Q&A: A Big Gap Between the Rabbi’s Different Personas
A Big Gap Between the Rabbi’s Different Personas
Question
I’ve been debating for a long time whether to ask you about differences that are very noticeable to me between the “in-person rabbi” and the “rabbi from the website.” In the end, my curiosity won….
Here on the site, the impression comes across that the Rabbi is a sharp-tongued, cynical person, with pointed responses and sometimes even outright abrasive.
In video lectures and in classes I’ve attended, it is clear that all the sharp cynicism disappears beneath courtesy, kindness, and endless patience.
Is this just a mistaken impression on my part, or is there actually a deliberate reason for it?
Answer
People have already pointed this out to me (it’s similar to Leibowitz between a personal meeting and public speech). It isn’t intentional; that’s just how it comes out. But it seems to me that it also depends on the person I’m responding to. I don’t think I take jabs for no reason, unless someone says something aggressive, or keeps repeating himself for no reason, or is pestering, and maybe also when someone is just talking nonsense. In spoken conversation this happens less, and so my responses are different there too. Beyond that, when a person is standing in front of me and there are others there with him, it isn’t right to hurt him. But when someone writes under a nickname and is alone and not in a group, then cynicism is less hurtful. But I don’t really know how to answer.
Discussion on Answer
Everything depends on the face you’re speaking to.
Better to say “for the sake of unification” first.
Ha, so Leibowitz is where you took a role model from. Interesting. But common enough. People model themselves after that idol-worshiper of the Peor variety (not that it bothers me), whose whole “teaching” hangs on nothing at all, and whose whole thing was that people shouldn’t pat him on the back but should say he was cool like that, the bad boy type. Well, not that he was all that successful at it. But it’s interesting that it came at the expense of Holocaust survivors. Hitler was moral! Don’t forget.