He was born Yacov Moshe Maza in Sheboygan, Wis., on June 9, 1928, to immigrants from Belarus, although other sources give the year as 1931. When he was 5, his father, Eli, an Orthodox rabbi, and his mother, Bella (Gitlin) Maza, moved the family to the Lower East Side of Manhattan, where Yacov discovered that his path in life had already been determined. Not only his father, but his grandfather, great-grandfather and great-great-grandfathers had all been rabbis. His three older brothers became rabbis, and his two younger sisters married rabbis.
“It was unheard-of to think of anything else,” Mr. Mason later said. “But I knew, from the time I’m 12, I had to plot to get out of this, because this is not my calling.”
After earning a degree from City College, he completed his rabbinical studies at Yeshiva University and was ordained. In a state of mounting misery, he tended to…
