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The Most Difficult Question to Answer
A visiting rabbi tackles the subject of the Holocaust
By Laura Bernell
It could be said that Rabbi Yakov Deyo's path to Judaism was a stormy one.
The 37-year-old rabbi--who will be visiting the South Bay from Los Angeles to lead a seminar this Sunday--grew up in what he calls a very secular home near Boston, where he worked summer jobs helping to build boats.
"I had basically given up on religion in college, and I took the third year off, and helped build a boat," he says. To deliver the boat, a 60-foot yacht, he sailed to Dubai in the Persian Gulf.
"And on the way over," the rabbi continues, "there was a really big storm, and I came to a realization during the storm that there was a God. I figured the storm and I could be there, together, by chance. But my relationship with the storm, which was one of awe and beauty and love and respect and fright--that relationship could not be a product of chance. That seemed too difficult to construct by a chance-driven mechanism in the world."
The Force-9 gale kept the crew strapped in their bunks for 36 hours. "We were surfing down waves and crashing at bottom, so there was a huge danger that the boat would tip over," he says. "It could flip over very quickly, so we put out a sea anchor, to anchor the boat in the water, and strapped ourselves in, for a couple days."
Rabbi Deyo retells his dramatic ordeal with earthy humor: "I threw up everything I ever ate," he recalls. "It was not the ideal epiphany. But the way anyone arrives at their faith can't be scripted, and is always very personal."
Rabbi Deyo became ordained an Orthodox rabbi at the Aish HaTorah study center in Jerusalem. Today he is still affiliated with Aish HaTorah, a worldwide outreach group for Jewish education that has 25 branches around the world--including Russia, South America, England and South Africa. Aish HaTorah means "fire of Torah," so called because of the belief that there is a "spark of the Divine in all of us."
On Sunday, Feb. 13, the boat-builder-turned-rabbi will lead an interactive seminar about the Holocaust, entitled "Why the Jews?"
"We've had some time now to process that the Holocaust happened, what happened, and it is a collective trauma," says Rabbi Deyo. "Now we can begin the process of coming to some kind of viable relationship with that event. Why did it happen? Why did it happen to the Jewish people? How does it change us, what does it create in us? How are we to stand in the face of this event?"
The rhetorical question of the lecture's title covers a lot of territory--both geographical and internal. "It's a hugely frightening question," says the rabbi, who studied economics and international relations at Harvard. "I want to be sure many different perspectives get brought to the question: historical, political, literary. We're going to try to talk about the issue. The end result is one in which people feel something cathartic."
Besides examining anti-Semitism and the Holocaust, the seminar showcases contributions Jews have made to civilization. Rabbi Deyo has given the two-hour seminar more than 20 times, in locations from Las Vegas to Jerusalem.
The program is sponsored by Willow Glen synagogue Ahavas Torah (Love of Torah), as part of its Jewish Studies Program of the South Bay, headed by Rabbi Zvie Goldberg. "We're bringing Aish HaTorah here because they'll do a good job," Rabbi Goldberg says. "They'll put on a good presentation. Our educational center is trying to help principally Jews learn more about their heritage so they can make choices about it."
"Our lay leaders and rabbis are always on planes giving seminars," Rabbi Deyo says. "The rabbis are Orthodox, the people who come are not." Ninety percent of Aish HaTorah's supporters are nonobservant Jews. "Our goal is not everyone should be observant. We're into helping facilitate someone's greater Jewish awareness," Rabbi Deyo explains.
The 'Why the Jews?' seminar costs $12.50 and will be held at the Campbell Community Center at the corner of Winchester Boulevard and Campbell Avenue on Sunday, Feb. 13, at 6:45 p.m. For tickets and more information, call 266-2342.
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Willow Glen, California Since 1992
