Expect the unexpected when you meet Yaacov Moshe Moses. Deadpan wacko humor. Little kids’ favorite. Known to scrunch up in funny faces accompanied by funnier noises. A master teacher. A professor of English literature. A science buff. A writer. A painter. A renaissance man, perhaps? Perhaps, but first and foremost a Kentucky boy.

"That’s Williamsburg, Kentucky," Yaacov Moshe notes. "I like to tell people I’m from Williamsburg and they assume I mean Brooklyn, with my beard and black hat. But, it’s a long way from Williamsburg, KY to Brooklyn!"

So where and how did this maverick get all these skills and interests, and how do the hat and beard fit in?

Yaacov Moshe grew up irreligious as Robert Moses. After a childhood in Kentucky, the family moved to Cincinnati, where YM attended high school. His early interest in science had him studying pre-med at the University of Cincinnati, until he had to dissect a frog heart. He suddenly started thinking about English literature as a major!

YM received a Bachelor’s degree in 18th century English literature as the Vietnam War was going strong. "I had a draft number and was looking for an out. My advisors told me I could get an exemption if I worked on a teaching degree, so I got a second degree in Education. Although my degree was in 18th century literature, I highly revered, even idolized James Joyce and Yates. I went to Ireland to trace the steps of Joyce’s Ulysses, a move that would have intense repercussions, and set me on the path to that hat and beard."

"At a Dublin hotel, I signed in as Robert Moses. The owner inquired, ‘Are you of the tribe of Abraham?’" "I don’t know," was the agnostic’s reply. "You can’t stay here!" the owner replied.

"Huh!" was our hero’s thought. "Joyce’s hero was Bloom - a Jewish guy who didn’t fit in anywhere, and was searching for sustainable meaning. Here I am, following in his footsteps, and I just got kicked out of a Dublin hotel and can’t fit in because of his Jewish name."

This uncanny parallel lingered in Yaacov Moshe’s mind. "I’ve always been a stubborn sort," he laughingly relates. "If someone’s gonna tell me I can’t come in ‘cuz I’m Jewish, well, I’m gonna do more Jewish stuff!"

True to this backhanded inspiration, upon his subsequent return to Cincinnati, YM started pursuing Jewish studies, reading and services.

One day he read in the local paper about a stubborn rabbi who wanted to put up a Menorah in the city square. "I was intrigued," YM remembers. "The rabbis I studied with were very nice and tolerant and supported my ideas. I never met a STUBBORN rabbi before. "So, YM made an appointment with Rabbi Sholom Ber Kalmanson, the Chabad shliach in Cincinnati, and the two mules met - head on.

"We talked for three hours, and he didn’t agree with one thing I said! I am of the Kentuckian school. If you argue with me you probably respect and love me; if you agree with me, how can I trust you! I wanted a rabbi to be a guide and tell me the truth, not try to make me feel better." In other words, YM had found his man!

"I started studying with Rabbi Kalmanson, and then decided to go to Israel. He felt that it would be confusing for me at that time in my development, but, stubborn ox that I am, since he recommended no, I went! I lived on a secular kibbutz and studied in a yeshiva at night. The dichotomy WAS confusing, but I persisted. The kibbutz members felt threatened by my interest in Torah and tried to expel me, but their patriarch and founding member defended me. ‘I like Yaacov Moshe - he’s an idealist like me,’ he declared, as he invited me to work with him on his rose garden.

He later explained to me that they are German survivors, had to swim past the British blockade to get here, and are mad at G-d. ‘But you could do worse than living here,’ he declared. I agreed, and with the resistance against me quelled, planned on doing just that. But several family members became sick in succession, and although I insisted I was staying, it soon became apparent that I’d better get back to the States.

The Gulf War was in full swing, and I was ashamed to go back, rather than on the front diving from Scuds. I heard that the Lubavitcher Rebbe said that the war was going to end on Purim. It did. I was impressed and moved. Embarrassed to face Rabbi Kalmanson’s ‘I told you so,’ I called him and asked if I could come back to his synagogue and start studying.

The subsequent years of toil and growth, of receiving meaningful blessings from the Rebbe, of amazing Divine Providence has led YM, now a somewhat wacky but vital pillar of the Cincinnati Chabad community, with his lovely wife Esther, to declare, "I didn’t plan any of this. I couldn’t have done any of it if I had planned it. Everything is under control, not even a leaf falls without a purpose. You can’t change the plan - and apparently there IS a plan. True, I had to be dragged, kicking and screaming many steps of the way, but, hey, I’ve always been a rebel and ready to go the opposite of whatever I was supposed to do."

YM has used his rebellious and restless nature to his advantage in more than thirty years of work as an educator. A field usually populated by the staid, orderly type, Yaacov Moshe has shaken it up. He reaches kids that the "All right class, turn your workbook to page 39, exercise 2-7, test on Friday" routine leaves cold. He has imparted knowledge with zest and excitement as an English professor, to inner-city children and youth, to mentally ill and challenged populations, and to Jewish Day School children and teens, in each case leaving his peers and superiors amazed at the level of involvement and learning within the magic atmosphere he creates.

"There is no such thing as a bad student!" he emphasizes. "The student is the master, and the teacher is the servant, there to serve the student and aggrandize them and build them up, not the other way around."

In an inner-city school that stymied many veteran teachers, YM used humor to turn a power struggle to his favor. "A student turned on his radio. If I had asked him to turn the music off, it would have turned into a power struggle. So I started dancing to it! The kids were all laughing, with me. He didn’t like that he had given the power to me, so he turned the radio off."

Teaching in a girl’s yeshiva high school presents different challenges. "I recognize that the religious child may experience tension between their world and the outside world as they grow up. As a secular studies teacher, I try to ease that tension - and show that everything that looks so enticing in the outer world can really be found in the Torah world. I try to show that in the secular world-view, everything is relative, and this creates a chaotic mindset, while the Torah perspective leads to an integrated personality.

YM’s creative teaching methods are refreshing attention getters. Now, try to interest high school girls in physics. Yeah, right. But, ask them to see who can blow popcorn farthest across the shul floor! Why do some go farther than others? Let’s look at the velocity of their breath! Now, let’s jump to the Hubble telescope. It shows that the universe is expanding. What force, what velocity makes it happen? It’s suddenly more relevant and tangible.

Gross frog innards and that master PLAN diverted YM from his medical path into education. His interest in science never waned, however. How to reconcile Torah and science?

"I recognized that Torah was a higher, ultimate knowledge. But still, it can be difficult as a university educated person to deal with some of the Torah’s details that don’t jive with our worldly experience.

For example: The ‘shamir’ worm cut the stone blocks in the Temple since metal tools are forbidden as they are often implements of bloodshed and war. The Midrash says that in the Messianic era the sun and moon will illuminate equally. Sounds fantastic. Also, there will be ‘Techiyat Ha Matim’ - revival of the dead, from the ‘luz’ bone at the base of the neck.

I was troubled that I couldn’t convince a college audience of these truths, and started researching. Today, Torah and science are actually best friends, and new discoveries constantly confirm what we learned on Sinai long ago.

For example: Marine biologists in Monaco have found a worm the size of a bootlace that builds massive structures out of granite, leading to the formation of coral reefs. The shamir looks downright doable.

NASA is contracting to build solar collectors on the moon to beam solar energy to us that hasn‘t been diminished by the earth‘s atmosphere, making the moon an energy source that may surpass the sun.

The cloning process rebuilds new life similar to the detailed description in the Talmud about the Messianic revival of the dead.

Stephen Hawking says he has done all that he can mathematically to develop a unified field theory- a mathematical formula that intends to explain mathematically the relationship of all forces in the universe to each other. What he needs now is for theologists to explain how G-d thinks.

"I read Scientific American and the scientific journal Nature to keep abreast of these breaking discoveries, and write about their convergence with Torah. My articles and lectures in international Jewish publications have been received with interest. I was in the process of collaborating with a dear friend and prolific writer, Reb Mordechai Staiman, may he rest in peace, on a book about these issues. Unfortunately, he became ill and passed on. Our rough draft was like a Samuel Beckett play - a tragicomic dialogue between a scientist and a Torah scholar. I am in contact with Mordechai’s widow, and hope to finish the book and dedicate it to his memory."

Yaacov Moshe took up his earlier interest in painting. One rebellious, argumentative stubborn man was inspired to do so by none other than his peer in unyielding debate. "I learned from Rabbi Kalmanson that in Moshiach’s time, knowledge will not be argumentative and discursive. Truth will be revealed visually. I was inspired to start painting again, with Chassidic themes, and have delved into different works."

In addition to these pursuits, Yaacov Moshe now works as a social worker with Goodwill Industries, literally hitting the streets to find homeless veterans, then helping them piece their lives back together. "I met more than one Jewish person on the streets of northern Kentucky, where I work. An ex-Navy SEAL from a traditional family who can read the siddur and daven, but his Vietnam experience left him dysfunctional. A woman from Boro Park who revealed her Jewishness when someone tried to make me remove my yarmulke. In addition to restoring their humanity and dignity, they’ve taken steps back to their heritage as part of their healing."

Out there in the field, literally on the streets, Yaacov Moshe sees daily affirmation of the Baal Shem Tov’s maxim of Divine Providence, as the miracles and coincidences he experiences could fill several more articles, or books. "There is an operating principle in the universe. I’m just trying to do my part to help bring this plan to its proper conclusion, and help others fulfill their plan and potential."