Jew in Alaska | Official Documentary | Oorah

[Music] people have always asked me like how some like roughneck country boy from western massachusetts turned from and it's kind of a it's kind of a crazy journey i mean it's still ongoing for sure [Music] both sets of great great grandparents on my mother's side fled uh the holocaust um from southern poland they were from the same town in southern poland they both settled in brooklyn and my great-grandparents even though they were from the same town in poland had never met until they came to brooklyn so they met in brooklyn they were married very young and then they made the trek to pittsfield massachusetts my great-grandfather was an engineer for general electric and my great-grandmother was a nurse um and they ended up having seven beautiful children of their own and so that's how my maternal grandfather was born he went on to marry i don't know much about the origins all i know is that it was unacceptable by my great-grandparents for their children to marry anybody except the jew my grandfather my grandmother had my biological mother and then i showed up i have an older brother who is 29 my older sister is 28 and the baby i am 27. when i was young about a year old my parents they decided they couldn't take care of me so i was i was basically placed on the doorstep of my grandparents house in a basket with a bottle full of coca-cola and uh my grandparents being older at that age it was yeah being older at that age decided they couldn't also couldn't take care of me you know and so they reached out to family and my great aunt was an amazing woman said you know i'll take on the burden i'll take this from here and so she carried the torch and uh so i've lived with my great aunt i call her mom ever since i was 16 months old and she went on to meet my great uncle uh they got married after you know i i was already in the picture and so she was a single mom for a while but um she met my great uncle and he is the guy i called dad now so that's kind of really where the origins began i grew up on the outskirts of a rural community um i grew up hunting and fishing and driving trucks and running around in the woods and playing like bad guys and cops and robbers and army dudes and uh you know we didn't really have much money uh we come from pretty humble humble beginnings my mom raised me to be like a housewife but my dad taught me to be like a manly man right like you work you know you fix cars you mow the lawn you fix with everything anything that's broken you know i've been hunting since i was probably six or seven years old took me fishing a lot of my friday nights growing up like were in like corn fields with like trucks and bonfires and then as i got older i started to question you know like the bigger things in life you know like when somebody gets older seven eight years old they start to get um a sense of who they are and they start to question the bigger things and i think this time for me was really like when i was about seven or eight i remember going to school and people were talking about doing all these things at church and there it's like they're like getting super excited and i went home and i asked my mom like what are we you know like am i supposed to be doing these things that kids at school are doing and she said look you know i'm jewish your dad's catholic and you have the ability to choose like you can do whatever you want you want to go to church go to church you want to go to a temple we'll go to temple she gave me the opportunity and in my formative mind i was thinking like well if i choose to be jewish like we'll probably still celebrate christmas but i'll get more gifts so we at least we should be jewish um so at that point like my decision to be jewish was solely based on how many presents i would get [Music] i was very active in sports i was big into soccer ski racing and rugby i ended up playing on like the national international levels for those sports but it wasn't all you know hot apple cider and pumpkin patches i mean there was also it was difficult times you know i didn't grow up with too many friends my backyard was 450 acres of like a mountain and my front yard was a dirt road and beyond that was a cow pasture and another 450 acres so i kind of really had to learn how to be okay like being by myself and that was tough because like at this point my parents made it pretty clear that i had a brother and a sister that like my other parents elected to keep so a big thing of mine was always accepting or trying kind of to reconcile the fact that like i felt rejected um and that was tough especially when you the only friend you have are the cows that you run away from or like you know the sheep that you chase i spent a lot of time in my own mind and i think that's really what forced me to ask these difficult questions like ask the questions about who i am and what i do and what i want and my place on this earth i give credit to my parents they have been the hardest working people i know i mean working 60 70 hour weeks just to put a roof over my head and um clothes on my back and food in my belly so um but it was tough growing up because like if i wanted something i had to earn it right so like i started walking dogs when i was eight years old and when i was nine-year-old nine years old i used to i used to go around i used to weed whack some of my neighbors some of my neighbors uh lawns i remember i bought my first dirt bike when i was 12 years old and i worked for like two summers and then i remember i bought my first car when i was 15. i didn't have a license i didn't even have a permit but i had worked so hard and i was like i was like okay well i'm gonna have this set together and i'll never forget the day i turned i think it's 16 or 16 and a half the day i turned 16 and a half i think you're allowed to have your license i remember on that birthday i went i took my license test i came back and i like my car was registered and shared everything and i like the day that i was legally allowed to get my license and drive a car by myself i did um and so my parents never allowed me to be comfortable like having things afforded to me right like if i wanted something i had to earn it i had no choice they didn't have the money to do it so the hardships i endured um combined with like the isolation and like not going out with too many kids around and force like having to be alone really forced myself to like create this like warrior mentality right because like some people can get lost in their own mind and especially like growing up with the hardships that i did it's very easy to feel sorry for yourself and i was unwilling to at any point feel sorry for myself um you know like like pulling yourself up by the bootstraps is really kind of just a mantra of mine because at the end of the day like you can have people who love and care about you but you really the only person that you can really rely on fully 100 as you is yourself um yeah [Music] people have always asked me like how some like roughneck country boy from western massachusetts turned from and it's kind of a it's kind of a crazy journey i mean it's still ongoing for sure when i got to high school i got to the point where i really started questioning who i was like like the deeper things like i knew there was a god i knew that you know i had jewish origins i knew my mother was jewish but i didn't really know what that meant and so like i'm the type of guy that doesn't like to not know so i went and i had my mom drive me to a reformed temple in town in pittsfield and i walked in and said i want to be part of your temple i want to learn more about judaism i went and i joined this reform temple for the four years that i was in high school i was in a jewish youth group a reforming jewish youth group it really only got my feet wet and it gave me just like the slightest taste of judaism but it didn't answer the big questions so after high school i ended up going to college in boston and i remember this guy this guy alex friedman who's still a good friend of mine today was like uh hey man you gotta come to this to this rabbis house on friday right and i mean this is my third week of college i'm like i'm this like homegrown country boy like i show up to campus with a truck like this old beat up truck and like like i'm finally out of my small podunk town and i'm like go to a rabbi's house like i just wanna i'm gonna party man like i wanna live college right and uh he was like yeah but there's free food and i was like what like okay uh so you know a college student i was like okay free food so um friday night i meet up with that with uh the following week i meet up with alex um at this bus stop we take this bus to uh uh this rabbi who ended up being my rabbit for college uh rabbi kanana wiener he uh he runs age campus boston and he was like um you know i walked up to his house i think i think i was wearing i think i was wearing a if i were correctly khaki pants and a red polo that had a marine corps symbol on it uh i could be wrong but i'm pretty sure that's what i was wearing and i remember i like walked up to his house and i like shook his hand i was like hey you know great to meet you thanks for having me and then like there's this awkward moment where like i want to go shake his wife's hand and it was kind of like dude don't touch my wife you know like uh i don't i don't he didn't actually say uh i don't think that was verbatim what he said but that was the gist so this was really my first shabbos right like my first genuine shabbos like he was like yeah no phone to the table and i was like oh dude this is this is not cool right and that was really that shabbos right there was really the turning point like i i went to that shop as i never turned back 2014 i went to yeshiva for the first time i spent about three months in asia torah studying just like uh just the basics like really getting my feet wet you know what i mean like i i'd spent you know about a year of spending shabbos with the with rabbi weiner but i mean i wasn't keeping kosher at all like i wasn't keeping showers it wasn't keeping kosher i was like really i was like super belchuva and so i spent 2014 i spent my first summer in israel um it was an incredible opportunity 2016 i went again for a summer spent another another summer at ace but still up until this point i still wasn't really on the path like i was walking around the rover in jerusalem with like my big high high ankled uh chippewas i wore like cargo shorts my a pie jersey and like an american flag like cowboy hat and i like would wrap like an israeli flag around me right like that's how i walked around jerusalem like you know sometimes i would rock that sits it sometimes i wouldn't but i was just i had no idea what any of that stuff even was it's so bad to say it now but like when i would when i would get back from israel the first thing i would do i would go to wendy's and i'd get a bacon cheeseburger like i was so i was still at this point i was like i was coaching was not a thing um keeping shabbos was nothing when i was there it was like kind of i was like okay this is cool but going back to the states i was like um so then i ended up i ended up going back to the states i finished college in and in 2017 when i graduated i started the workforce i stayed in boston um i ended up having some odd jobs and i ended up working at some point working at this like financial consulting firm i'll never forget my rabbi rabbi weiner said look i love you you're still my bro you're always welcome here but i do undergrads i need to put you in touch with someone who does post grad so i ended up learning um under two rabbis or my jp cats and rabbi yitzhak greenblatt this was really where my journey started to pick up right so learning under rabbi greenblatt was amazing every week wednesday i would go and we would just study anything that we wanted to right they gave classes shears and thursdays was gemara with the boys at some point during like middle to end of 2018 um rabbi greenblatt asked me what are you doing this weekend and i was like i don't know probably going to the football game and he was like you should come to the shabbaton i was like what's that and he's like it's where you hang out with a bunch of jews for the weekend and i was like awesome where is it and he was like it's at this place called lakewood and i was like ooh what's that he was like you'll love it i remember i got off work like early on that friday and i drove down to lakewood and i'll never forget i got there like right as shabbos was starting like i got there like minutes before right i didn't have much time all i knew was i had this address i had to go chop my bags off and then there was the shul that i get i had the name of the shule so i drive down to lakewood and i'm like i noticed like like we're not in kansas anymore like this place is jewish right um so i remember i showed up and every house was just so nice so i remember i showed up to my host family's house i dropped my uh my luggage off parked the car and i was like hey where's the shule and they're like i'll just go up two streets and take a left don't go into this shoe or the shoe because there's like 40 shoes and like a two block radius is crazy so i remember it was pouring rain out all i had was my suit because when i left boston it was sunny but it was pouring right now and i remember that i was like well i don't want to get wet and be soaked while i pray i was like oh i have an umbrella so i remember i grabbed this umbrella out of my car and i'm just walking through the streets of lakewood chavez has already come and i'm seeing like little women and children and babies like tough through this rain without an umbrella they just got there this was the first time also i saw one of those you know how they make those those rain jackets that go over your black hat this is i was like what's up with these hoods right so i remember i was walking through the streets and these kids are just toughing it out these women are just toughing it out and i was like i'm not something's not right right so i was just i was just getting into the shoe i was like literally like maybe 100 yards from the shule i remember and i'm like i'm getting all these weird looks i remember i like collapsed the umbrella i wrapped it up and i just chucked it into the woods and i was like i'll come get you later don't worry um and this is where the shabbaton started and i remember i this shabbaton like i think honestly was the point where it changed my life and it kind of determined um the path i wanted to take in judaism so get there friday night we have an incredible incredible uh you know dominating service and incredible mayor of incredible kabbalah shabbat and uh we go to our host uh we went to i remember i ate by a family by the name of gaunter i keep it going to her i.e and mr gaunter asked me to share my story up until that point um and i basically came and said hey you know i just graduated college i'm working in finance and i'm currently enlisting in the military um so yeah so um whatever i told the story i had a great shabbat meal beautiful home beautiful family wake up the next morning and i remember we were doing uh shockers and we went to this giant shule and the show had like three or four hundred people in there and i remember sitting up towards the front and there was this big rabbi i think his name was rabbi simcla cohen i could be wrong but that's what comes to memory um and this rabbi called me up on stage he called me and this other this like um moroccan guy up up the stage right so he's got two brown jews up there um which was hilarious and he was like i remember he was like holding my back support my back so i remember he's like rocking and we're supporting him and he's like we're just like swaying with him and he's like giving him a sheer estevar torah right and then he at some point stops swinging he looks at me and he was like what's your name and i was like i'm yaakov and he was like we which he asked me a couple questions and i gave some answers and then he was like so you're gonna go to yeshiva israel very soon right and i was like yeah of course because i'm like on this like spiritual high like i'm vibing right and then like after he turns to the other kid and starts asking him the same questions i was like oh dude like i just promised this rabbi in front of 400 witnesses that i'm going to go to yeshiva in israel like i was like how am i going to do this right then moshi shabbas comes right and we go to this i think they call it the doctor's office but we go to this guy who's this like legendary dude um owned a pharmaceutical company sold it has this massive house and has a shul in his basement so we go to this guy's place absolute rock star and smoky shabbos they got this is the first time i saw kosher pigs in a blanket mind-blowing um so i go there i remember we're like dancing it's crazy and i get a tap on my shoulder and i turn around it's my rabbi and it's akiba ganter and akiva has in his hand a pair of to fill in and he was like yaakov like i want i want this is for you he was like this guy was amazing he was like i ran to the shopkeeper's shop i begged him to open this even though it's not not supposed to be on mochi chavez he opened it he let me buy this this is for you you need to rap every day right you have to promise me you're gonna rap every day and i was like roger that you know what i mean so that was crazy i get my first period to fill in i'm on the spiritual high sunday comes sunday was we got up dave and prayed we walked down like a little bit and we took a tour of bmg um then we then we we spoke with the usher shiva bmg and or one of the head rabbis at vmg and i remember we got a private conference with him right and i ended up sitting right next to him we took this photo at the end and like in the photo it's me like with my arm around this big rabbi right like ah you know like being crazy anyways long story short that picture ended up on like the front page of like the liquid times like that following week or whatever the whatever the newspaper is right i don't know what it's called but i remember i got so many pictures from like my host family like you're on the newspaper it's crazy crazy so that happened and then i remember we had this final luncheon with this really nice family beautiful home again and at this um at this luncheon i remember towards the very end uh this so this big rabbi now look at this guy was not frail but a skinny guy with you know the black hat looked like your typical rabbi long white beard but he had the most pronounced deep voice i've ever heard like if this guy wanted to be a country singer i'd i would compare him to josh turner right this guy has a crazy deep voice and he he gives this anomaly about baseball right he gives us anomaly about baseball and then he gives this speech about how he was on a plane he was trying to get to the back to davin or something like that and um he was going against the flow and this flight attendant was like sure you're going against the flow and he said lady that's the story of my life right and he he compared it to being like a salmon swimming upstream this guy ended up being rubbed out to schiller he's the uh rosh yeshiva of osamayak and you shalom and at the very end i i remember seeing people getting in line to like talk to this guy and i go up to my rabbi and i was like what uh what are they doing with this like why are they talking this guy like is he famous and they were like my rabbi was like no they're getting brachas and i was like what's a baraka and he's like you just go stand in line and ask him for a broccoli right so i go it's finally my turn i was like hey rabbi i have a bracha and he was like he was like you should have you know you should be zoicker to come to israel and study it or samayak and he gave like you know and uh and uh i think that's what he said um anyways long story short i don't know verbatim but i know what he basically said was you should come to israel you should come study or smack and that was my broccoli right and i go back to rabbi greenblatt and i was like how was it i was like i think you just tried to recruit me right so um what kind of what so anyways long story short so we so we're driving back to to boston i remember i got the boss at like 9 30 10 o'clock at night called rabbi greenblatt as a rabbi i want you to pick me up for the early shockers tomorrow i want to go dave and i want to go out to fill in he's like you know take it soon you don't have to do this every day i go i don't care when i do it tomorrow so i ended up doing that for five seven weeks maybe so came around hanukkah time and uh i remember so i would have to draw i'd get picked up i'd go dobbing by the boston rabbit shul and brookline and then i would take an hour t ride to work and i remember i showed up to work like three minutes late and i walk into the firm and i get dragged into this office with like the head guy of the firm and this guy from hr and they're like why were you late and i was like i was praying and they're like well we pray we're never late i was like really you're jewish and they're like no and i was like well this doesn't add up so and they were like long story short they had this like intense discussion with me and they're like look either you find a different time to pray or like you find a different job right so i sat and i thought and i was like [Music] you know thanks for the opportunity for let me work here it's been great and we parted ways and i was like you know we're out this was kind of everything started coming together i remember because i was doing i was doing the enlistment process and they were trying to get me like a boot camp and the apartment i was staying in like they were doing like a bunch of stuff they weren't supposed to be doing you know they were like smoking a lot of weed and they were just doing all this stuff that could endanger my ability to enlist and so i really was uncomfortable my roommates were pretty hostile they didn't they weren't respectful of my religious beliefs i was like i don't want to stay here i'm going to go home um so i went home and i didn't have i didn't have the hospital to tell my parents that i lost my job so i remember went home they're like why are you home and i was like oh my job gave me time off for hanukkah can you believe it it's so great so i remember i called my landlord and i said look at there's all these like all these things that are breaking the lease the roommates are hostile this and that i need to get out i'm gonna find you a bunch of sublets so i remember i brought this person like eight or nine sublets and at the end of the day they were like we're not gonna let you sublet and finally they're like if you leave like will come after you in some way shape or form whether it's legal or whatever like and in my mind i'm like i gotta leave so i i remember i was just like hey thanks for the opportunity thanks for letting me live here yeah so then i i went back i grabbed all my stuff in my apartment i came back home and my parents like i left i remember i left all my stuff in my truck because i didn't want parents to know and i would sneak it in as they were in bed i remember i called my rabbi i said rabbi i have no apartment i have no job i can't continue lying to my parents what can i do and he was like no way yaakov that's crazy that's awesome right he's like that's awesome good news i was like what i was like i just told you like my life's falling apart and you're like oh it's great he was like we have this uh this trip coming up to israel in like a week all right i'll get you a ticket it's like for three weeks you're gonna love it right and i was like okay so i remember he like booked me a ticket that day and i might i was leaving like three days and i remember like just before christmas and i told my parents i was like hey um i'm going to israel to like what about your job like what are you going to do i was like i'm going to go do some postgraduate studies you know i tried to like really fluff it up and they're like what do you mean what are you studying i was like i want to be studying the torah right jewish stuff and they were like i'll never forget my mom cried my dad was like you're ruining your life this is unacceptable like because at this point i was the first person in my family to graduate high school i was my first person in my family to graduate college right i had a real i still do but i had at that point i had a bright future and i still you know thank god i still do um and god willing it should continue to be bright but they're like you're throwing away your future all of this my dad was like if you do this like you're not welcome back in my house right and i was like alright well thanks for the opportunity thanks for being my parents thanks for putting a roof over my head and like clothes on my back for the last 18 years i have to do this [Music] so i left and that was one of the hardest things i had to do was watching my because the thing is like it was right before christmas that's a big family time for us my parents i'm all they have we don't really have a lot of whole family a whole lot of family out there so leaving them on what's supposed to be one of our biggest family holidays was tough i remember my mom cried and my dad was upset you know but i commend them for for giving me that push because had they not given me that ultimatum maybe i wouldn't have been so certain as to this is what i want yeah so uh so then i went and i hopped on a plane and you know the next day i was in eritrea ended up being a three-week trip uh to osamayak it was like they called it the mentors mission and we basically it was like a bunch of yeshiva guys they got hooked up with um a mentor who was like this crazy successful jewish businessman so it was great we got to explore eric israel we studied at the yeshiva and i was like you know what i'm not leaving three weeks ended up turning into like six months and at this point i had been attempting to you know keep shabbos keep kosher i spent about six months there i made some of the best friends i could have ever asked for i really learned a lot i learned how to daven i learned a lot about myself and i remember i was at this point i was studying [Music] every mo every mosty shabbos um there was another yeshiva right next to ours that uh did it was called chill zone and we would go and we would we would learn torah uh mostly shops instead of like going to the bars or doing whatever you could come to this place you could get free pizza free french fries like great food um some beers some cayennes whatever but before you had you had to study you had to study an hour of whatever you wanted to study whatever you want to study so i got hooked up with a tour mate i never forget i met this guy named moshe wagner um aka moyo and this guy was an absolute stallion and he was like you're from boston i'm from boston in boston there's this boys high school yeshiva there i used to park my truck off campus so i'd walk by this yeshiva and there's like these little like these little lids like high school kids out there like playing basketball like shouting like crazy things at me i remember i didn't have to keep on i know i keep in my back pocket and i remember i i stopped i turned and i pulled the keep up and i put it on my head and i was like bros i'm one of you right like what that's crazy and so like that after i would walk by ever again they were like they would like be like yaakov like come play basketball you know so um so that was crazy but anyways moyo ended up he studied at that yeshiva and we made that connection right so he became a very close friend of mine i remember um moyo was like we're doing a shopatoma at the dead sea like come like it's i was like who's hosting it he was like oh this organization called uro i'll never forget i went there i had an amazing time i met some incredible incredible people [Music] in may i came back from um israel at that point i had already had orders to boot camp i had already had a ship day everything was great it was was in line i remember that i got a text from moyo saying hey man you should come to the zone for for uh for shibuyas and i was like what's the zone and he was like oh it's this crazy awesome like getaway where we hold like all the um tobin and shibasum and all this stuff he was like where are you from i was like western massachusetts he was like oh it's like only an hour and a half from there i was like no way long story short it's in this little podunk town that's like just as podunk as mine maybe a little bit more and he's like you gotta come so my first ever like i mean i had i had chill zone in uber exposure in israel but this was like my first stateside um i remember i went to shibuya i'll never forget i showed up and like i showed up in like boot cut jeans a pair of cowboy boots like a white v-neck and a straw cowboy hat right and like everybody was like who's doing the cowboy hat and so i spent some voice there i'll never forget um this is crazy i'll never forget i went there and at some point they asked me that we had an incredible incredible time there at one point they asked me to get up on stage and say something i went and they were like they were like tell us about yaakov cruz and i told a similar story to what i've told you this far minus a lot of like the extra details but i was like this is where i'm at this is what i'm doing i'm just i'm about to enlist in the military and this is where i'm holding and this is why i'm doing it so up until this point like i was the first guy to graduate high school first got to graduate college first guy now to serve in the military in my family um and i'll never forget it was like 700 people maybe 600 this giant giant ball grand hall just like erupted and like gave me a standing ovation when i told my story and that was crazy that was mesmerizing so i came into uh uh pretty late in the game and the group that they put me in was do you discover you and it was a bunch of guys my age or within my age range single guys that a manly single guys um that we're just looking to continue to grow um and it was there's never any judgment there's always only praise and encouragement and eu really stands out because i know like at the end of the day like those are the boys you know like those like like this like shabbos is for the boys you know i mean when you have a chalice with du it's crazy um it's just honestly it's that right fit right because like everybody everybody in du is at a similar place in life um and you're able to bounce off ideas and and um ideas and struggles and you know accomplishments and it's so crazy because like anyone into you you can find you'll be like dude i'm going through this they're like dude i'm going through that right and so it's it's it's crazy to have a network of people that are so close and so personal that you can share your deepest darkest secrets and they're like dude i'm right there with you so i told my mom i said mom i'm not gonna i'm not gonna have my phone for shabbos i'll call you when it's over so in her mind i'm gonna call her sunday where the hog went until monday night so i didn't call saturday night i didn't call sunday i didn't call monday and then it's monday night i remember yeah israel calls me like dude you got to get down to the venetian i was like what do you mean i'm like i'm packing all my stuff he's like just get down here right i was like okay so i remember i ran down i'm sweating right there's like two state troopers there their lights are flashing they're asking everybody do you know this guy do you know this guy right finally just real like hesitantly was like uh dude like the cops are kind of looking for you um i show up they're like hey are you are you so-and-so cruise and i was like yeah that's me and they were like dude call your mom and i was like what and they're like yeah your mom like thinks you're missing they're like they're like i was like that is crazy i was like my mom sent you guys i was like how did i didn't even tell her where i was going she was like dude i don't know i was like this is a jewish mom i guess like somehow my mom figured out where i was and i think what had happened was she i told my friend i was going to stanford new york my friend had told my mom my mom called the state troopers and was like my my son's at this jewish camp in stanford new york and i don't know what happened and they're like ma'am like we know it's the only jewish it's the only camp in stanford new york like yeah we know we know this place very well um so that's how they found me and so all these people that just gave me this massive standing ovation thing i'm like this super inspirational dude now think i'm like this murderer like they have no idea i have no idea i'm just like this crazy crazy dude they're like what is going on like they see me getting questioned about it so that was like that was the end that whole experience was just crazy and that was really my first experience of ura um it was incredible i mean it hit out it hit all aspects i just left boot camp and i found out i was getting stationed in alaska and i remember i was driving this little black kia across the entire united states i was driving through the mountains of oregon on my way to seattle and it's like one in the morning for me it's like four in the morning east coast moshe wagner called me and was like hey brother just want to make sure you're okay i know you're driving and he spent an hour and a half on the phone with me while i drove through the dark mountains of oregon just to make sure i was okay and he reminded me like look man you're part of the uber family whatever you need we have your back no matter what and ever since then it's it's held it's rang true you know i've got so many friends and people who i consider family in this organization that you know people have said that i'm inspirational to them but they have no idea how much inspiration they give to me they have no idea how much fuel they give me um living where i live now and dealing with what i deal with now i find it it's hard to get out of bed sometimes you know because at some point sometimes it just feels like you're stuck or like it's hopeless like you're here you are this isolated jew who the only thing he wants is to go to a shul and dive in with a minion and find his basharat right and i can't i don't have access to any of that so ura is one of the amongst the other people that all the people i've mentioned before they're all positive influences in my life ura has stuck by me and and especially recently his son sent me whatever i need allows me to have kosher food and uh has my back um as a wise man that i i know once said that it's hard to feel lonely when you have a wolf vac a wolf pack behind you so i mean i feel like ura is that wolf pack that i need and uh i'm so grateful for all that they do um yeah i mean at this point in my life they are an incredible source of support so grateful for them [Music] so right now i've been in the coast guard for about two years i am an engineer on a ship [Music] i've had the opportunity to save a couple lives i've had the opportunity to bring closure to family when saving a life wasn't possible i get some cool side collateral jobs i get to like work a crane i get to sometimes like go on a little small boat um we get the opportunity to board boats i always knew from a young age i wanted to serve my country so the fact that i got the opportunity to serve was huge and i take it very seriously how do i deal with being the only jew for hundreds of miles it's crazy it's a special opportunity but it comes with a lot of responsibility you know there's not a single other person in this town that walk around with this or that walk around with this right so i have a reputation to uphold for the jewish people number one but number two like i'm not just wearing this for fun this isn't just a costume right when jews are fast asleep on the east coast after shabbos has already they've had their shabbos meal they're in bed um i still haven't lit my shabbos candles and i know that unless there's some like awesome crazy jew in like the north pole that in north america i'm the final one to to welcome the shadows and that's huge that's a big responsibility right i mean you're welcoming a queen and a queen uh a new bride it's incredible so yeah that helps keep me in a good mindset um practically it's tough you know people don't understand why i need separate pans that can't touch each other can't have certain things and then people don't understand why i need special sponges or special utensils and why i can't eat certain things and why milk and meat can't go together [Music] but honestly being in alaska has really forced me to become like my own little expert and by no means am i an expert right but if i can make this work in alaska like miami is going to be a cake log like boston is going to be a cape new york city is going to be a cakewalk rabbi rafi is like he's like the hidden partner he's like he's like the guy that [Music] he stays in the background but when you need him he shows up like batman almost right you send out the ralphie signal and this guy really like i reach out to him i check him sometimes there have been times where i haven't reached out to him for months and he'll just check in with me right i think one of the most inspirational things i got from rabbi rafi was this note i actually have two now because he sent me one this year but this note when i first got here i was a couple months in i said i needed a sidor and he sent me a sador and he said something like yaakov enjoy this sedur uh use it well and just remember that we're all part of hashem's army we're all part of hashem's army and no matter where yida is in the world he's a light unto those nations keep strong your friend rafi fruit something like that and uh even just like even just like thinking about it like you almost start to tear up because when i need inspiration it's so easy to just glance over and look at that like when i'm feeling down it's like yeah people love me and sometimes in positions like this it's hard to even sometimes like especially with things that i've gone through you question whether or not people love you right like people say they love you but they walk out people say they love you but they won't support you people say they love you but only when it's convenient with you so you start to question like you start to question your own existence at some point and to wake up as like a grown man and just feel like like do i belong here like do people love me like do i is this my place and then to be able to just look over and say we're all part of hashem's army you're light unto the nations keep strong we're here with you it's kind of like that solid silent affirmation like yeah let's take this let's turn this next page like let's say this next buffalo let's let's let's get up and let's do our next thing so [Music] when i first got here there was like no kosher food i went there's one supermarket in town and i went there and it's like do you guys have kosher food what's that all right and i was like i'd explain what kosher was which is weird um and so eventually i talked with the manager and eventually they got a small selection of kosher fruit so now they have like manuscripts wine and then they have managed to have it's mozzarella soup they have a couple other things that are kosher so my options are very limited i eat a lot of salmon um it's very easy to catch salmon here and i have my own tofu knife and i eat a lot of salmon because it's easy to catch easy to cook i eat a lot of vegetables um i eat a lot of uh cereal um oatmeal ate a lot of oatmeal [Music] but unless i get kosher meat shipped into me i i there was there's a time where i didn't eat kosher meat for like five months i gotta eat any meat for five months which is tough um yeah so that's kind of egg between learning the laws of crosstalk on my own having to ask other people certain things like torah mates it's this huge huge opportunity and really it's so simple to like to do my tour mate right now this royal title bomb shout out is become my best friend and he has also become a guide for me he's like my unofficial if i can't get in touch with the rabbi he's the guy i go to with a question and so they become more than just somebody you can study tour with they become somebody you can venture through life with i learned something new every day like i learned i learned that too long ago that if you have like parmesan cheese like it's accustomed to um it's a minhog i think is the cracker too i could be using that wrong i don't know but um to wait a few hours after eating like hard cheese right crazy i didn't know that but now when i go back home like if i go back to my parents house i have a set of kosher pans my mother's understanding um she's supportive when i go home she makes sure that my kosher pans are out my dad's still little gives a little push back because he's you know he's not jewish he doesn't understand but i don't hold it against him it's how any belcher um father would act if he wasn't familiar with this especially he didn't grow up around it they're becoming more accepting of it they realize that this is not just a phase they realize this isn't a joke this real life they realize that this is the life i want to live and it's tough i mean my dad and i like we hunt right so it was one of the hardest things we're telling him like hey like i can't eat the deer anymore because i put it's kosher i was like i know but we didn't like ritualistically slaughter it and he was like what and i was like yeah i was like look i'm gonna shoot all the deer that i'm legally allowed to and you're more than welcome because he like hoards his dear me he'll keep it for like two or three years and he'll be like oh i can't eat it i don't know i'll shoot a deer next year right and then it gets freezer burn and i'm like dude you're eating freezer venison uh so now it's like good for him because i can shoot whatever deer i shoot he knows i'm not gonna eat it right um so they're becoming more accepting definitely i think in time they'll really my goal is to i'd like to bring my mother to eric cicero god willing uh bizarre out of some of the future she'll go they realized that this has put me on a morally a better path i mean i was a wild child growing up and i think that this has humbled me and calmed me down a lot it's forced me to prioritize my morals my me dope my values i mean it's changed a whole lot i mean i think they see the growth in the guy the better guy i'm becoming so i think because of that and the fact that they see my commitment because they know i'm stubborn once i commit to something it's happening when my great-grandparents came over from poland survived the holocaust they created an incredible network of ancestors my great-grandparents and my grandparents have hundreds of descendants dozens of grandkids and dozens of great grandkids and out of all those descendants none of them have picked up the torch and said i want to follow the ways of torah and i want to follow in the ways of god and of hashem and knowing where i came from and knowing where i'm at now that's probably one of the biggest and most important and motivating factors in my life is knowing that this is not just for me you know like six million of us didn't die so that i could go and drop the torch you know my grandparents and great grandparents didn't suffer what they went through so i could just go and drop and drop the torch and so i could just take the easy path and so i could use my phone on fridays and eat bacon cheeseburgers it didn't suffer through what they went through and not so long ago so that i could take the easy way out and that's something that i really hold close because i know that at the end of the day though they're not depending on me i know that our jewish heritage relies on me especially in my family chain and so i see myself as the last link and i know that this is such a beautiful way of life i kind of take it as a personal obligation of mine to say hey like i'm here to carry on what they started when people ask me like what gets me out of bed in the morning and that's really tough to answer because you know being in alaska has probably been the hardest time of my life i'm 4 500 miles away from my family i have no friends here i have no family here i have no community here um i'm on a ship two weeks out of the month i live in a bearish room alone um you know and i i really don't have a whole lot of people here and it's tough because also you know this journey hasn't been just like a cakewalk like i've had people that i love very much walk out of my life because maybe i wasn't religious enough or so they thought i've had people who have walked out of my life that i loved very much because i thought i was too religious you know the people on my ship often say that i'm the first jew that they met they don't really understand everything that i do most are supportive or at least understanding or trying to be understanding but i question sometimes like why i do this right and the answer really is it comes down to a couple things i mean first there have been experiences in the past that have forced me to ask like why am i doing this like what is it that that makes me do this and i realize that no matter who walks out of my life or who walks into my life or what happens at the end of the day all i have is god and all i have is judaism and judaism has brought me to the exact moment in my life to where i'm supposed to be um excuse me um the trust in god just knowing that he's always got my best interest in mind is a huge motivating factor for me and honestly just like externally really the only thing that gets me out of bed is knowing that i can crush the gym and work out and wake up and dab and i know that i have another chance at life every day and i i emphasize and i really draw off that motivation and i draw off those things to really encourage me that when i don't want to get out of bed that god has brought me to where i am he watches over me and he protects me and the least i can do is get up and say mo danny and the most the least i can do is get up and wrap the fill and the least i can do is thank him every time i take a drink of water thank him every time i take a piece of food it's minimal things it's not hard and so those are really the things that drive me so i don't want anybody thinking like i'm this like this like gold standard because i'm not you know it's hard to maintain this lifestyle but it's something that i'm always working on it's something i've i've committed my life to something i'm committed to for the rest of my life and but i don't want everyone thinking like this is like a cakewalk because it's not it's a battle every day like every day i wake up it's an absolute battle it's a battle to stay happy it's a battle to stay motivated it's a battle to sometimes you feel so alone and so isolated you question why god puts you through this right and at those times is when i've learned you need to turn to god most there's no secret formula the only thing i can say that has kept me going is the belief in the trust that god always has a plan and god always always has your back so um there's no need to look at me and be like wow this guy's amazing because at the end of the day i'm just i'm just like every other jew out there i have my own struggles i have my own obstacles i have my own fears i have my own doubts i have my own things that get me down but the one thing that i hold dear is just knowing that if i trust in god he'll he'll be there for me [Music] you