RACHEL FREIER] Oh, it's a fantastic question because I think law is part of my DNA. As a little kid, I was always the family advocate. I was the oldest of my siblings, and if somebody didn't get paid enough money as a day camp counselor or my mother got paid a check that bounced, I was advocating for everybody. And when I was in high school, the school offered a course called legal stenography, which was on a commercial track, preparing the girls to go on and become secretaries for lawyers.

Now back then in the '70s and early '80s, we really didn't have opportunities for higher education at that point for the Hasidic community, and for me the idea of being a legal secretary was going to be the profession, the career that was going to make me happy and fulfill all the desires that I have for success. And I graduated high school at the age of 17, and I did get great jobs working in law firms. And everything was wonderful. I married a young man who was going to sit in Kollel. I was making a fantastic amount of money then for an 18-year-old girl, and I was able to support him while he was in Kollel.

And then as I was doing more and more work and I was advancing to the level of a paralegal, I started to take a step back and say, well, look at these lawyers. Some of them are coming in now. They're younger than I am, and why can't I do what they're doing? But all the years that I was growing up, I was taught that if you go on to higher education or get-- become a professional, get a degree, then you're going to compromise your religious values, your Hasidic values, and it was mutually exclusive.

And that's when I started to think to myself why. Why is it that way? Why can't I have the best of both worlds? So it was this little tiny voice within me that was growing louder and louder and louder. And by the time I turned 30, my husband had graduated Touro. I thought that if he went to college, he would vicariously lived my dream for me.

So I put him through college, and it was a wonderful experience for him. And sitting at his graduation at Touro College, that little sound inside me was screaming, Ruchie, now it's your turn. Now it's your turn. And that was the beginning. Touro opened up a whole new world for me.

[ALAN KADISH] So let me ask you a couple of questions to follow up on that amazing story. First of all, for you, how would you define Hasidic values? You talked about compromising, not wanting to compromise your Hasidic values. So--

[RACHEL FREIER] Right.

[ALAN KADISH] Tell us what you mean by that. What-- obviously we all know a little bit about Chassidus, but when you talk about Hasidic values, tell us what that means.

[RACHEL FREIER] So it means that you as a Hasidic mother, now as a grandmother, your family is very important. And the way you run your home is very important, where you have your Yomim Tovim is very important. It's-- it's-- my Shabbos Seudah is very important. It's going to be homemade challah. Everything's going to be homemade. It's a lot of family time.

And that's not to say that other groups of Jewish people that are religious don't necessarily have that, but Hasidism is just also was a lot of restrictions in place with that. So especially for women and the separation of the genders between men and women, I follow all those rules, and I conform to all those rules.

And sometimes when you venture out into the world, you sometimes feel like, well, I have to blend in, I want to blend in. And then when you want to blend in, you slowly, slowly start to change your dress or your appearance. And I always stood out, and I did so proudly. And everyone knew that I was dressed the way I was because I was from the Hasidic community of Borough Park, whether it's the long dresses, the long skirts, it's always wearing the tights, and then when I started my work, I didn't want to shake hands with men knowing that there are rabbis who say that it's permitted socially for men and women to shake hands and many people who are Orthodox do. But I said I have to establish my boundaries, and the way I am up until now is the way I want to remain all the way through my years of education and what goes on beyond that.

So it's a combination of strong family values, raising your children, and spending time with them. And, of course, it means having a large family, and it means just being there for them, being involved with your parents, with your grandparents, and then also being there for my husband, allowing him to always be in the shul, in the synagogue, all the celebrations that the men go to. It's like it wasn't like I was going to say: okay see, Dovid, I have to study so you don't go to Tisch tonight. It was all those things that were important to us as a Hasidic family should remain intact.

[ALAN KADISH] Before we talk about some more things about how your career progressed, I just want to follow up on something you just said. You intentionally felt that you wanted to be different in the workplace and even perhaps went let's just say in some cases lifnim mishuras hadin, beyond the letter of the law to make that point.

So how did you find people reacted to it? Did people react positively? Did you ever get negative feedback? Tell us a little bit about that.

[RACHEL FREIER] So what I've learned actually is that whatever my teachers in Bais Yaakov taught me is absolutely true. If I would put them-- I actually-- I did put them to the test because they-- you know what they say? You can take a girl out of Bais Yaakov, but you can't take Bais Yaakov of a girl.

So I'll give you an example, and I found and I always share this when I speak to young students that when you show people that you're committed to your values, whatever connects you to God, whatever connects you to HaShem, it keeps you spiritually connected, don't let go for one second because you don't have to let go to be successful whether it's in the academic world, the corporate world, the legal, or the medical world wherever you are. So because the message you're giving is that you're a person of honesty, integrity, loyalty, and commitment.

Even when no one is looking, I'm going to only eat my kosher food when we all go out to eat for a judicial celebration. When no one is looking, I'm going to leave home Friday in time to be home to light the Shabbos candles. And when you're consistent and respectful of other people and you explain what you do, that to me is the key. Explain, prepare, share.

I'll come in on Friday with some challah. I'll come in on Friday with some-- I'll say, here are some Shabbos pastries. You're going to be-- you're going to be covering me when I leave work early. I want to show you my thanks. I'm sharing my Shabbos with you.

But I'll give you a different example, very clear example. So when I was a legal secretary, I worked at a large corporate law firm on Lexington Avenue in Manhattan. And it was the summer time. And I find out that Fridays in the summer, they have dress down Friday.

Now Dr. Kadish, I never knew what dress down Friday was, and they explained to me that they want to make the staff feel that they're not working so hard on Fridays. So you can come in and you can dress down. No ties, no suits. There were some rules. You couldn't come in with shorts and flip-flops, but you could just be very casual.

Now I come from Borough Park. In the Borough Park, we like to dress up, not down. So every Friday, I had this dilemma. What am I going to wear today?

Now, back then I had a denim dress, and it had what we call in Burrow Park, borderline sleeves. You know, Dr. Kadish, they invented something which revolutionized the way Jewish women dress. It's called a shell. I wear them every day, different styles, different colors, different fabrics. And you put it on. And whatever dress you wear, you're good to go. You conform to all the rules of tzniut, of modesty. But back then they didn't have it, so my sleeves were borderline. But what that meant is if I raised my arm, it rolled down. But I said, hey Ruchie, if you're going to work at Willkie Farr and Lexington Avenue, who cares about your sleeves? Or so I thought.

And I'm sitting at my desk and I'm typing, and one of the attorneys that I was assigned to work for, a Harvard Graduate-- well, I'm Jewish, but not religious-- comes to my desk and says to me, Rachel, I see your forearms. Dr. Kadish, none of my tznius teachers in Baskakov ever impacted me like that young attorney, because the message was, I know you're Hasidic, I know you dress modestly, and I'm sure you don't know your sleeves are too short. Well, I went home that day. I threw out that dress. Literally, I have to wear my religion on my sleeve.

When you stand up for what your values are, people respect it. So I've learned that the vast majority have always been respectful and asked. And I encourage them to ask questions, because if they don't ask questions, they're going to make assumptions. And most of the time, those assumptions are wrong. So clear the air, build bridges, create bonds, and you'll be mekadesh Shem Shamayim, and be able to achieve success.

[ALAN KADISH] That's very well put. Let me turn back to a little bit about your education. And you did talk a little bit about the values that you were taught at Bais Ya'acov and said that you had a great time at Touro. So tell us a little bit about your time at Touro. Who influenced you? And how did you find that it helped advance your career?

[RACHEL FREIER] So Touro was, for me, the transition. You had to take a Bais Ya'acov high school graduate who went to seminary, who followed all the rules, and was really very frightened about stepping out into the outside world. Today it's very different because today it's been so accepted already. And thank God there's been so many successful years of Touro graduates. But back then, it wasn't that way. And for me, it was the ability to come into a academic college environment.

And Dean Goldschmidt was incredible. From the very first student orientation that I went to, I felt that he was there for me. If I ever had a question, I went to his office, I felt like I was the only student that he was concerned about. He gave guidance. He helped, whether it was financial aid, they were there to help me. I found that if I needed help with, well, this semester load is too heavy, can I make it a little bit lighter? And there was always someone that I can speak to that was able to help me. I had amazing professors.

Initially when I started-- I'll share a little secret with you-- I was afraid to tell anybody I want to go to law school. It was like a far fetched dream. So I said, I'm going to major in business, because if I never go to law school, it's good to have a degree in business. So I sat in class, and in the first economics class I sat in, I said, this is not for me. And I switched to poli sci, and I had wonderful professors there, Professor Bertram, Professor Mundt. They allowed me to really see that political science really was my passion, and that was pre-law, and then law school.

And then I had professor Bash in my first semester. I did speech with her. She made class interesting and fun. I said, hey, I can do this. I can get through college. And then towards the end of my years in college, I had Dr. Popkin. I took a class in Manhattan. I had the humanities, and that was a complete different perspective. And he challenged me, and I challenged him back. So it was a fantastic experience. Then by the time I graduated Touro, I was ready for law school.

[ALAN KADISH] How did you find law school? Was it challenging, particularly, balancing all the things you talked about?

[RACHEL FREIER] Yeah, law school was-- don't forget, I did it probably at the most difficult time in a woman's life. I started college smack in the middle of my childbearing years. I started college with my three sons. My first girl was born in my first semester. And then when I graduated that year, my twin girls were born. So I started with three. I graduated with six. And then by the time I started law school, my twins were like almost toddlers. So it was a full house. It was a full, busy house. And I was determined. I knew that I wasn't going to be able to maintain the same average I had in Touro, but I was going to try my best. I really was going to, and I did it part time in four years. Sometimes it was brutal.

But for me, the fact that I made it to law school, the fact that I was sitting there and learning about trials, and learning about civil procedure, and learning about criminal procedure, I felt so lucky that I had Touro that enabled me to be sitting in class. I said, even if I never become a lawyer, because there were naysayers every step of the way of my journey, Dr. Kadish. I had naysayers predicting that it was never going to happen, never going to happen. I wasn't going to get into law school. I wasn't going to get to the LSAT. And if I did, I wouldn't pass the bar. And if I did, I wouldn't have any clients. So for me, every step that I was able to do, I always go back to Tauro, because that's where it started.

[ALAN KADISH] That's great. Well, actually, you're part of a great tradition of not believing in naysayers, because 50 years ago when Dr. Landers started Touro, there were plenty of naysayers. And 125,000 graduates later, I think we've probably proved them wrong. So perhaps we taught you a little bit about how to continue to persevere, which was one of Dr' Landers' great strengths.

[RACHEL FREIER] Yeah.

[ALAN KADISH] So do you sleep at all?

[RACHEL FREIER] [LAUGHS] Yes. Yes, I do. I do. I sleep between five and six hours every night, but I catch up on Shabbos.

[ALAN KADISH] Sounds very familiar. Let me ask you a little bit about your work as a judge. So tell us first a little bit about what courts you've been in and what working as a judge is like.

[RACHEL FREIER] - OK. So just for a disclaimer, I can't discuss any cases. No cases at all, because it may give rise to how I may decide on a case. And I can't discuss politics. But I can share my experience. So I was elected as a civil court judge in 2016. And my first term was going to start January, 2017. And I found out about two weeks before the term started that I was going to be assigned to Criminal Court. And that was a shock. It's like, Criminal Court? This must be a mistake. What do I know about crime? I grew up in a Hasidic neighborhood. I never watched TV, didn't go to the movies. What do I know about crime?

So that was a real eye opener. It was incredible, those two years. After the first year, I said, I'll stay another year here because I really liked it. It was just incredible. It was incredible, also, how much of the values that I learned in Bais Ya'akov, the Jewish values, are really what helps me on the bench. Learning everything that we learned empirically about judging everybody favorably, not being quick to pass judgment. All these concepts are really what gives you a foundation because you're sitting on the bench and you're deciding sometimes people's future.

And I always like to say that I love my job because I have the best seat in the house. Because here in New York, regardless of which courtroom I'm assigned to, when I get on the bench, above me are the words, "In God we trust." And that always puts me into perspective. So being a judge, a lot of people don't really know. But you really are an employee of the Office of Court Administration to a large extent, and you're given assignments. So I was assigned to Criminal Court. Then I was assigned to Brooklyn Civil Court, then I was assigned to Queens Civil Court, and now I'm back in Brooklyn Civil Court.

And that is a pretty newer policy of the court system. It's not that judges get one part, and that's where they are. They want judges to get a well-rounded experience. And in hindsight, I could say it's really a fantastic opportunity. It's always challenging when you're thrust into a new part and you have to learn new areas of the law. But it was an amazing experience.

And there's the trial part. Then there's the other parts. There's a small claims part, and you have the landlord-tenant parts. You have the housing part. You have the commercial part. So it's really very fascinating. And I'm in civil court, which they call the People's Court. So there's a real wide variety of cases.

[ALAN KADISH] Without talking about-- you alluded to briefly that the principles you learned in terms of justice as part of the Jewish tradition have influenced the way you approach being on the bench. Without talking, obviously, with no names and no specific cases, would you say that's an approach that most judges use? Or do many of them have a different approach? Or how would you distinguish the way you approach a case from the way other judges do?

[RACHEL FREIER] I really can't answer about what the judges decide their cases. That I really wouldn't be able to, because a lot of it, it's what they're thinking and their thinking processes. I can only really speak for myself that I could say. And we have a lot of constraints. We have a lot of times, there's a heavy caseload, and there could be limited time. And then sometimes you have to decide from all these pressures, how are you going to get through it and make your decision. So for me, having that emunah, having that faith that HaShem runs the world, God runs the world, and if he put me here, I'm supposed to be here. If I'm supposed to be here, I can get through it. And that's what helps me get through my days.

So I would assume everybody has their own judgment, their own thinking, and we're all different. And they want diversity on the bench. They want everybody to bring their values with them. So I think we've spent so many years growing up in Bais Ya'akov and learning so much about character traits, and about judging others and how you have to-- and it's just, I don't even-- it's part of my psyche. We don't even realize how much what we learn as children remains with us when we're adults.

[ALAN KADISH] When are you up for reelection?

[RACHEL FREIER] It's a 10 year term.

[ALAN KADISH] OK.

[RACHEL FREIER] I'm in my sixth year. I just started my sixth year.

[ALAN KADISH] Have you thought about plans for the future?

[RACHEL FREIER] Always. Always. But I've learned to leave it in HaShem's hands, because there's so many different ways that things can play itself out. And sometimes you think you know where you're going, and then you really don't know where you're going. But I would love to have opportunities to rise up and to do more. I love law. I think it's an incredible area, I think, because it overlaps into everything in life. And that's how I got involved in Ezras Nashim. I came in really as a legal advocate. And I never thought I had a medical component to my brain. I was just about law, justice, and advocacy.

But just, it's so wide and so deep. It has just so many different nuances that you could go to law school and you don't even know where you'll end up getting the job, because there's so many opportunities in law.

[ALAN KADISH] So let's talk a little bit about that. I mentioned that you'd been working with a number of not-for-profits, some of which you started. But let's tell us a little bit about the history of Ezras Nashim. You alluded to briefly how you became involved. And then let's talk a little bit about how it functions. And then I'll ask you a couple of other questions after that.

[RACHEL FREIER] Sure, sure. So I think I have to just rewind a little bit and share with you, my personal story of how I got involved in doing this like, why did I get involved in this as kind of this public advocacy here. So when I graduated Touro, I realized it was a major milestone in my life, and I was going to go to law school, I was really very worried. So OK, now I'm going to be entering a very liberal academic environment. It's going to be a setting that's co-ed setting. No more just women's division, women's campus. It's going to be co-ed. And I'd been working in law firms and the corporate world for many years at that point already. But I have never been in an academic environment, in a very liberal one. And of course, I had all these naysayers who made these predictions.

So I made my deal with HaShem. I said, dear God, please help me get through law school without compromising my values. And then when your children come to me for help within the law, I will help them. And God wasted no time in testing me, and that's how I got involved in 2008, and I formed the derach to help at-risk Hasidic youth, help them move on and get GEDs. And then that eventually was taken over by other people in the community. They opened up other programs, so I was very happy to step back a little bit. And then I got involved with helping women who were EMTs for many years, who wanted to get involved in volunteering and serving the community.

And as you know, we've been served for about 50 years by a very prominent and very, very amazing all-male EMS agency. But what I had never known at that point was that women had wanted to serve. I thought this is what men do, and it's the man's job. And we have great EMTs in Burrow Park. It never occurred to me that women wanted to join for decades. And they were being foreclosed these opportunities, and that what Hatzolah had originally started, it was supposed to be a women's division.

So anyhow, one night I get this phone call from an EMT, a young woman, and she says to me, we're having a meeting tonight, and we need a lawyer to help us. And we were told that we need a woman lawyer who would do this pro bono for free. And we were given your name. Could you come for a meeting tonight? I'm thinking to myself, who are these women? Are they a bunch of rabble rousers? Because if they are, I'm out of here. But I had my deal with God, so I had to go to the meeting, at least to see who it was.

I went to this very humble home in Burrow Park, and I met these Hasidic women who were more to the right than I am, even more conservative than I am. And I heard their story and I said, if I went to law school just for this cause alone, it was worth it. So I thought it was going to be my mitzvah of the month. I'm going to come. I'm going to advocate for them. It's the 21st century. For sure, they're going to be accepted, and then I'll go on to my next mitzvah.

[ALAN KADISH] So before you continue the story, let me just ask you, when you met these women who were so passionate about trying to work as EMTs and help, what was it that was-- did they feel that there was a gap in the existing services, or was it simply that they sort of felt a passion to serve Klal Yisrael and to help people?

[RACHEL FREIER] No, it was all about women's dignity and modesty, primarily, and especially in emergency labor.

[ALAN KADISH] OK.

[RACHEL FREIER] So many of these women were labor coaches and doulas, and they felt that when a woman is giving birth, and it's an emergency, she's so vulnerable, and her dignity is totally exposed. I mean, and she should have the choice of having a woman provide her with emergency care. Now, when they had approached me, this was about 2011. At that time, the rabbi in New Square in Rockland County had recently integrated women into the hatzolah of New Square. So these women who were trying for all these years and were a splintered group said, hey, let's get together. Let's get all the people who took the course to become EMTs over the years. Because if this Square rabbi is doing it, for sure, they'll follow suit in Burrow Park.

So I came and I met with them, and we even met the Square rabbi to see what's being done in New Square. But what I realized was there was no connection to what was going on in New Square and what was happening in Burrow Park. So by default, I had to become the director. And then I said, it'll be malpractice if I don't become an EMT. So I took my mother, who's my best friend, and I said, Ma, we're taking the EMT course together. And we sat in class together, and sitting in class, I said, this is amazing. I never thought I had a medical component to my brain, but I love it. What could be boring, Dr. Kadish? The heart? The lungs? The brain? Maybe the kidneys are boring? It's not boring.

And I said, I have to go on to paramedic school. That was a much harder class. But that's in a nutshell. And I was not prepared for the opposition. But the opposition made a very big mistake because they went on social media calling me a radical Hasidic woman, and this was part of my radical feminist agenda. And it was not about feminism. It was about tznius, about women's modesty. And I said, this is about Rachel Freier and her women's rights movement. And I said, I'm doing this for tznius, for women. It's not about women's rights. It happens to be that most of the time, women are right, especially when it comes to our medical care.

But then they told me, when it comes to speed and strength, men are superior. So women can't do this. And that was a big mistake. Because if you tell me that I can't do something because I'm an observant Hasidic woman, I'm going to show you that we can do it, maybe even better than you. And that's how Ezras Nashim got started, and it's a story of about 10 and 1/2 years. It became a volunteer ambulance service last year after 10 years of advocacy, lawyers, court cases, appealing it, going to the state, to Albany to fight it. But we prevailed, and it was clearly from HaShem. This is how it had to happen.

The hashgacha pratis, the divine providence that we had every step of the way, I had the help from the Fire Department of the City of New York, the Health Department of the State of New York, the EMS councils. Everybody said, we're so proud of you women, because you women should have done this years ago. And I think it changed me as a mother. And the women who will join, they say, Ruchie, we never even understood what it means to come and help a woman at these vulnerable times. And you know what? We're overcoming for the young women, even the senior population.

When they fall in the shower, they don't really care if the man wants to come and help them. They just know one thing. I just fell out of the shower. I want a woman to help me.

[ALAN KADISH] So you're absolutely right. There's an amazing satisfaction and ability to help other people that one gets in health care. In the past two years, I've done more medicine than I did in the decade before then, because unfortunately, in the midst of the COVID epidemic, I've gotten more and more calls. And to be honest, I've really realized how much I've missed it, being able to take care of people. And just this week, I've had a couple of patients who've called me with complicated cases. And you're absolutely right. There's something absolutely beautiful about being able to help other people through complicated and difficult times when they're vulnerable, and they really need the help of someone who's understanding. So I'm extraordinarily sympathetic to the ideas you've talked about.

So I'm going to put you on the spot a little bit and ask you, so why do you think there was this opposition? It seems to make so much sense.

[RACHEL FREIER] Again, it's a question of trying to answer and put myself into someone else's brain of why a group of men from the religious Jewish community were opposing a group of women who said, we want our modesty preserved when we're having an emergency. And for many years, I tried to come up with answers. Maybe it's power, maybe it's ego, maybe it's competition. And then I realized, Dr. Kadish, this is because this is how HaShem wanted it to happen, because this is what God wanted. We're a complete separate entity. We have our own license, and this is such a hard license to get. The state doesn't give out these licenses anymore.

If somebody wants to now go into the business and have an ambulance service, they don't give them out anymore. You have to buy another business. They go for, like, a million dollars. So if you want to prove that there's a specific need that can't be fulfilled with the existing EMS that's in existence, you have to go and make a special application. And we did it. And then our own frot counterparts opposed us. And it was ironic. We had Italian women that were sitting there at the hearing with really religious Catholics. And they were saying, these women deserve to have their modesty. There's a need to preserve. And the men would say, they don't. Now, how can a man say what a woman feels?

[ALAN KADISH] I'm not going to answer that question.

[RACHEL FREIER] OK, fine.

[ALAN KADISH] Because I would never dare to. How large is Ezras Nashim now? How many women participate? How many ambulances are there? And how many calls do you get?

[RACHEL FREIER] So the interesting thing is that I had to limit myself to the Burrow Park branch, because we get so many calls. Help me start something in Toronto. Help me start something in the five towns. Help bring this to Rockland County. And I realized that I couldn't do that, because I had to take it, I had to create the prototype, and I had to Excel, and I had to learn so much. Aside from protocols and patient care, I had to learn about creating shifts. I had to learn about dealing with the fire department. I had to deal with-- there's so much that I had to learn, and how to create a dispatching system, how to work out mutual aid.

So right now, I would say we have about 50 members. We have many supporters. And we have people that are interested, but we're sticking to Burrow Park because we need to create it and be strong, really strong before we're going to let-- but I help other people who want to do something similar in other neighborhoods. But Ezras Nashim now has a wide, wide spread, a wide influence. But we're 50 members strong and we're sticking to our Burrow Park headquarters, our Burrow Park base, and we serve the surrounding areas. So we'll go into Flatbush, Bensonhurst. All the areas that are around Burrow Park, we help as well, whether it's Coney Island, the side of Ocean Parkway, but our base is Burrow Park.

And now we're starting also an ambulette division. So that's another whole business. And I say business, but I'm not making any money. I'm sure you understand. This is not profit. We do have employees, like we have to have. But it all goes back to Touro, because Touro gave me the opportunity to get that college degree and move on to law school. And I was able to do so much, so much more than I ever expected.

[ALAN KADISH] So you seem to have an amazing ability to compartmentalize what you're doing and focus on one area without letting other things interfere. So what advice would you have to our students and to young people about how to be able to do that more effectively?

[RACHEL FREIER] So first of all, I really thank HaShem. And I had [YIDDISH] and I also have a wonderful mother who lives around the corner. So I have to give credit to my mother, to my parents, and to God. And then once I take care of those important factors, I have a couple of tips to give people out there. First of all, believe in yourself. Don't listen to naysayers. Don't let them derail you. Don't let them stop you. Now, if you're a woman and you're running a house like I am, and you want to do things, get help in the house. You do need it. It's a must. It's not a luxury. It's a necessity. Get the help that you need so you can be a good mother, a good wife, and you could also be a great student, and a professional.

The next thing is, if you're going to school like I did while I was in the middle of raising my children, don't rush, unless there's some compelling reason, some time clock that's ticking that I don't know about that someone has. But I've seen people try to take things on an accelerated path, and I've seen them trip over their own two feet. I did my undergrad in six years. I loved every class. I enjoyed every semester. And it was a journey in and of itself. It wasn't just a means to an end. It was an end in and of itself, because I learned how to study. I learned how to appreciate education.

And for me, it was a privilege to be in college. So enjoy the experience and make the most of it, because you may find that you have other interests than you thought you had. All right? So the next thing is, you need the support of your family. And if it doesn't come right away, don't give up. Just show them that it's important to you. I'll tell you now that my husband is my biggest supporter. When I ran for public office, people made a big deal that I'm the first Hasidic woman that ran and became-- but he is the first Hasidic man who not only supported his wife and encouraged me to run. He financed my whole campaign. I maxed out all of his credit cards.

He ran to all the shuls, getting signatures for me. And I have to say that when I first started college, I don't know if it was so easy for him. People would stop and, what's your wife doing? Why do you let her? I would tell them, you think I asked him? What kind of question are you asking? So if you want to do something. I always said, I don't want my children to feel like I'm compromising them, or my husband to feel like he's not going to have supper.

So I have a 20 minute rule. If it takes more than 20 minutes to make dinner, it's not on the menu. Make easy meals. Make your housework as easy as possible. Spread it out, enjoy the process. And if people need to be encouraged to encourage you, give them time. They'll come around. My kids now are my biggest fans. They're amazing, and now I have my grandchildren, my next generation of fans.

[ALAN KADISH] That's phenomenal. I want to just tell you a brief story about another Touro graduate who exemplifies some of what you just said. Dr. Friedman, who graduated as the valedictorian of the Touro College of Osteopathic Medicine in Middletown last year, actually has a story that's just amazing as yours, even though that's almost impossible to believe. But she started medical school with six children, finished in four years with 10, and was valedictorian of her class. But the reason I'm telling you this story is not to talk about her so much, but your point about making sure you have the support of a family.

The school there actually has an award for the most supportive spouse, significant other of a student, because medical school is hard, and it recognizes how important the family relationships that you emphasized were. And so her husband actually won the award for the most supportive spouse of the year. So you're absolutely right. It's important to make sure that you bring your family along.

I'm going to turn this over to Sam Levine in just a second, but I just want to say, it's been an absolute pleasure having you. I'm thrilled that you had such a good experience at Touro. And in our next 50 years, we're going to try to continue to make sure that for people who want to get a high quality college education in a friendly environment, that just as Judge Freier had a great experience, we're going to have another couple of 100,000 who have a similar experience.

[RACHEL FREIER] That's HaShem. Yes, you have the next generation of Freiers. My girls are in college. One graduated already.

[ALAN KADISH] We're looking for the following generation too.

[RACHEL FREIER] Thank you.

[ALAN KADISH] I'm going to turn this over to Sam Levine, who directs the Touro Jewish Law Institute, Professor of Law at the Fuchsberg Law Center. And he'll, I'm sure, have some of his own thoughts, but also triage questions from the audience. And Sam, you've got about 15 minutes because we've done a lot of talking. And thanks again for joining us, and thanks for making this happen.

[DESCRIPTION] Sam Levine joins.

[SAM LEVINE] Thank you, Dr. Kadish. And as always, I want to take this opportunity to thank you for your continued leadership of the Touro College and University system. Judge Freier, thank you. It's such a pleasure to have you with us this evening. And in my capacity as Director of the Jewish Law Institute at Touro Law, I want to thank you for continuing this tradition we have. For about 12 years now, we've had a distinguished lecturer, and you, of course, are this year's distinguished lecturer, following in the path of so many prominent judges, lawyers, rabbis, professors, other communal leaders like yourself.

And it's particularly wonderful for us to be able to have such a prominent graduate of Touro, a Touro alum, one of our most illustrious alums, as Dr. Kadish mentioned. So thank you so much for joining us. In my capacity as the Director of the Jewish Law Institute, I also want to thank you for your service on the Jewish Law Institute advisory board, along with a number of other prominent judges and lawyers from across the United States. In my capacity as a Professor of Law at Touro, as Dr. Kadish mentioned, I want to thank you for serving as an inspiration for our students.

I've been watching the questions as they're coming in from our audience, and a number of the participants, a number of the viewers have mentioned how much of an inspiration you've been for women and for everyone who's trying to follow a similar path. And on that note, Touro Law School does have a number of students who follow what we might consider to be a non-traditional, less common paths toward law school. Not that many Hasidic students, but many students like yourself who may be the first in their family to attend college, certainly to attend law school.

Many of our students have family, as you described your own experiences, and wonder if you have anything more to say to our students, any more advice you have, both for law school itself and toward their career aspirations.

[RACHEL FREIER] Yeah. So don't think that every step of the way was easy for me. Don't think I passed every exam. Don't think there wasn't failure along my journey. And embrace it. If something goes wrong, doesn't turn out the way you thought it would be, you didn't get the grade you thought you would get, just pick yourself up and learn from the experience. It'll make you stronger, and you'll look back and you'll say, wow, I learned so much from that failure, because failing is part of the human experience. You look at people and you say, oh, wow, they're so successful. It must have been easy for them.

It wasn't easy for me, and I'm so happy to be able to inspire other people because everyone should feel that they can do it. I always like to quote Pirkei Avos because it all goes back to Prikei Avos, right? So it says, [YIDDISH]. You don't have to finish the task, but you're not absolved from at least trying. If you want to do something, don't worry about finishing. Just start it and go for it. And I also like to always share the famous Hasidic story of Reb Zusha. Reb Zusha was on his deathbed. He lived in the 1700s from Zisheb, Annopol, and he's crying.

And his students, his talmidim are saying, rabbi, you're such a sadic, you're going to go straight to Eden. Why are you crying? And he says, I'm not crying because they're going to ask me up in heaven, Zusha, why Weren't you like Moses, like Moshe Rabbeinu. I'm not crying because they're gonna ask me, Zusha, why weren't you like King David, David Hamelech? I'm crying because they're going to ask me, Zusha, why weren't you like Zusha could have been?

We don't know what we're capable of doing. I had no idea when I started Torou if I would graduate, if I would get to law school. I had no idea. But I said, I have to try. I don't want to be a grandmother years from now and say, oh, Bubby could have done it, but she just didn't. And it was really Torou and Dean Goldschmidt who made me feel at that very beginning, that first semester, I felt like this is a journey I think I can navigate, and I knew it was going to be a 10 year journey. I knew it was going to take me 10 years and I wasn't rushing, and my friends were laughing. They said, Ruchie, it's going to take you 10 years because I shared it with my close friends. We'll be 40 by then.

And guess what happened. 10 years later, we all turned 40, and I was a lawyer. So you can do what you can-- pursue your dreams. And I also find that in Touro, there are so many professors that you could reach out to. I was close with a number of them, and it really helped me. It helped me so much get through. And like I said, Touro was that transition for me. So make the most of your years at Touro, is the best advice I can give you.

[SAM LEVINE] I think that's great advice. Thank you. And at Touro Law School, we do take pride in being student-centered, and allowing students that access and support among the faculty. So I'd certainly encourage my own students to follow. And I do encourage my own students to follow that advice. How about your thoughts on some of our students who have aspirations toward becoming a judge. We do have a number of alumni who joined the judiciary. And are there any suggestions you have for someone who's thinking about that direction?

[RACHEL FREIER] Sure. So I was very lucky. My uncle of blessed memory, Alav ha-shalom, was a judge for many years. And he was my mentor. When I started college, he was my mentor. And when I got through law school, I would sit and observe him on the bench. And I told him years ago, Dubi, I want to be a judge just like you. And then when he retired, he said to me, Ruchie I'm retiring now. If you still want to be a judge, you have to run for my original seat. So I became a judge by running an election. But there's other ways to become a judge as well. You could be appointed.

So for certain positions, it's an appointment. For certain positions, it's an election. If you're interested in becoming a judge, look into the different opportunities, and then see which would work best for you. And then the ones that get appointed could be working, having done work either with the DA, or with the prosecutor's office. So there are many different ways of becoming involved in politics to get onto the bench.

[SAM LEVINE] Thank you. Some of our viewers are curious about your clerks. Do you hire clerks, and what do you look for in a law clerk?

[RACHEL FREIER] Yeah, so I am very lucky. I have a young woman who is my law clerk. She came at the second-- the first year. It was the end of the first year that I was on the bench. And so I wasn't looking for a very long time. I found one, and you basically-- and she came recommended to me by a different judge who interviewed her and said, Ruchie, she's a perfect fit for you. So basically, there you have to be an attorney to be a law clerk. And sometimes we find out from our colleagues someone that could be qualified, or you just advertise yourself when you're looking and then whatever your qualifications are is what you look for. But you want someone who writes well.

And being a law clerk means you need to really know what your judge needs and just prepare the judge, because if I wouldn't have my amazing law clerk-- her name is Aviva Love-- if I wouldn't have her, I wouldn't be able to keep it all together, because you're running to this courtroom, or you're running here, or you have motions, you have cases. And the law clerk is really the one who keeps you organized. So it's a good-- that is another way as well to go and become a judge, because my uncle, he had been a law clerk, and that's how he became a judge. So that could also be a pathway for some people to become a judge.

[SAM LEVINE] That's terrific. And I think your story about the interview also proves your point that you never know. You can interview with one judge, and someone else hears about you, and they decide to hire you. I think we have time for one more question, and a number of our viewers are very curious if you could say just a bit more. I know you can't comment on any particular cases. But is there anything about your religious tradition that you think makes a difference in the day to day work of judging?

[RACHEL FREIER] So I'll give you an example of what it was like in my first two years on the bench doing arraignments in Brooklyn Criminal Court. And this is pre-COVID, when the courthouse was busy, when the police were coming in, people being arrested continuously, and I was doing arraignments. I had the night shift till 1:00 o'clock in the morning. And most of the young defendants coming in were from the inner city, the slum neighborhoods, the very poor neighborhoods. They were recidivists. Their rap sheet could be like a textbook. They could have been 16 years old and arrested for so many times, again, and again, and again. And for me, it was a real eye opener for me to see this.

And I had counseled Hasidic kids at risk. And when I looked at these young defendants, I saw the same pain in their eyes that I saw in the pain in the eyes of the young Hasidic boys that I would counsel. And in a matter of-- it didn't even take a long time at all for me to suddenly zero in that these young defendants are going through a very similar trauma. Different circumstances, but it's trauma. Like when I was counseling the boys, I would say, they're not bad boys. They're making bad choices because they've been through trauma.

And suddenly, I found myself talking to these young defendants and telling them, you have to believe in yourself. You have to make a change. You can't control your past, but you can control your future and all the concepts of chuva and belief, all those are in the back of my mind. And here I am doing arraignments, telling them. And then I would have these young men cry. They would say, your honor, no one ever spoke to us like that before. And then the prosecutor would say, hey, but, your honor, what about the victim? What about those injuries? We have photos. I'm sure you don't want to see those pictures. And I would say, I'm a paramedic. I want to see those photos. Let me see those injuries.

So there's an expression in Yiddish, [YIDDISH]. When you do a mitzvah and help somebody else, you're going to find out one day you actually helped yourself. So my two mitzvah projects, my kids at risk and my EMS project, is what helped me during those first two years on the Criminal Court bench, which was very challenging for a Hasidic woman. But all those values is what kept me grounded and helped me sit here while I was listening to these horrible cases and horrible crimes.

And we're talking about Brooklyn Criminal Court. You had murder cases. You had rape. And then I would look at these people and I would say, look at me. Look at where you are today. How did you get here? And I felt that it was-- you have such opportunities to really impact people's lives in a positive way when you have the education that we have from our community.

[SAM LEVINE] Thank you. Well, speaking for myself as a former prosecutor in Brooklyn and as a professor of criminal law, and speaking for my students for the law school and for all the audience, and for the Jewish audience, too, we find that very inspiring.

[RACHEL FREIER] Thank you all for making Touro, and for Touro being there for me when I was ready to go to college. I couldn't have achieved what I did. And I thank HaShem, and I thank Touro. And continue. Huzzah. Continue doing your amazing job.

[ALAN KADISH] Thank you so much. Have a great night, everyone.

[RACHEL FREIER] Good night.

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[TEXT] Touro Talks, Touro University, touro.edu/tourotalks

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